Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s not yet ready to say how he’ll vote on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. Grassley, a Republican, is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is going to be quizzing Kagan all week.
Grassley says, “She knows what her major problem is and that’s to convince the Senate that she’s going to be what we call dispassionate, have judicial temperament, look at the law and look at the Constitution and make a decision based upon the words of the Constitution and leave her own personal views out of it.”
Grassley says in her writings, Kagan has taken very passionate stands on several liberal points of view, which he says would disqualify her for a seat on the nation’s high court if she can’t reign in her feelings.
“She tried to calm fears about that,” Grassley says. “I don’t know how she’s succeeding because I haven’t talked to my colleagues, but particularly from a lot of the members of the committee, she heard from us in our opening statements that we were very concerned about her ability to be dispassionate once she gets on the court.”
Grassley has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee since 1981 and confirmed 11 straight Supreme Court nominees — until voting against Sonia Sotomayor last year.