For Immediate Release
Contact: Don Adams, 215.620.3055
INDEPENDENCE HALL TEA PARTY ASSOCIATION REJECTS KAGAN NOMINATION
Urges Senate To Defeat Obama’s Supreme Court Selection
PHILADELPHIA, MAY 11, 2010 — One of the tri-state area’s largest Tea Party organizations, the Independence Hall Tea Party Association, today called on the U.S. Senate to oppose Elena Kagan’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court due to her lack of judicial experience and her historical inclination for placing political ideology above the rule of law.
Association President Teri Adams criticized yesterday’s nomination of Ms. Kagan as Supreme Court Justice and called on the U.S. Senate “to closely evaluate serious concerns regarding both her complete lack of judicial experience and her apparent violation of a federal law while serving as Dean of Harvard Law School.”
If confirmed, Ms. Kagan would be the first Supreme Court Justice in four decades with no judicial experience.
“Even more troubling,” said Ms. Adams, “is the fact that Ms. Kagan, as Dean of Harvard Law School, willfully put her far-left ideological agenda ahead of federal law when, in violation of the Solomon Amendment, she barred U.S. military recruiters from the Harvard Law School campus.”
The Solomon Amendment, passed in 1994, requires colleges and universities accepting federal grants to permit ROTC and other military recruiters on their campuses. Despite this, Ms. Kagan banned military recruiters from Harvard’s campus for nearly two years–until a unanimous 2006 Supreme Court ruling upheld the Solomon Amendment and forced her to capitulate.
Michael Johns, Association Vice President, said that Ms. Kagan’s refusal to adhere to the Solomon Amendment reflects a predisposition to subjugate the rule of law to political ideology.
“The greatest danger to the survival of our Constitutionally-guaranteed liberties is ideologically-driven judicial activism from the federal and Supreme Court benches,” Mr. Johns said.
“When a nominee to the highest court in the land consciously refuses to abide by a federal law because she disagrees with it, that represents a reckless disregard for the rule of law that is greatly concerning to the Tea Party movement and the American people.”
Mr. Johns pointed to a Quinnipiac University poll, conducted last month, demonstrating that the American people, by a seven-point margin, expect Supreme Court justices to “consider the original authors of the Constitution” and not their political preferences in the issuance of their rulings.
Mr. Johns also raised concerns that Ms. Kagan has never served as a judge on any circuit, federal or appellate court.
“As opposed to having an open and honest dialogue about the many rule of law issues facing our nation, the Obama administration went to great lengths to conceal their far-left agenda by selecting a candidate who has no historical record of ruling on these matters.”
The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, founded in 2009, is a non-partisan, tri-state, regional organization dedicated to Constitutionally limited government.
