WASHINGTON (JTA) - Jewish Democrats launched a petition calling on a columnist syndicate to drop Pat Buchanan after the three-time presidential candidate questioned President Barack Obama's pick of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court because of her Jewish faith.

"If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats," Buchanan wrote in a May 14 column titled "Are liberals antiWASP?" (an outdated formulation for White AngloSaxon Protestant).

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The National Jewish Democratic Council launched a petition on Monday asking the Creators Syndicate to drop Buchanan.

"Last week, you allowed him yet again to continue his fixation with Jews," the NJDC petition said, referring to Buchanan's oftstated charge that U.S. Jews have outsized influence.

Buchanan, a former official of the Nixon and Reagan administrations, ran in the Republican Party primaries in 1992 and 1996 and as a Reform Party candidate in 2000.

Kagan, 50, currently the U.S. solicitor general and a former dean of Harvard Law School, is Obama's choice to replace John Paul Stevens, a liberal stalwart who is retiring at 90.