Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan criticized a campaign finance ruling in a case she argued for the Obama administration and considers abortion rights to be settled law, according to a GOP senator who met with her Thursday.

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, asked whether Republicans could support Kagan, said the nominee "certainly has the qualifications, and certainly has, I think, the balance in her approach — at least so far — but I'd like to wait and see."

In their private meeting, Kagan stressed the importance of judicial restraint and deference to Congress by the high court, and discussed abortion rights, Snowe said. The senator was one of seven Republicans who joined Democrats last year in voting to confirm Kagan as solicitor general, the top government lawyer who argues the administration's cases before the Supreme Court.

Abortion rights supporters are concerned about a memo Kagan wrote as a White House aide in 1997 urging President Bill Clinton to back a ban on late-term abortions.

Senators also are awaiting another 160,000 pages of documents from Kagan's tenure on the Clinton White House staff that are being organized for release at the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. Republicans have complained that they aren't likely to come in time for thorough scrutiny before confirmation hearings begin June 28.

President Barack Obama's liberal pick for a San Francisco-based appeals court, Goodwin Liu (Loo), has survived his first Senate test but still faces strong Republican opposition.

The Judiciary Committee voted 12-7 on Thursday to recommend confirmation of the law professor and associate dean of the University of California law school at Berkeley.

Republicans have assailed Liu's liberal writings. The nominee, at an earlier hearing, testified that his personal views would never have a role if he's confirmed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Washington state Supreme Court has ruled that public libraries can use Internet filters to block content.

In a 6-3 ruling Thursday, the court says public libraries have discretion about which Internet content to allow, just as they decide which magazines and books to offer.

The majority says libraries don't need to completely remove Internet filters and can provide access to websites containing constitutionally protected speech if requested by an adult.

But a blistering dissent by Justice Tom Chambers argues that the ruling restricts constitutionally protected speech.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday it's not wise to speculate about what caused an explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and he defended his use of the term "act of God" to describe the disaster.

Perry said Tuesday the phrase — which he used in a speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday when discussing the spill — is a legal definition and that his point is "nobody knows what happened" at the oil rig off the Louisiana coast. The undersea well has been spewing 200,000 gallons of oil a day.

The giant oil slick is threatening the Gulf Coast from southeastern Louisiana to Florida. Rig operator BP PLC has been trying unsuccessfully to cap the leak, which began April 20.

"If you will go look up the definition of 'Act of God,' we've used it in legal terms for a long time in this state," Perry told reporters outside the Texas Capitol.

"It may be an accident and it may be something else," he said.

The Democratic group Lone Star Project criticized the Republican governor's remarks as "detached arrogance."

"Eleven men died when the drilling platform exploded. Hundreds of miles of coastland could be damaged for years and even decades. The families of those who died and the victims of the environmental damage deserve a full accounting for the human errors that caused the failure at the rig, the death of loved ones and the spoiling of our Gulf coastline," said Matt Angle, director of Lone Star Project.

Lawmakers are urging Congress to move swiftly to put restrictions on corporate and union sponsorship of political campaign ads.

They are seeking to counteract a January ruling by the Supreme Court which upheld the First Amendment rights of such groups to spend money on ads, greatly increasing their ability to influence federal elections.

Lawmakers are pushing legislation requiring that political ads reveal their top funding sources and that the CEO of the company paying for the ad appear in it with an "I approve this message" statement.

The Democratic-led supporters say their goal is to pass the legislation by July 4, the time frame that is necessary if a new law were to be in effect for the November midterm elections.

White House counsel Bob Bauer, President Barack Obama's point man in the search for a new Supreme Court justice, manages to get credit both for an even temperament and his finesse with a sledge hammer.

The combination is evident in one of Bauer's favorite memories from the 2008 presidential primaries, when Obama campaign aides worried that opposing forces were trying to depress voter turnout. Bauer, the campaign's top lawyer, confidently reassured staffers that he'd have anyone engaged in such conduct arrested.

It was a morale-boosting bit of bluster that campaign workers quickly turned into a T-shirt that had "I (heart) Bauer" on the front and his quote — "We may have to arrest people" — splashed across the back.