Kagan versus free speech The little that is known about the president SCOTUS nominee is disturbing

WASHINGTON, DC—Confirmation hearings began yesterday for Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court Nomination by President Obama. Conservatives and libertarians have much to worry about, but this selection is a stark reminder, like health care reform and civilian criminal trials for enemy combatants, that elections have consequences. Once Ms. Kagan is confirmed—which I fully expect to happen at this early juncture—she will be seated on the nation’s highest court for at least two, perhaps three decades.

Little is actually known about Ms. Kagan—and that was purposeful by Mr. Obama—he nominated someone without a paper trail and with no record as a jurist. What we do know about Kagan is that she is a liberal and by all indications, views the United States Constitution as a, “charter of negative liberties”, just like Obama.

And we know that Kagan’s involvement in Citizens United v. FEC as a solicitor general was one of hostility to the First Amendment, arguing that certain political speech could be proscribed. When pressed about her position and extending it to books or pamphlets, she said, "FEC has never applied this statute to a book." But specifically stated that pamphlets could be censored; I might remind Ms. Kagan that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was also a pamphlet.

 

-- Owen E. Richason

Chief Editor, Killswitch Politick

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