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As the Judiciary Committee gears up to vote on Elena Kagan’s nomination next week, court-watchers continue to closely track the projected votes of individual Senators.  As we reported on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced that he intended to vote for Kagan had done “just enough” during her confirmation hearings to earn his vote.  At the WSJ Law Blog, Ashby Jones examines that announcement, noting that although the Senator’s support for Kagan is reluctant, “it’s an endorsement nonetheless.”  The Huffington Post, Stephanie Condon of CBS News, and Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy all report on Specter’s announcement.  Politico’s Josh Gerstein covers the Senator’s endorsement and a related speech that he delivered yesterday on the Senate floor, while Carrie Severino criticizes Specter’s decision at the NRO’s Bench Memos.  Meanwhile, turning to the other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judith E. Schaeffer discusses Senator Orrin Hatch’s recent NRO op-ed indicating that he intends to vote against Kagan at the Huffington Post, while the Associated Press (via the Chicago Tribune) reports that Senator Russ Feingold has officially joined the list of senators who will vote in Kagan’s favor. In an article published this morning at Bloomberg, Greg Stohr looks ahead to the future of the Court; he suggests that if, as expected, Elena Kagan is confirmed, her confirmation could “create an unprecedented party-based alignment.”  The Christian Science Monitor’s Warren Richey, also looking forward, discusses whether – as some Republicans have suggested – Kagan would have to recuse herself from any challenges to health-care reform.  Meanwhile, at the NRO’s Bench Memos column, Ed Whelan notes that the Senators who criticized Justice Thurgood Marshall are not alone: another former Justice, William Brennan, once voiced his disappointment with Justice Marshall’s work as well.

In advance of next week’s Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Elena Kagan’s confirmation, the vote lines are hardening.  Despite initially criticizing Kagan for being non-responsive at her hearing, Senator Arlen Specter somewhat reluctantly pledged to support her yesterday in a USA Today op-ed, saying she did “just enough” to win his vote – largely because of her support for cameras in the courtroom.  Yet, as Josh Gerstein at Politico details, Kagan opponents are waging an ad campaign targeting other Democratic votes, especially senators in conservative-leaning states.  The Caucus Blog of the New York Times adds two more Republicans -- John Thune and John Cornyn – to the list of Senators who have announced that they will vote against Kagan. At Cato@Liberty, Michael Cannon applauds Republicans who are now pressing Kagan to commit to recusing herself in any case challenging the Obama Administration’s healthcare reform (see yesterday’s round-up for coverage), suggesting that the issue could have dire consequences for Kagan’s nomination: “universal coverage is so important to the Left that if Kagan would leave them with one less pro-ObamaCare vote on the Court, I wouldn’t be surprised to see President Obama withdraw her nomination.”

Several high-profile developments in the lower courts are raising the question: what, if anything, will the Supreme Court do? One such development came from the Second Circuit yesterday, in a case that has been before the Justices once already.  In April 2009, the Court issued a five-to-four opinion in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, upholding the Federal Communication Commission’s policymaking process that resulted in a ban on broadcasting “fleeting expletives.”  But the Court remanded the case to the Second Circuit for that circuit to determine whether the policy violated the First Amendment.  Yesterday the Second Circuit answered, finding the policy to be “unconstitutionally vague” and striking down the ban.  As all of the news outlets covering the Second Circuit’s decision – which include SCOTUSblog, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Constitutional Law Prof Blog, the Volokh Conspiracy, the Washington Post, PrawfsBlawg, First One @ One First, and the L.A. Times – note, the Supreme Court could become involved in the case again if the FCC opts to appeal.  The WSJ Law Blog describes the potential downside of such an appeal for the FCC: several Justices, including Justice Thomas, have previously cast doubt on the constitutionality of the policy, so the FCC “risks that the court overturns much of its First Amendment jurisprudence on the governmental regulation of speech . . . and strips the FCC of further power to regulate speech over the airwaves.”