Elena Kagan chosen by Obama for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court on Monday, declaring the former Harvard Law School dean “one of the nation’s foremost legal minds.” She would be the court’s youngest justice and give it three female members for the first time.

—- The nomination to replace liberal retiring Justice John Paul Stevens set the stage for a bruising confirmation battle, though mathematically Democrats should be able to prevail in the end.

—- At 50, Kagan, is relatively young for the lifetime post and could help shape the high court’s decisions for decades. If confirmed by the Senate, she would become only the fourth female justice in history.

—- Obama cited what he called Kagan’s “openness to a broad array of viewpoints” and her “fair mindedness.”

—- Standing beside the president in the East Room of the White House, Kagan said she was “honored and humbled by this nomination.”

—- “I look forward to working with the Senate in the next stage of this process, and I thank you again, Mr. President, for this honor of a lifetime,” she said.