Elena Kagan completed a swift transition from top US government lawyer to judge on the highest US court Saturday after being sworn in to become the 112th US Supreme Court justice.
Chief Justice John Roberts administered the judicial oath that marks the beginning of her tenure as the fourth woman to sit on the top US court.
Kagan pledged to “faithfully and impartially” administer justice to people from all walks to life, grinning broadly as her new colleague offered his congratulations.
“Welcome to the court,” Roberts told Kagan.
Also present at the ceremony were Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, who Kagan will join on the bench for the first time in October 1 for the court’s fall session.
Justice John Paul Stevens, whom Kagan replaces, was also there.
US Senators voted 63-37 Thursday to confirm Kagan as one of the nine justices who act as final arbiters of the US Constitution, set precedent for lower courts, and decide on the toughest moral and legal dilemmas facing the United States.
Five Republicans broke ranks to back the 50-year-old former Harvard Law School dean, and just one Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against her.
Though never seriously in doubt, her confirmation to the lifetime post gave President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies a much-needed victory before November midterm elections in which they are expected to suffer heavy losses.
Thanking the Senate, Obama said he was “confident that Elena Kagan will make an outstanding Supreme Court Justice.”
The confirmation brought to two the number of justices named by the president — after the court’s first Hispanic justice, Sonia Sotomayor.
Once seated, Kagan will also bring the number of women on the high court at one time to three for the first time.
The 50-year-old Kagan, who as US solicitor general has argued the Obama administration’s case before the high court, will be the youngest justice on the court.
Democrats pointed to her decades of legal work, including in her current position as US solicitor general and her time as the first woman dean of Harvard Law School.
Her critics said they feared she would be unable to keep her personal politics separate from her judging and painted her as a foe of gun ownership and of restrictions on abortion.
During confirmation hearings, she remained circumspect about her future leanings.
“I’m not quite sure how I would characterize my politics, but one thing I do know is that my politics would be, must be, have to be, completely separate from my judging,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Posted on August 8, 2010