Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan suggested Tuesday she wants justices to hear more cases each term, saying she wasn't sure why the number has declined in recent years.
"I do generally agree," Kagan said, after Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) decried the drop.
Kagan recalled her year clerking for Justice Thurgood Marshall during the 1987-88 term, when she said the Court was deciding about 140 cases a year on the merits. That number has dropped by almost half, to 77 signed opinions in argued cases on the merits during the term that ended Monday.
“It is a bit of a mystery, why it’s declined so precipitously,” Kagan said. (In fact, law professors have theorized several possible reasons, including the role of clerks and the varying number of new laws passed by Congress each year.)
Specter cut Kagan off before she could continue. He pressed her instead on whether, if she had been a justice, she would have granted certiorari in a case about the constitutionality of the George W. Bush administration’s program for warrantless wiretapping. Kagan did not answer that question directly.