NSCLC Applauds Nomination of Solicitor General Kagan for Supreme Court

The National Senior Citizens Law Center welcomes President Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

The National Senior Citizens Law Center welcomes President Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  Paul Nathanson, Executive Director of NSCLC, noted this morning that "the Solicitor General's extraordinarily accomplished record in leadership positions within the White House and some of the Nation's leading halls of higher education has been overwhelmingly recognized and has led to her earlier nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School, and her current position as the U.S. government's top representative before the Supreme Court. In her already distinguished career, she has shown the experience, wisdom, and democratic commitment to uphold and enforce laws enacted to meet essential needs of older Americans and all Americans."

At every stop of her career Elena Kagan has proven that she remains committed to promoting the interests of ordinary people and continuing a tradition of public service instilled in her by her parents, an educator and a tenant lawyer, whose own parents immigrated to this country in pursuit of the American dream. In her government positions, she has advocated on behalf of public health, shareholders' rights, and campaign finance reform with technical aptitude and an eye for bridging ideological divides. These skills will have great weight on a high court increasingly engaged in cases with outsized effects upon the daily lives of working American men and women.
 

NSCLC looks forward to hearings on Solicitor General Kagan's nomination.  We expect these hearings to spotlight the recent Supreme Court pattern of bending  laws to serve powerful interests rather than the vulnerable constituencies they were enacted to serve -- such as Gross v. FBL Financial Services, the 2009 5-4 decision that weakened safeguards against workplace age bias.  Elena Kagan's brilliance, pragmatism, and fidelity to the law will bring to the Court assets that will provide great benefit to the American people.