The President has picked Solicitor General Elena Kagan to take Justice Stevens’ seat on the Supreme Court. Kagan is a safe bet for the administration. She’s got excellent credentials, and there don’t seem to be any significant controversies in her past. Confirmation will likely be somewhat uneventful.
In any case, no matter what her politics may be, it’s unlikely she’ll be able to shift the Court to the left in the way Stevens sometimes was.
The legal community seems to have a great deal of respect for her. While Dean at Harvard Law School, she was able to unite disparate political factions, and even to earn the respect of conservatives. Ilya Somin points out that she’s got the intellectual credentials, and more important, she’s willing to accept views that differ from her personal politics. On matters of the 1st Amendment, Rick Pildes thinks she would have voted with the majority in Citizens United. Continued...