Administration lawyer delays the debut of Supreme Court

WASHINGTON - Elena Kagan, the Obama administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, is to pass the chance to claim his first high court in a case of largest minority voting rights.

Instead, Kagan, confirmed by the Senate last month as solicitor general, will wait until fall to make its debut, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice Beverley Lumpkin said Tuesday.

When Kagan took office, Lumpkin said, most cases, the court will hear in April had already been assigned.

"I guess she would have spent the last few weeks doing nothing, but the preparation, but this is not something she wanted to do. There is much to do to speed up in the office, "said Lumpkin.

The Solicitor General deals usually the case in court. The challenge to a provision of the law on voting rights, which will be discussed April 29 is perhaps the term most cases.

Kagan has a resume more impressive - former dean of Harvard Law School, Clinton White House official and clerk of the Supreme Court - but she has little courtroom experience.

David Garrow, a historian at the University of Cambridge, who wrote on the court and voting rights, said recently that Kagan would do better to break with a more easy. In the area of voting rights, Garrow said, "You would run a significantly higher risk of making a mistake as you would on most things."

Kagan's top deputy, Neal Katyal, will undertake the administration of the argument in the case, Lumpkin said. He argued three cases before and won a great victory in 2006 when he represented the Guantanamo detainees who were facing military tribunals.

What is the ultimate luxury? Justice Clarence Thomas has answered this question how many former southern air conditioning.

Thomas, who spent part of his childhood in Georgia, in an apartment without inside a toilet, let alone air conditioning, told a group of students winning essay in a recent speech that they need to find out adapt their expectations and appreciate all that life has to offer in good times and bad.

"Many of us have come to believe that we are owed prosperity," Thomas said at a dinner sponsored by the Institute of Human Rights.

Thomas, 60, said he had learned as more and more of what it is not always fun and success. "There were no guarantees, except that we had the right to try," says Thomas.

The pitfalls of modern life, people are a little spoiled, "said Thomas. He remembers when he asked a group of students who came to see him in court if one of them had a cell phone. Each of them has done.

"I am one of those who think that the dishwasher is a miracle," says Thomas. "And I must admit, I like to load."

After his speech, Thomas was asked how his judicial philosophy has changed from his time at Yale Law School. He laughed and said he did not have a judicial philosophy at the time. "I was trying to get a degree," he said.

Justice John Paul Stevens, turns 89 on Monday, when the judges return to the bench for the last two weeks of arguments this term.

Stevens is only the second justice to be celebrating its 89th anniversary while the court. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who retired at age 90 in 1932, was another.

Do not expect birthday wishes to be offered in the courtroom. That will come later, during lunch from judges, the days of the court is in session. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in a recent speech, the judges in general "to celebrate a birthday with a pre-lunch toast and a 'Happy Birthday' chorus usually headed by Justice (Antonin) Scalia.

Why Scalia? "Because to us, it is better able to carry a song," says Ginsburg.

Her husband, noted tax lawyer and Georgetown University law professor Martin Ginsburg, sometimes cooked a cake for the occasion, she said.