Elena Kagen, SCOTUS Nominee

President Barack Obama announced Elena Kagan as his second pick to the nation's highest court on May 10, 2010. If confirmed, she would join Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sotomayor in bringing the number of women on the Supreme Court to three, the highest in the court's history.

Women already represent 31 percent of all sitting justices on state Supreme Courts, according to the National Center for State Courts.

The solicitor general — known informally as the "tenth justice" — represents the United States, including defending acts of Congress, at the Supreme Court and deciding when to appeal lower court decisions.

Beyond Kagan's work as solicitor general and her time as dean of Harvard Law School, there's not much material opponents can use to attempt to forestall her confirmation.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, Kagan should win Senate confirmation on the strength of Democrats' numerical advantage. Democrats control the chamber with 59 votes, one short of what they would need to forestall the possibility of a partisan filibuster.

To stop her from becoming the nation's 112th justice, Democrats would have to abandon Obama and his second high court pick or almost all of the GOP senators would have to agree to block a vote on the nomination a little more than a year after seven of them voted for Kagan to become the solicitor general.



Elena Kagan

Biographical notes:
Born in New York City, age 50, religion, Jewish, Kagan is formerly dean of Harvard Law School and Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law at Harvard University. She had also been a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, Kagan served as Associate White House Counsel. She received Princeton's Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship, one of the highest general awards conferred by the university, which enabled her to study at Worcester College, Oxford University. She earned an M.Phil from Oxford in 1983.[8] She received a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1986, where she was Supervisory Editor of the Harvard Law Review. In her early career, Kagan was a law clerk for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 19, 2009 Kagan became the first woman to hold the position of Solicitor General of the U.S (45th).

Sources: Wikipedia: Yahoo News