Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan got a boost from potential GOP supporters Thursday, when two Republican senators who will vote on her confirmation both said her lack of experience as a judge is no obstacle to elevating her.

Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and George S. LeMieux of Florida made their comments a day after one of the court's conservative icons, Justice Antonin Scalia, undercut Republican criticism of Kagan's lack of a judicial background.

Scalia's remark, made during a lecture Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Washington, "helps her. Definitely, it helps her," said Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings on Kagan set to begin June 28. "I think that argument is not going to go very far."

LeMieux, who had a lengthy meeting with Kagan in the Capitol Thursday, also said judicial inexperience was not a concern.

"I don't find that in any way a prohibition to her service," LeMieux said. The first-term Floridian called Kagan intelligent, articulate and "refreshingly forthcoming" on a variety of questions he posed, on subjects including free speech, guns, gay and lesbian rights and abortion.

The Massachusetts attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to strike down a federal gay marriage ban, arguing it interferes with the right of states to define marriage and have those marriages acknowledged by the federal government.

The challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act by Attorney General Martha Coakley's office was heard in federal court in Boston.

Assistant Attorney General Maura Healey argued states have historically had the right to define marriage.

She said the 1996 law could result in the denial of Medicaid and other benefits to married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

A lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department, Christopher Hall, argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

Hall also pointed to instances where the federal government has regulated the definition of marriage in certain immigration cases.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont says the GOP should set aside its "overheated rhetoric" questioning the qualifications and integrity of President Barack Obama's nominee. He's also urging Republicans to stop complaining about the timeline he set for Kagan's confirmation hearings, which are to begin June 28.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Judiciary Republican, has suggested the date is too soon, and warned Monday he might ask for a delay.

Leahy called the gripes "crocodile tears." The timetable mirrors the one used for Republican and Democratic nominees.

Kagan was back on Capitol Hill Tuesday for private meetings with senators.

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.