Sen. Tom Coburn on Kagan's Nomination

Sen. Tom Coburn has a few choice words to say on Elena Kagan's SCOTUS nomination. He concludes, rightly, that she shouldn't be approved.

In her testimony, it was clear that Kagan subscribes to the progressive view that the wrongly decided precedents of the Supreme Court are more important the clear intent of the Constitution.

Does anyone seriously believe that when the Founders gathered in Philadelphia 220 years ago they were aspiring to control the buying decisions of individual consumers from Washington? They were arguing for the opposite and implored future Courts to slap down any law from Congress that expanded the Commerce Clause.

In “Federalist Paper 45,” James Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly turned a blind eye when Congress exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause. As a result, the federal government can control practically every aspect of our lives.

For instance, in the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn, the Supreme Court decided that a farmer in Ohio, Roscoe Filburn, had to cease growing wheat to feed his chicken because he didn’t have permission from Congress. As a matter of law, we aren’t far from regulating American’s eating habits.

Kagan refused to answer the substance of my question. Her answers indicated she would support the big-government policies that created our $13 trillion debt and the welfare state that is collapsing into a fiscal black hole.

Even more troubling was Kagan’s refusal to say whether she believed in the principle of natural rights contained in the Declaration of Independence. Kagan told me, “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution.”

The good senator is one politician who gets it. Would that there were at least 65 more in the Senate (and 300 in the House) who did.