This is so disillusioning. I supported Elena Kagan’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was obviously qualified, had the right experience for the job, and seemed capable of objective, non-partisan analysis unlike Barack Obama’s disastrous “historic” first nominee to the Court, the dim bulb Sonia Sotamayor, and Biden’s arguably worse choice, DEI Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. I have tried to cut Kagan a break for so often sticking to her less able woke female colleagues like the Three Little Maid from School in “The Mikado” in 6-3 decisions. I understand why loyalty to the team might have its long-range advantages. Often I can imagine Kagan rolling her eyes at one of the fatuous Sotomayor dissents based on feelz instead of the law. I get it.
But this time Kagan’s collegiality with her intellectual inferiors led to a breach of integrity. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., last week was much needed, greatly deserved, and necessary to stop an egregious abuse of judicial power for partisan agendas. The decision struck down the sudden fad of nationwide injunctions by lower courts, the Trump II weapon of choice employed by Democrats seeking not to allow the elected President they hate do the job he was elected to do. The “wise Latina” issued another one of her amateurish dissents. It was Kagan, however, joining with Jackson in endorsing that dissent, who really disgraced herself.
In 2022, when conservatives were the ones seeking injunctive relief from his President Biden’s Executive Orders (if in fact they were his EOs), Kagan expressed disapproval of nationwide injunctions. “This can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stuck for the years that it takes to go through a normal process,” she said.
So she’s a partisan hack then, cutting the cloth of her supposedly objective legal analysis to match the dictates of the Democratic Party. Good to know.
(The ethics password is integrity.)
Justice Kagan doesn’t have it.
Ethics Alarms 
It would be beneficial to the perceived integrity of the court for someone to have ask her to explain this apparent contradiction.
Such contradictions undermines the public’s perception that the court is just and not partisan. When Amy Coney Barrett renders an opinion that rules against conservative ideology and my friends bash her for doing so I remind them that the court is not there to advance your cause it is there to follow the law. If our lawyers could not make the case that was their/our problem. We cannot complain if the left wants to pack the court with justices that share their ideology if we want to have justices that always rule in our favor.
Exactly.
And the MSM should be just as concerned about Kagan’s flip flop as the conservative media…but it’s barely being mentioned at all. Maybe she isn’t a hypocrite. Maybe she legitimately has changed her position over three years. But as you say, she has an obligation to explain that.
You’ve taken the Kagan quote out of context. Her very next word was “but.” The context was her answer to a question about the Court’s use of the emergency docket. Kagan explained that under both Trump and Biden, both sides engaged in forum shopping seeking nationwide injunctions, and the feeling this is unfair has led SCOTUS to make more emergency docket decisions in recent years. (You quoted from that part.)BUT – she went on to say – nonetheless the normal process, slow as it is, is important, and enables better decision making by the Supreme Court. She concluded her answer by saying SCOTUS should hesitate to use the emergency docket to overturn nationwide injunctions – “We shouldn’t be so quick to just say ‘they got it wrong, we can change it.'”Nothing in this view contradicts her dissent in CASA.I apologize if this double-posts; my first attempt to post it appears to have gone awry.
Useful point, Ampy…which suggests to me that Kagan should express her own views in dissents and not just say, in effect, “Yeah! You go girl!” just seconding written dissents from her less astute colleagues. I’ll add more context to the article, and credit you. May I suggest that a mere concurrence with a dissent should not be itself called “a dissent” as you write here? Or do you feel that’s fair? I genuinely asking, because I see an argument for both positions…
No, it was just a meaningless brain fart/typo – I should have said “the dissent,” not “her dissent.”
I read your blog, Barry. I make more brain fart/typos in a single day than you make in a month….
Aaargh! I actually did put in spaces after periods, and paragraph breaks; I don’t know why they didn’t come through.
Because WordPress is hinky and apparently this doesn’t bother them?
She is an ideologue, so I’m surprised you had to be disillusioned! For years, Kagan has shown her true colors—consistently siding with the progressive agenda over principled, constitutional interpretation. Her selective approach to nationwide injunctions is just the latest example of putting party above principle. Integrity means applying the law consistently, not shifting your stance based on which side is in power. Sadly, this is what we’ve come to expect from her and her “woke” colleagues on the bench.
I have a bit more faith in Kagan than you do, and I wonder whether she’s often joining the dissent in 6-3 decisions because she knows it doesn’t affect the ruling (kinda like Roberts is often accused of doing).
Could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I personally wouldn’t lump her anywhere near Sotomayor and KBJ, two jurists who appear to be completely unsuited for the USSC.