Sotomayor's GOP 'yea' votes remain mute on Kagan

[usregimechange]

WASHINGTON — Eight Republican senators who voted in favor of President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee last year are not yet ready to say what they are going to do about the second...

On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., became the seventh GOP senator to announce his opposition to Kagan. In a column on USA TODAY's website, McCain wrote that he will vote against Kagan because, as dean of Harvard Law School, "she unmistakably discouraged Harvard students from considering a career in the military."

In her confirmation hearings, Kagan said she limited, but did not bar, the military's access to the campus. She said she felt the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which allows gays to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation secret, violated Harvard's anti-discrimination code. McCain, a Navy veteran, says she violated federal law.

Of the nine Republican senators who voted in favor of Sotomayor, one, Florida's Mel Martinez, has retired. So far, none of the others has announced a decision on Kagan. They are: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee; Kit Bond of Missouri; Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Judd Gregg of New Hampshire; Richard Lugar of Indiana; and George Voinovich of Ohio.

Two other Republicans were not in the Senate to vote on Sotomayor. Florida Sen. George LeMieux replaced Martinez. Scott Brown of Massachusetts won a January special election to finish Democrat Edward Kennedy's term.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20100708/kagan08_st.art.htm