Elena Kagan Confirmed by Senate

Kagan will join a closely divided court that often splits in favor of a shaky 5-4 conservative majority. Despite no judicial record to draw clues on the kind of justice she would become, White House officials had quietly assured allies Kagan would be a “reliable” liberal vote similar to Stevens, the well-respected unofficial leader of the left-leaning bloc on the court.

She is, therefore, not expected to to tilt the current ideological balance on the high court.

Among the cases she will confront in her first term beginning in October will be disputes over protests at military funerals, state bans on violent video games, and the death penalty. High-profile appeals that may reach the court in the next couple of years include Arizona’s sweeping immigration reform law and California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Her lack of judicial experience was the stated reason for one fence-sitting Republican, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, to announce his opposition to her confirmation Thursday, just hours before the vote.

Though calling her “brilliant,” Brown – who had been seen as a potential GOP supporter – said she was missing the necessary background to serve as a justice.

“The best umpires, to use the popular analogy, must not only call balls and strikes, but also have spent enough time on the playing field to know the strike zone,” Brown said.

Lugar and Snowe are both up in 2012. So is Ben Nelson, the lone Democratic no vote, who’s so desperate to undo the political damage from the Cornhusker Kickback that he might as well go ahead and switch parties already. Truth be told, though, the final margin here was kabuki in the same way that the final votes on ObamaCare were kabuki: Once the margin needed for passage was secured, everyone else was free to vote however they needed to in order to protect themselves at the polls. The GOP clearly didn’t want to risk a filibuster on someone as bland as Kagan, preferring to preserve the novelty of the nuclear option for maximum effect in case The One nominates a bombthrower next time, so people like Scott Brown got to vote notoday even though I bet he would have been a yes had Reid really needed him. Speaking of which, why did Scotty B. vote no? Looks like he’s more worried about a tea-party primary challenge at this point than he is about pissing off centrist Massachusetts Dems in the general. Eeenteresting.