With visits to 50 senators under her belt, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan still has a ways to go to match last year’s nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, who met with 89. The White House has said Kagan will mix more meet-and-greets with reading and “murder boards” in the weeks ahead to prep for her Senate confirmation hearing starting June 28. Republicans are still grumbling that most of the Kagan documents from her Clinton White House days aren’t public yet, but the National Archives promised the paper will start flowing this week.
Meanwhile, the spotlight on Kagan is dimming. Her name didn’t even come up during President Barack Obama’s press conference on May 27. “A lot of people aren’t paying attention to the case being made for her or against her,” said conservative critic M. Edward Whelan III of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
