On Monday, President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan is the first nominee in 38 years to have no experience as a judge. Democrats say it is good to have different experiences on the bench but is lack of judicial experience a good thing on the Supreme Court? What can we glean about her judicial philosophy from her time as solicitor general or as dean of the Harvard University Law School? Is it true that Obama had much more radical options for the vacancy on the court? And how should the U.S. Senate proceed on this nomination? We ask Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He also served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
