the supreme court. these include proposals to reduce term limits and increase the number of justices. what reforms would you support? republicans, (202) 748-8001 is the number. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. a very good friday morning to you. you can start calling in with your suggestions for the supreme court. some information on this presidential commission on the supreme court -- that is the group meeting at 10:00 a.m.. it was established in april by executive order by incident biden -- by president biden. it is a bipartisan group of commissioners. the final report is due in november. the discussion draft was released last night. it includes a variety of proposals like term limits and adding members to the supreme court. on the issue of adding more justices, " we conclude congress has broad power to structure the supreme court by expanding or contracting a number of justices. the question is more difficult and commissioners are divided on whether court expansion would be wis

you know they supreme court has nine justices but did you know -- the supreme court has nine justices, but did you know that number is not in the constitution? you know who had no problem with changing the number of court seats? republicans. they have done it with state supreme court's across the country. no they have manipulated their way to a -- now they have manipulated their way to a 6-3 supreme court that is out of step with the entire country. host: mike davis was from the article three project. he was back on the program in april. this is what he had to say in that interview. [video clip] >> we have the first constitutionalist majority in years. now we have a 6-3 republican appointed supreme court. democrats do not like this. they have lost their grip on the supreme court. it is the final backstop to keep democrats from four control in this country -- full control in this country. host: if you want to watch that interview, you can do so online. mike davis is his name if you want to find it online. is a term republicans have used -- " packing the supreme court will destroy our d

supreme court. i fear that view is being eroded. i was thinking, listening to represented of howard, tell me a little bit more. as a former prosecutor involved with abortion, people go after it in nonmedical situations and people died. a lot of other things went on. then i see everyday citizens, cash bounties of at least $10,000 would bring suit even if they are frivolous against medical practitioners. these are the private enforcement mechanisms. >> yes. as i said, it has a chilling effect on the services being provided at this time. people working in the clinics have to hire security guards to protect them. there is a sense of pitting neighbor against neighbor and i must say it is a different issue. this is at the same time that texas passed, this carry without a license to require the rectifier -- carry a firearm. we saw people coming up to abortion provider clinics whereafter this law went into effect and bringing their guns and displaying them. it is absolutely creating much anxiety and fear am

and the new deal ran into a supreme court roadblock. in the course of that four-year term, not only did roosevelt have no chance to appoint justices, but the nine who were there struck down major reform relief laws. this is a quick laundry list, the national industrial recovery act, the railroad retirement act, section three of the national recovery act, the frazier-lemke act, the tax component of the agricultural adjustment act, the coal conservation act, the amendments to the bankruptcy law and a state new york minimum wage law that was kind of state-level counterpart progressive effort. so roosevelt was the popular, powerful and democratically-responsive president, and the supreme court was a tremendous obstacle. and so reelected overwhelmingly in 1936, he decided to use his political capital on his supreme court problem. >> what did he do? what was his strategy? what was he trying to accomplish here? >> well, he took it very personally, actually. he had this dream of, that the supreme court would cooperate with him in getting his pr

coney barrett in the supreme court. it is really interesting there has not been a book written like this before and i think the reason is i don't believe any historian could have written it, at least any that i know and i'm not sure and i do not believe that a legal scholar could it is a history by a civil rights attorney in the legal scholar and historian and we try to combine those forces. the virginia judge who convicted richard unlawful, almighty god created the racist white, black, yellow, red and placed them on separate cottons. he therefore ruled that god did not intend for the races to mix whether the supreme court has dealt with issues involving all these people and some people would call racist and so does justice differed from the 17th century in 2021 we cover slavery aftermath, reconstruction, jim crow, the dismantle of jim crow modern-day problems including criminal justice, voting rights and affirmative action. armand you want to pick up their. >> the supreme court people my age think of the supreme court

court might do, what the supreme court seems poised to do, overturn roe versus wade. the last three presidential elections won by a republican were won by tiny margins that were achievable only because republican voters care about the supreme court enough to turn out and create that very tiny winning margin voting for the kind of supreme court justices that they want, and now republican voters have the supreme court they want. a two-thirds majority of almost sure votes to overturn roe versus wade. donald trump pointed three of the justices who were really chosen by mitch mcconnell who seem now ready to overturn roe versus wade. george w. bush appointed two of them, and george h.w. bush appointed one of them in 1991. so if you're one of those voters who skipped the 1988 presidential election because you didn't see much difference between the democrat and republican, that's why people were protesting this weekend. if you didn't vote in 2000 because you didn't see much difference between the democrat and republican, that's why the constitutional right to abortion service

supreme court commission created this to look at changes to the supreme court can you say it's about to come out and the commission is designed to fail. why quick. >> it's a complete waste of time that the conservatives yes that is what we want to what we voted for democrats a no. that is not what i voted for. the only way to stop that is to reform the court everything that i just said to engage in the supreme court reform and then instead of taking that i —- that energy and ideas to roll with that saying send it off to a commission to die and then killed any momentum with the hope of changing the way the state works while biden is the president the commission was stacked with law professor and advocates i know some of the people they are really smart people that now to the supreme court every day a person that has to go argue in front of john roberts on thursday on monday wanted to stay should have so much power so the commission had no performance bidens commission and young core performance and what that you commission was all about. and that commission believes this is not desi

if we are going to have a supreme court, people have to vote for the supreme court. there should be empathetic. host: wouldn't that make it too little? -- political? caller: how do you mean? host: you have to campaign for a position. wouldn't that be a political office then? caller: they do campaign, don't they? host: supreme court justices are appointed. caller: they campaign their whole life for it. you know that. you know they want to be supreme court justices. host: they ultimately are chosen by a president so in the sense they campaign, that's not it. caller: that's political right there. chosen by a president, that's political. host: but that's part of a president's job to appoint a justice. caller: i'd like to myself. i don't know about you, but i would like to appoint a justice. host: ok. that's bob. let's go to tom in michigan, hello. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i think that the court right now is just as good as it was back in 1980, or 1981, rather, when sarah o'connor was picked out as a supreme court justice by reagan to diversify the court a l

and it worked, as the supreme court found. but as it continued on up to 2013, there is no question the burden was quite significant. preclearance for those states met preclearance of everything. if you moved a polling place, move within a school from where you voted, you had to get it cleared by the federal government. and each of those opportunities is an opportunity to bend your states election system to the will of those in the doj and even president obama's inspector general found the voting section was hiring those from the radical left, predominant even then, and you can fully expect that trend to get worse. so the place where these questions -- these are literally the most rabid left-wing lawyers you can find in the federal government. >> ms. weiser, in the shelby county decision, the supreme court invited congress to update the preclearance formulas. >> correct. >> can you address how that formula and other provisions in the john lewis bill are crafted to encompass the states and practices that pose the greatest threat

in 2013, the supreme court invited the u.s. congress to update this vital statute and so thanks to the efforts of many senators, we are here to restore and strengthen the voting rights act, to recommit to protecting voting rights and ballot access for voters across the country, no matter the color of their skin. it is essential that we pass this legislation. at this time, i would yield to senator durbin for his questions. senator durbin: thank you. i listened to comments made by the indiana attorney general, and i thought to myself, these are echoes of the same argument we have always heard. leave it to the states. things will turn out fine. history tells us otherwise. unless we carefully guard the right to vote for every american, some who tend to exploit the situation. ms. weiser, in your testimony you talk about the findings of professor mccrary. 100 43 violations in the last 25 days -- 25 years -- 143 violations in the last 25 years in the top eight states most likely. there is still a challenge that the supreme court did n

so the number of circuit courts group, and corresponding supreme court justice because of the circuit responsibilities largely explains the early growth. because of circuit panels were a justice visiting and writing adjoining in the circuit court activity and then i think it is work as more and more cases coming within the jurisdictions of the court. i'm sure they were communicating to the congress that we could use another guy appear and so the laws and the size of the court and that's largely what god is 29. and i think structural the judiciary and the workload but the political movement is more in the post so far more on filling of vacancies when the legal tender case was pending before the supreme court of basically the congress but the court shrank and let andrew johnson brother court in the wrong direction in the reconstruction. >> one of the original proposals for the reforming the court along with the packing was to designate different districts for each of the justices, that they would come from nine different parts of the country. and actually that limited roosevelt at one p

supreme court commission created this to look at possible changes to the supreme court and you say the final reports, and using this commission is designed to fail, why. >> everything adjusted by the way, in its complete waste of time, and alright yes that's what we wanted what we voted for everything i just said, but the democrats are saying no, that is not the voted for me how to resolve this the only way to stop that is to reform the court the only way to stop everything that is just that is to engage in supreme court reform and biden instead of taking that energy and taking those ideas, and kind of rolling with it, he said that off to a commission deny and effectively kill any moment, and hope of really changing the way the supreme court works while biden is the president. the commission it was stacked with law professors and advocates which are great people. i voted for some of them, they are really smart people but they are law professors and advocates a butte entered the go in of the supreme court to argue for their clients and these are not the best person. they have to have ar

and they will second the courts and the supreme court is not in our favor. that is why you saw a number of texas legislators in washington, d.c. and walking out in august trying to demand the voting rights act because there's only so much they can do. democrats are in the minority there. they're looking to congress to pass something immediately because they understand they can do so much. they might be able to help around the edges, but at the end of the day, they will need democrats in congress to act. and they will need a justice department to file a lawsuit under section 2 to challenge that map. we'll see what happens but it is looking very difficult for democrats right now. >> mark, the big question about the supreme court. just said that federal courts can't stop partisan gerrymandering. but state courts still have some power here. without this preclearance provision, what backstops are there for partisan gerrymandering on a state level? how can states prevent this from happening? >> so, you know, some state supreme courts have taken strong action again

he created this to look at possible changes to the supreme court. you say the final report about to comeout, you say the commission is designed to fail. why? guest: it was a complete waste of time. everything i just said by the way. a conservative sitting at home will be like, yeah, that's what we want. everything i just said is what democrats are like, that's not what i voted for. how do we stop this? and the only way to stop that is to reform the court. the only way to stop everything i just said is to engage in supreme court reform. and expansion. and biden instead of taking that energy and taking that -- those ideas and kind of rolling with it, he sent it off to a commission to die and they effectively killed any momentum and any hope of really changing the way the supreme court works while biden is president. the commission was stacked with law professors and advocates which are great people. i know some of the people on the commission. they're really smart people. but they're law professors and advocates, advocates who have to go in front of t

the supreme court found that. but as it continued on up to 2013, there is no question the burden was quite significant. preclearance for those states meant preclearance of everything. if you moved a polling place, if you move within a school for where you voted you had to get that pre-cleared by the federal government, and each of those opportunities as the federal -- federal government would view it, it's an opportunity to bend your states election system to the will of those in the justice department and even president obama's inspector general found that the voting section was hiring those from the radical left, they were predominant, even back then, and you heard the commitment -- you could expected to get worse. so the place where the questions will be judged, it's not an objective set of a professional career lawyers. these are literally the most rabid left-wing partisan lawyers you could find in the federal government. >> thank you, ranking member grassley. miss wiser, in the shelby county decision, the sup

and it worked, as the supreme court found. but as it continued on up to 2013, there is no question the burden was quite significant. preclearance for those states met preclearance of everything. if you moved a polling place, move within a school from where you voted, you had to get it cleared by the federal government. and each of those opportunities is an opportunity to bend your states election system to the will of those in the doj and even president obama's inspector general found the voting section was hiring those from the radical left, predominant even then, and you can fully expect that trend to get worse. so the place where these questions -- these are literally the most rabid left-wing lawyers you can find in the federal government. >> ms. weiser, in the shelby county decision, the supreme court invited congress to update the preclearance formulas. >> correct. >> can you address how that formula and other provisions in the john lewis bill are crafted to encompass the states and practices that pose the greatest threat

the supreme court _ future of roe v wade? the supreme court has - future of roe v wade? tue supreme court has the future of roe v wade? tte supreme court has the case future of roe v wade? "ttj: supreme court has the case in front of it now, out of mississippi banning abortion at 15 weeks gestation. the reason it is a big deal as the court could have taken less explosive cases but it took this one, and probably with the intent of upholding this law. the reason that a significant is roe v wade says there is a right to choose abortion until friedel liability which is around the 24th week, a full nine weeks after the mississippi law takes effect, so the court has to reverse review wade in its entirety or change viability as the dividing line which would put roe on shaky ground indeed. it's nearly half a century since ruby wade passed, why is this coming to a head now? t5 a this coming to a head now? is a combination _ this coming to a head now? is a combination of— this coming to a head now? t3 —. combination of changes to the republican party and changes to the supreme

court, over the senate judiciary committee was asked who was your favorite supreme court justice, john marshall harley. interestingly enough marshall's father named him john marshall after the most significant chief justice in american history in the hopes that his young son might end up on the supreme court andby golly he did . so the sole dissent in plessy versus ferguson was this. that segregation on railcars was constitutionally impermissible under the newly passed amendments, 13th, 14th and 15thamendments . sole dissent. it reads like the majority unanimous decision in brown versus board of education 58 years later. that's that led john marshall harlan's photograph on my wall and i was thrilled a few months ago to see this new book had come out about his life and times and it's a marvelous read, extremely well written and i recommend it to your viewers. >> when you find time to read ? >> it takes me a while to finish a book. i typically will read on the plane or on weekends. i'm not one of those people who can read at night.i'm usually sleeping so i'm not what i would call a fast

more attention in the supreme court. host: mr. malcolm, your response as well? guest: i don't have anything particular to add. justice sotomayor made a statement that she is pro-choice and that is hardly a surprised anybody. if i were her, i might let it made the statements but i certainly don't see it as a basis for her to recuse from the case and i can't think of any reason beyond perhaps a justice having a financial investment in some company that has a case before the court or relative of theirs is arguing the case before the court. i don't see that any -- in any of the major cases. other than that, i have nothing to add. host: let's hear from kevin in california, independent line. caller: good morning. the concern i have and wanted to raise is that a lot of the arguments for reading abortion rights into the constitution and roe v. wade itself are anti-scientific or at least inconsistent with modern medicine. for instance, the notion that abortion rights are encompassed by bodily autonomy, it is inconsistent with sci

were considered to be on the supreme court. so you came down for an interview with president clinton, but you had a bike accident and you had a lot of injured bones if i recall. do you think that was bad karma that you had this accident before the interview? that affect your ability to do the interview? stephen: i have no idea. that is the truth of the matter. later, i thought about it. of course the newspaper people wanted to say weren't you terribly disappointed, and i said well, it is not such a terrible thing in your life to be seriously considered to be on the supreme court. even if you are not appointed. that is the best you can do. i was thinking partly, i said that because it is true. and partly i said it because i did have children. hey, my friend. don't always win everything you want. and my goodness, what you want those children to learn, you want them to learn fine, sometimes you will get everything your heart desires, not very often. and sometimes he won't. and you had better be a good sport about when you don't. a

if we are going to have a supreme court, people have to vote for the supreme court. there should be empathetic. host: wouldn't that make it too little? -- political? caller: how do you mean? host: you have to campaign for a position. wouldn't that be a political office then? caller: they do campaign, don't they? host: supreme court justices are appointed. caller: they campaign their whole life for it. you know that. you know they want to be supreme court justices. host: they ultimately are chosen by a president so in the sense they campaign, that's not it. caller: that's political right there. chosen by a president, that's political. host: but that's part of a president's job to appoint a justice. caller: i'd like to myself. i don't know about you, but i would like to appoint a justice. host: ok. that's bob. let's go to tom in michigan, hello. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i think that the court right now is just as good as it was back in 1980, or 1981, rather, when sarah o'connor was picked out as a supreme court justice by reagan to diversify the court a l

it was not until we made it up here to the supreme court and i think that's because the supreme court obviously is very symbolic. it was intentional for the marchers to end up here. they wanted to underscore just how important the supreme court's role is in the abortion discussion and it's no coincidence that the counterprotesters decided to meet the other group here at the foot of the supreme court and not earlier when we spent a few hours down at the freedom plaza and really didn't hear from any counterprotesters at all while we were down there. >> can you give me a sense of how many as compared to the size of this crowd? i know it's often hard to do. i'm terrible at doing this but if you were to look at the number of counterprotesters, is it like a hundred, 10% of the crowd we're seeing? what do you think? >> reporter: if you can see right behind me, right over here over my right shoulder. there's about, i would say, like 200 counterprotesters right now. you can see the people in the blue shirts over there, the signs saying, i am pro-life. and look across the street. those are the

i clerked for justice marshall in the 1983-1984 supreme court term. it four supreme court term. it was one of the highlights of my life. and i talk about thurgood marshall's career in that essay. and again there are other pieces in this collection but i think i have given you a a sufficient, i've been talking long enough. i've given you a sufficient sense of the sorts of things that i cover in this collection. why don't we now turn to your questions? and turn this monologue into a dialogue. thank you so much for listening to me. and now i look forward to interacting with you through questions and answers. and by all means objections. i can imagine that some of you object to something that i've said or object to something i've written, and the floor is open to objections as well, so thank you. >> i brought my gavel here so i can overrule any objections. let's see. marianne, okay, here's a softball to begin with. i'm going straight down the list. perhaps a a bit off-topic butm curious who the artist of the pieces who painted the pieces that are behind you? >> those are romer beard

he has been a justice of the supreme court for 27 years. i had a conversation with him about his future in the future of the court. i have to start with the question on everybody's mind. why is this book you have written so small? it is a small book, i am used to bigger books. why didn't you get a bigger book? justice breyer: this is the constitution and it is smaller. david: a lot of justices of the supreme court carry around the constitution all of the time. is that because you are going to forget what is in it? do you just like to remind people and read it over and over? justice breyer: you never know when somebody is going to ask you a question. somebody says, what does article three, section 19 say? they expect you to know. so you have it here. david: your book, this is an interesting book in the sense that it came from a series of lectures you gave named after somebody who was an ideological opponent of some of your views. that was justice scalia. were you a friend of his even though you had ideological differences? justice breyer: i

the supreme court ruling in the shelby county case , in which the supreme court of the united states said, quote, "dual government does not have a -- the federal government does not have a general right to review and veto state enactments before they go into effect in ." in fact, the founding fathers considered and expressly rejected giving the federal government power to provide what they refer to as a "negative," or a veto over any and all state laws. so we don't advocate for pre-clearance even in areas surrounding our constitutional rights and the constitutional rights belonging to individuals. if the laws passed by a state happen to violate the constitution, we do, of course, have a procedure in place for challenging those. they go to the federal judiciary. the parties can litigate those, after, of course, the constitutional arguments are are made to the legislative body considering them. if they fail there, they can raise them with the judiciary after they become law and so we've got to be very careful that we don't neglect this principle of federalism in our lawmaking processes

and then secondly, the supreme court would be a problem there too. because in the united states, much has happened with obamacare, there could be a challenge to the constitutionality of the federal bill, protecting and working. right. so long term we really may be talking more about court reform than about anything beyond that. and in terms of how this plays politically with women on, on sort of all sides of the, of the divide. well, how far do you think the anti abortion politicians are prepared to go in and cut it back? fire on them. it certainly could. i think the question really is the extent to which i am the majority in the u. s. which is certainly supportive of legal abortion early in pregnancy and not rehearsing row, even though their, their views are more complicated. after that, the question is really whether those people will vote based on that issue or if they hold that position and vote based on other issues, whether that's covered or the economy. i think in the past it's been true that anti worship voters have made that more primary whe

he essentially called out the supreme court. all of his colleagues, the country at large generally by saying nobody would want to be so wanting in timbre that the purpose was to separate flaxen whites for equal reasons but specifically separate out black people. he went through all the ways that that separation that is both unfair, discriminatory and so economically alienating for african-americans. even though this did not have the same kind of national attention that civil rights cases had. the country, refusing to enforce black rights was no question in their mind that the supreme court would go along with a challenge to this law. only harlan would dissent. his dissent had an unusual power. he had by then been dissenting for 13 years in cases involving equal rights for african-americans. he spoke with an unusually eloquent and powerful voice about the first principles that underline the law. his dissent included a number of memorable phrases including the constitutional -- constitution is colorblind. there is no caste here. t

at the supreme court. adam liptak, covers the place where some of the most important history has been made in this country. he is the new york times reporter of the supreme court, adam liptak, is a graduate of harvard college in yale law school, he is one of those reporters whose career turned here or there, could have become one of the people, he is now covering at the supreme court, and today, adam liptak, has the lead story in the new york times, not because the supreme court did something, today, not because the supreme court issued an historic, life-changing ruling today. but, adam liptak has the mainstream new york times today, because of what the supreme court might do. here is the first sentence, of the new york times lead story on page one, in that upper right corner today, a transform supreme court, returns to the bench on monday to start a momentous term, in which it will consider eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. vastly expanding gun rights and further chipping away at the wall

the supreme court says it doesn't really matter. you still have to narrowly tailor thanks even if you be might have used it in some cases. the court then suggested lower courts need to look skeptically at that asserted state interest. california said away might need it to investigate charities. the court said you have to be careful about that. you can't just do that in this broad fashion. the idea that it is making it more convenient for you isn't enough. strauf veins won't do it. so, with that you put real teeth into the exacting scrutiny standard and says now that it is really none of the government's business who you give money to, what organizations you support or belong to. it memoranda become the state's business if they have a legitimate investigation going on that requires them to actually get that information. but they can't generally say they need it or want it. i will crows by getting to the point mentioned earlier. this goes to that greater relationship between people and the state. the state's position is like we are ju

court of appeals who end up on the supreme court unless something catastrophic happens. until the democrats decided we are not voting and chuck schumer at a press conference at what can you do to direct him to get a vote? and the senator said at the microphone, nothing. so to break down the process then, we would just end up in a very bad place. >> what do you think about the composition of the court with these three trumpet appointees? are you fearful of an extreme right shift of the court? or do you think it will be a more reserved and moved the right? >> first, i think president trump did, he actually did his job but if there is a vacancy you nominate someone. it's wrong of a president for not filling a vacancy on the court for any reason. whether it's 8:30 in the morning on january 20 here's my name here is the name and putting forward. my big problem right now if the court is almost with the description of the court. the discussion of the conservative justices and the liberal justices. no. there may be too liberal justices on the court. maybe justice kagan, justice

the anniversary of the confirmation to the supreme court. from the heritage foundation in washington, d.c., this is one hour. [applause] [applause] this is the professor of law and executive director for the study of the administrative state of the incidents glia law school and the director of the center. i want to welcome you all to the heritage foundation. on behalf of heritage, today has been a special day and it's still a special day. we are delighted to be here honoring the anniversary of justice thomases appointment to the supreme court as the associate justice. [applause] we've been fortunate to have justice thomas here before. he was our lecturer and we are thrilled that he is here with us this evening so with that i'm going to turn over to my cohost and i hope you enjoy the evening's program. the center is thrilled to host this event with the foundation and commemorate the milestone of justice thomases 30 years in the supreme court. justice thomas is now the longest serving justice on the court and at the young age of 73 if he serve

same reason- the supreme court allowed this enterprise to go forward in the first place. and defendants are getting governmental oversight within prosecutors offices either. you don't have a right to go up thee chain of command in a prosecutorsce office. prosecutors aren't obligated to let defendants present evidence before this negotiation takes place. the prosecutor can engage in exparte context with law enforcement or other investigators and witnesses and they don't need to share any of this information with defendants, even information exculpatory at the plea bargainingar stage. we don't have transparency here. so defendants usually don't even know what people are getting. while the formal trial process is heavily regulated i mentioned the plea bargaining process is left entirely to the prosecution. it's actually one of the griefbing forces inw my callership is how we can possibly live in a world where there are so many more checks when an agencyy is regulating a industry than when an agency, a prosecutors office is regulating your liberty. and that world i think can

finally doing what the supreme court asked us to do in 2013. it should have been done along time ago. the updated voting rights advancement act we ares introducing today restores the voting rights act of 1965. strengthens our democracy by reestablishing preclearance. that makes it better to update it to also protect against specific practices we know suppress the vote. by polling place closures, and new types of voter roll purges happening not only in the south but all over the country. our bill also restores section two of the voting rights act to protect minority communities from discriminatory voting practices after the supreme court diminished section two earlier this year. mr. president, just like the freedom to vote act, me and many of my colleagues introduce just a few weeks ago to set national standards for voting so every eligible voting voices heard. the john lewis and voting rights advancement act we introduce today is designed to meet future challenges and address additional antidemocratic aimed at suppressing the vote all over our