President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, today rejected Republican charges she would be a liberal judicial activist and promised rulings based on the law, not her political views.
Under questioning from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms Kagan also defended her decision to limit military recruiting at Harvard while she was dean of the law school. Ms Kagan said she took the move under the university's anti-discrimination rules because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays, which she called unjust.
Ms Kagan (50) is solicitor general and a former aide in the Clinton administration. Republicans have questioned her lack of experience as a judge and portrayed her as an activist more interested in politics than law.
"My politics would be, must be, have to be, completely separate from my judgment," Ms Kagan on the second day of her confirmation hearing. "It is absolutely true that I have served in two Democratic administrations," she said. "You can tell something from me and my political views from that."
Senator Jeff Sessions, the panel's senior Republican, said he viewed Ms Kagan as a "liberal progressive" and pressed her on whether she would follow Mr Obama's political agenda.
"I honestly don't know what that means," Kagan said.
Both parties have jockeyed for political advantage in the hearing ahead of November's congressional elections. While Republicans questioned if Ms Kagan would be a prisoner of the president's political agenda, Democrats criticised what they said was the high court's tilt to conservative activism under Chief Justice John Roberts.
Ms Kagan has sparked little controversy compared to other Supreme Court nominees and is likely to be confirmed relatively easily.
Her nomination has been overshadowed by recent political news, including the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and last week's removal of Afghanistan war commander General Stanley McChrystal.
If she wins Senate confirmation, she will be the first new member of the high court in four decades who has never been a judge.
Democrats have noted about one-third of the Supreme Court's justices through history were not judges before joining the high court, and said her lack of judicial experience would bring needed diversity to a court full of former judges.
Reuters