Kagan pledges impartial approach as her nomination hearing for Supreme Court opens - The Denver Post

Kagan pledges impartial approach as her nomination hearing for Supreme Court opens - The Denver Post

WASHINGTON — Elena Kagan vowed Monday that if she is confirmed to the Supreme Court, her approach to judging will be "a modest one" that is "properly deferential" to Congress and the president — remarks intended to quell Republican criticism that she is a partisan who would use the court as an instrument to advance a Democratic agenda.

Addressing senators on the first day of her confirmation hearings, Kagan, the solicitor general and former dean of Harvard Law School, was cautious and measured in her opening remarks. She pledged "even-handedness and impartiality" and promised "a fair shake" for Americans who come before the high court.

Her use of the term "modest" offered the first clue to Kagan's judicial

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• View interactive graphics related to the Elena Kagan hearings, including video, analysis and Twitter feeds.

philosophy in her own words and harks back to a term used by Chief Justice John Roberts, who pledged "judicial modesty" during his confirmation hearings in 2005. The question of just what Kagan means by it — and just what, precisely, her judicial philosophy is — will be a core theme of the hearings when senators begin questioning her today.

"We have less evidence about what sort of judge you will be than on any nominee in recent memory. Your judicial philosophy is almost invisible to us," Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., told Kagan. He urged her to engage in "substantive and candid dialogue."