American corporations, while conservative in their business practices, have long been far ahead of elected officials on gay rights. Companies large and small became early adopters of nondiscrimination policies and domestic partner benefits. Now, many business leaders are voicing their support for the right for same-sex couples to marry.

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein endorsed marriage equality in a video for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization based in Washington. Goldman backed the successful effort last year to legalize same-sex marriage in New York state. This year, Maryland and Washington state could become the seventh and eighth states, plus the District of Columbia, where gays can marry.

"America's corporations learned a long time ago that equality is just good business, and is the right thing to do," Blankfein says in the 30-second video.

Other big corporate backers of same-sex marriage include Starbucks, Google, Microsoft, Nike and Alcoa.

And on Tuesday, a pivotal decision is expected in the court case challenging Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that took away marriage rights for same-sex couples months after they gained them. The Los Angeles Times reports that a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appears to lean toward striking down the ban, but its supporters will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court.

48 percent of Americans think the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn the 2010 federal health care law, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

The national survey found 40 percent thought the court, which plans to hear the case early next year, should leave the law intact.

Sentiment fell sharply along party lines. Democrats favored retaining the law, championed by President Barack Obama, 70-19 percent. Republicans, whose presidential candidates want the law repealed and replaced, oppose the law, 86-8 percent.

Independents want the law overturned, by a 45-38 margin.

The poll surveyed 2,552 people from Nov. 14-20. Margin of error is plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.

Democrats are making it clear they think the Supreme Court will uphold the 2010 health care law.

The Supreme Court agreed  Monday to hear arguments about the law's constitutionality, and Republicans said they were optimistic it would be overturned.

Not House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"Today’s announcement places the Affordable Care Act before the highest court in our country.  We are confident that the Supreme Court will find the law constitutional and Americans will benefit from lower health care costs and greater access to high-quality medical care," she said in a statement.

“Millions of our nation’s families, seniors, young adults, and workers are already benefiting from the law.  Seniors are receiving discounts on prescription drugs and free preventive services.  Young people are gaining insurance by staying on their parents’ plans.  And children with pre-existing conditions are now protected from discrimination.”

The 2010 health care law's individual mandate is gaining support.

A CNN/ORC International poll, taken Nov. 11-13, found 52 percent favored the mandate, up from 44 percent in June. 47 were opposed this time, down from 54 percent last time.

The law requires nearly everyone to obtain coverage by 2014, or face a penalty. The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear arguments regarding the law's constitutionality. The mandate has been at the heart of opponents' concerns.

The poll surveyed 1,036 adults. Margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

 House Speaker John Boehner has long supported repealing the 2010 federal health care law and replacing it with a series  of other intiatives.

So when the Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear challenges to the law, Boehner was clear on what he sought:

“The American people did not support this law when it was rushed through Congress and they do not support it now that they’ve seen what’s in it. In keeping with our Pledge to America, Republicans have voted to repeal and defund the law, and successfully repealed portions of it," he said.

"This government takeover of health care is threatening jobs, increasing costs, and jeopardizing coverage for millions of Americans, and I hope the Supreme Court overturns it.”

President Barack Obama Monday nominated one of his lawyers, Deputy Counsel Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., to be Solicitor General. He will replace Acting Soliciotr General Neil Katyal, who's held the post temporarily since former Solicitor General Elena Kagan moved to the bench at the Supreme Court.

His resume, from the White House release:

"Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. currently serves as a Deputy Counsel to the President.  Previously he served in the Department of Justice as an Associate Deputy Attorney General, where he focused on domestic and national security policy issues. 

"Prior to joining the Justice Department in February 2009, Mr. Verrilli was a litigator in private practice for more than 20 years in the D.C. office of the Jenner & Block law firm, where his practice focused on First Amendment, telecommunications, and intellectual property law, as well as pro bono matters.  At Jenner & Block, he was co-chair of the firm’s Supreme Court practice group from 2000 until his departure in 2009.  

"Mr. Verrilli has participated in more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court and has argued twelve.  He also has participated in approximately 90 cases in the U.S. Courts of Appeal and state supreme courts, arguing over 30 of these appeals. 

"Mr. Verrilli held numerous leadership positions at Jenner & Block, including serving as a member of the firm’s governing Policy Committee and as chair of its Diversity Committee. 
"Mr. Verrilli also served for over fifteen years as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center, focusing on First Amendment law.  Mr. Verrilli received the Frederick Douglass Award from the Southern Center for Human Rights in 2006, and the Arthur Von Briesen Award from the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association in 2004.  He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. William J. Brennan, Jr. of the United States Supreme Court and to the Hon. J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

"Mr. Verrilli received his J.D. from Columbia Law School where he was a Kent Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and received a B.A. with honors from Yale University."

Campaign spending by independent groups on congressional candidates continues to soar--up 73 percent from a comparable period two years ago, a new report from the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute said Monday.

Through mid-October, non-political party independent campaign spending in Senate and House of Representatives elections totaled $147.5 million, well above the $85.3 million reported in mid-October 2008. By the middle of the month four years ago, spending was $32 million.

Republicans are the chief 2010 cycle beneficiaries--spending to back GOP candidates has hit $105.5 million, compared to $42 million to support Democrats.

The spending is believed to have been stoked in part by the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year allowing corporations and labor unions to spend more freely to advocate for candidates. 

So far, the spending tops all non-party independent groups' spending in 2008. "And," the institute reported noted, "this is before the traditionally heavy-spending final weeks of the campaign."

Democrats now control both Houses of Congress. Republicans need net gains of 39 House and 10 Senate seats to win control of each House.

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., one of the last undecided senators, said Thursday he would oppose the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.

.Brown, one of the senators who introduced Kagan at her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in June, had been seen as a possible GOP supporter, since Kagan, a former Harvard Law School dean, has strong ties to his state.

"As an attorney myself, I recognize an impressive legal resume when I see one.  There is no doubt that Ms. Kagan has gone far since graduating from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 1986," Brown said at the time. But Thursday, he said he could not support her because of her lack of judicial experience.

A vote on the nomination is expected later Thursday, and Kagan is expected to win easy confirmation. Five of the Senate's 41 Republicans have said they will support her.

Brown's statement:

"I approach the duty of voting on nominees to the United States Supreme Court with a deep sense of the constitutional responsibility of the Senate to provide its advice and consent. Elena Kagan’s nomination is my first opportunity to consider a nominee to the Supreme Court.

"First, let me say that I have a great deal of respect for Elena Kagan. She has an impressive resume, and in my private meeting with her I found her to be brilliant, as you might expect from a former dean of Harvard Law School. However, I cannot vote to confirm Elena Kagan," he said.

"The reason is simple. I believe nominees to the Supreme Court should have previously served on the bench. Lacking that, I look for many years of practical courtroom experience to compensate for the absence of prior judicial experience. In Elena Kagan’s case, she is missing both. When it comes to the Supreme Court, experience matters. No classroom can substitute for the courtroom itself, where decisions are made that affect the day-to-day lives of American citizens, and where one’s judicial character and temperament is shaped in favor of the fair and just application of the law. The best umpires, to use the popular analogy, must not only call balls and strikes, but also have spent enough time on the playing field to know the strike zone. Therefore, I cannot support Elena Kagan’s nomination.”

Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, a Republican who last year voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Tuesday he will not back nominee Elena Kagan.

“Lack of judicial experience should not be an absolute bar on serving as a Supreme Court justice. However, Solicitor General Kagan not only lacks judicial experience, but has limited experience as a practicing attorney with really only the last year as solicitor general and two years as a junior associate making up her entire practice, said Voinovich, who last year backed Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first court nominee.

But he won't support Kagan, saying she "has an extremely limited written record, which should make all of us unsure as to what sort of justice she might be.”

Senators Tuesday spent their day debating the nomination, with a vote expected Thursday. Voinovich had opposed Kagan for Solicitor General in March 2009.

He said Tuesday the 50-year-old former Harvard Law School dean "does not have that relevant experience. For example, when the Senate considered Justice Sotomayor’s nomination, there were more than a thousand prior opinions one could review to decide if she was ready for the job; with Gen. Kagan, there are none.

"When I asked her to name opinions that she worked on with Justice (Thurgood) Marshall with which she disagreed, she stated that she could not remember any individual opinion she worked on, much less whether she disagreed with Justice Marshall on any of them," Voinovich said.

Kagan is expected to easily win confirmation, since Democrats control 59 seats and only one, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, has said he will vote no. Five Republicans have said they will back Kagan. 

Senate debate followed partisan, and largely predictable, lines Tuesday as debate began on the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

Kagan is virtually certain to be confirmed, probably by the end of the week. Only one of the Senate's 57 Democrats has expressed opposition, and five Republicans have said they will back the 50-year-old former Harvard Law School dean.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., opened the debate by praising Kagan as someone whose testimony during recent confirmation hearings "reflected an understanding of the judicial role and a traditional view of deference to Congress and judicial precedent."

Kagan, nominated by President Barack Obama to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, testified for more than 17 hours and took about 540 questions.

Kagan, said Leahy Tuesday, "not only has the necessary qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, but has demonstrated her respect for the rule of law, her appreciation for the separation of powers, and her understanding of the meaning of our Constitution."

But Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the committee's top Republican, quickly set the tone for the GOP side.

"She seems to admire the view, and has as her judicial heroes, judges who favor expansive readings of what they call the living Constitution," he said, "whereby judges seek, in President Obama's words, who certainly shares this view, to advance, as he said, a broader vision of what American should be."

But, Sessions said, "I don't believe that's a responsibility or a power given to judges to advance visions of what American should be. Whose vision is it they would advance, I would ask? It would be the judge's vision. They weren't appointed for that purpose; they were appointed to adjudicate cases.".