Senate Judiciary Committee approves Kagan nomination

By Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON — Splitting largely along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to recommend former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kagan's nomination heads next to a vote by the full Senate, which is expected to confirm Kagan in the next several weeks, before its traditional August summer recess.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, joined the committee’s 12 Democrats in the 13-6 vote in favor of Kagan’s nomination. Graham, the only Republican on the committee last year to support the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said senators should honor the results of presidential election, and not turn confirmation hearings into political tests. Graham said he disagrees with Kagan on many political issues, but that Kagan handled herself well in two days of testimony before the committee, showing knowledge of the law, confidence and good humor.

“It was not a hard decision,” Graham said, of his vote to support her. “I thought she did a very good job.” Kagan “was not the person I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, chose wisely.”

President Obama in May nominated Kagan, 50, the sitting U.S. solicitor general, to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan testified before the Judiciary Committee for about 17 hours last month.

The committee debate today over Kagan’s fitness for the court largely mirrored the public debate over the nomination since the president announced her as his choice.

Most of the committee's Republicans tried to portray Kagan as an inexperienced liberal partisan, who did not make a persuasive case in her testimony that she could separate her political views from a judge’s responsibility to be impartial. The committee’s ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, attacked Kagan for “a lack of robust legal experience,” noting that Kagan, who has never been a judge, worked as a lawyer and policy advisor in the Clinton administration. “Much of what she’s done has been defined by her experience in politics,” said Sessions.

Sessions also cited Kagan’s decision at Harvard to restrict military recruiters on campus, because the ban on openly gay soldiers violated the school’s policy on nondiscrimination. Kagan has maintained that the military had adequate access to students through a campus veterans group. “It was not good enough,” said Sessions, “and it was not right.”

Democrats on the committee praised Kagan’s varied experience and broad knowledge of the law. Senator Dick Durbin called her “an extremely bright and accomplished person.”

Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said Kagan demonstrated an even temperament and coolness under fire during her confirmation hearings.