May 17, 2010 3:27PM 

# Kagan Nomination, Day 8 

By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) 

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As you know from reading [Roger’s](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/17/u-s-v-comstock-is-about-policy-over-law/) and [Ilya’s](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/17/supreme-court-further-reduces-constitutional-limits-on-federal-power/) posts, this has been a pretty dreadful news day for libertarians at the U.S. Supreme Court. (And we haven’t even gotten into [Justice Kennedy’s use of supposed international consensus](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/us/politics/18court.html) in devising new Constitutional standards on excessive sentencing, despite a [Cato amicus brief](https://www.cato.org/pubs/legalbriefs/graham_v_florida.pdf) \[pdf\] urging the contrary). For whatever comfort it provides, which may not be much, here’s more reporting and speculation on the [often hard-to-pin-down](http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/12/squinting-at-kagans-views-on-c) views of the newest nominee:

- Her participation in Clinton Administration gun-control initiatives doesn’t (to put it mildly) suggest an expansive view of individual rights under the Second Amendment \[[Brian Darling](http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36973) via [David Kopel](http://volokh.com/2010/05/14/kagans-record-on-guns/)\]
- On *Kelo* and eminent domain, will she share Justice Stevens’s property-rights-unfriendly views? \[[James Ely](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/13/stevens-kagan-and-property-rights/) via [Ilya Somin](http://volokh.com/2010/05/16/stevens-kagan-obama-and-property-rights/)\]
- Be advised, Prof. Wagner, that despite her flair for protean mask-shifting, it is lacking in dignity to refer to the nominee as “[Lady KaGa](http://ninomania.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html#1936500616993425818#1936500616993425818)”.
- Stuart Taylor, Jr. offers a semi-defense of her “inherited and largely symbolic” [stand on military recruiters at Harvard](http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/openingargument.php) (earlier [here](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/11/kagan-nomination-around-the-web/), [here](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/12/kagan-on-military-recruitment/), and [here](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/12/on-the-right-to-discriminate/)).
- From his lips to God’s ears: Marvin Ammori at Balkinization [offers an argument](http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/05/does-elena-kagan-disagree-with-justice.html) (via [ABA Journal](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/kagan_may_have_agreed_with_conservative_majority_in_citizens_united/)) as to why, contrary to all expectations, Kagan might wind up coming out on the free-speech side of *Citizens United* after all. Ira Stoll [wonders](http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/05/elana-kagan-and-book-banning) how effectively critics can raise the free-speech-in-campaigning issue at the hearings anyway: “it’s a bit much for Republicans, having watched President Bush sign BCRA \[the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002\] into law, now to oppose putting Elena Kagan on the court because she defended its constitutionality.”

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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