McConnell, Hatch to vote no on Kagan

WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- Two top Senate Republicans said Friday they will vote against the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said they will vote against Kagan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Hatch voted to confirm Kagan as solicitor general in 2009 but said in a statement Friday he was unsure whether she would put her personal views ahead of the law as a Supreme Court justice, The Hill reported.

"The law must control the judge; the judge must not control the law," Hatch said. "I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard and that, therefore, I cannot support her appointment."

"I do not have confidence that if she were confirmed to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court she would suddenly constrain the ardent political advocacy that has marked much of her adult life," McConnell said in a statement posted on his official Web site.

Seven Republicans voted for Kagan's confirmation as solicitor general and few, if any, senators who opposed that nomination are expected to support her lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court, The Washington Post reported Friday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is considered the only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee likely to support Kagan, the newspaper said.

When the nomination goes to the full Senate for a vote, Maine's Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, are considered likely to support Kagan, who would be the fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Many Republican senators will feel heavy pressure to vote against Obama's choice for the Supreme Court in an election year dominated by an angry electorate fed up with incumbents, The Hill said.