Kaganology: Graduation

The GOP filibuster of Elena Kagan never materialized, mainly because Republicans were happy with trading one functional liberal for another kinda meh moderate.  As such, Kagan's nomination to SCOTUS passed the Senate this afternoon on a 63-37 vote.

Kagan was Obama's solicitor general, arguing government cases before the Supreme Court, when he named her in May as his choice to replace the retiring liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. 

The 50-year-old Kagan, who will be the third woman on the current court, is not expected to change the ideological balance of power on the closely divided panel, which for years has been dominated by a 5-4 conservative majority.

All the Democratic senators but one voted for her, two independent senators voted for her and five Republicans voted for her. All the other Republican senators opposed her nomination.

No surprises here, all five Republicans who said they would vote for her did, as did Liberman and Sanders, and Ben Nelson voted no.  Still, the Prop 8 case still leaves Justice Kennedy as the swing vote, but Kagan's tabula rasa approach still may mean that she could jump ship over to the Roberts bloc once in a while, and probably will more than most people expect her to.

Still, this means Obama is two for two on SCOTUS picks in two years.