When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.
Interpretation
The Senate's failure to engage deeply with nominees undermines its ability to assess them and inform the public.
Elena Kagan critiques the Senate's approach to the confirmation process, suggesting that without substantial discussions on legal issues, the proceedings become superficial and ineffective. This lack of depth not only hinders the Senate's evaluation of nominees but also prevents the public from being properly educated about the candidates and the issues at stake.
In practice
In a speech on the importance of democracy, this quote can illustrate the challenges faced in political processes.
I owe a debt of gratitude to two other living Justices. Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg paved the way for me and so many other women in my generation. Their pioneering lives have created boundless possibilities for women in the law. I thank them for their inspiration and also for the personal kindnesses they have shown me.
To have the opportunity to lead the Solicitor General's office is the honor of a lifetime. As you know, this is an office with a long and rich tradition, not only of extraordinary legal skill but also of extraordinary professionalism and integrity. That is due, in large measure, to the people who have led it.
American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
I think that if there are positions that you can't argue... then the responsibility is probably to resign. If one's own conscience is opposed to the requirements and responsibilities of the job, then it's time to leave the job.
If there is an ‘overabundance’ of an idea in the absence of direct governmental action - which there well might be when compared with some ideal state of public debate - then action disfavoring that idea might ‘un-skew,’ rather than skew, public discourse.
It's not that there are no masters, but that there are many. And the job of the solicitor general is to balance those masters and to accommodate them all, each in their proper places, wisely and well and in so doing to represent the people of the United States.
The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.
The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.
Law and Order are the medicine of the body politic and when the body politic gets sick, medicine must be administered.
Greece wishes to be part of the eurozone, but it must, of course, go through with the necessary reforms to make this happen.
Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions, and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue.
Once again, the puppets on Capitol Hill are about to slam the Muppets on Main Street. The country still hasn't recovered from the Wall Street-induced financial cataclysm of 2008, yet Congress is preparing to enact the Orwellian 'JOBS Act' - a bill that should in fact be called the 'Return Fraud to Wall Street in One Easy Step Act.'
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