Obama Names Kagan to Supreme Court

Barack Obama officially announced “our solicitor general, and my friend, Elena Kagan” as his pick to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court today, calling her a trailblazer, a tenacious defender of ordinary citizens, and “one of the nation's foremost legal minds.” He highlighted her ideological flexibility, her work on the Citizens United case and even her baseball fandom—joking that, as a Mets fan, she'll lock horns with Yankees fan Sonia Sotomayor.

“I am honored and I am humbled by this nomination,” Kagan said as she took the lectern. “The court is an extraordinary institution in the work it does and can do for the American people.” She praised John Paul Stevens, and then her mentor, Thurgood Marshall, who “did more to promote justice than did any lawyer in his lifetime.” She then praised her family, thanked the president, and talked about her love of the law. "Law matters," she said. "Because it keeps us safe. Because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms and because it is the foundation of our democracy."
(More Elena Kagan stories.)