Ellen Kagan Plays Poker

Who’s Ellen Kagan? She’s President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the retiring Justice Stephens on the Supreme Court. Why is her name coming up in a poker blog (or every poker blog on the web practically, for that matter)? Because she plays poker, of course.

If the case for legal U.S. online poker goes all the way to the Supreme Court, which it very well might, then having an advocate (if sworn to be unbiased advocate) on the court could do our cause well. This is a comforting prospect to poker players across the land who hung their head in despair as one of the only liberal-leaning judges on the Supreme Court decided to retire.

It may also be beneficial (presuming she even gets through congress and makes it all the way to that revered seat and ominous black robe) to have Judge Kagan on the Supreme Court, because she’s not a judge, and as of yet has never been one. What are her credentials then? She was the dean of Harvard Law School, for one. And she’s the nation’s current Solicitor General. The Solicitor General, who works under the Attorney General (or the top lawyer in the land), is the one who usually represents the U.S. Federal Government in court, especially in the Supreme Court, which means would-be Judge Kagan is at least extremely familiar with that courtroom.

How will the other judges take to the lawyer who had been arguing persuasively at them from below now doing the same but sitting beside them? Who cares! How will online poker players take to it?

I think the decision is already in on that. She’s confirmed with us.