Kagan Embraces Notion of Enduring Constitution; ‘We Are All Originalists’
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
By Staff, Associated Press

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, June 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)Washington (AP) - Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is calling the Constitution an enduring document, saying that its framers wrote it to last through ever-changing circumstances.

Her remarks in an exchange with Sen. Patrick Leahy on the second day of confirmation hearings touched on suggestions by Republican critics that she would legislate from the bench.

Kagan said the Constitution's authors laid out both specific rules and broad concepts. She noted they declared 30 the minimum age to be a U.S. senator but didn't elaborate on the Fourth Amendment's "unreasonable search and seizure." Kagan said they could have been more specific, but couldn't have known about bomb-sniffing dogs and computers.

"Either way," she said, "we apply what they say, what they meant to do, so in that sense we are all originalists."
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