By James Oliphant
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan as the 112th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, creating a historic three-woman bloc.
But the 63-37 vote suggested that the bitter partisan divide that has plagued legislative efforts on Capitol Hill is increasingly infecting the high court nomination process.
Kagan, the daughter of a tenants’ lawyer and a teacher who was raised in New York City’s Upper West Side, worked in the Clinton White House and headed the faculty at Harvard Law School before joining the Obama administration as its advocate before the Supreme Court. She watched the Senate proceedings with her colleagues at the solicitor general’s office.