anyonity made the@@@@ so i tholed i wou almost unanimous opinions, so i thought i would focus on the most exciting case where i do expect that there could be some substantial change in the law, the citizens united case, talk about very briefly because i am sure the audience is knowledgeable about the facts, it is about the hillary film that was shown, to put it mildly, that was not very favorable to secretary of state

clinton, it was not -- there was not a favorable word about her in the 90 minute film and the argument was that this was under the campaign finance law, and the 60 days around the action. what is new about this, this is a general issue in compaq -- campaign finance, campaign finance is focused on commercials on tv, this is a more traditional medium. and yet the sec tried to regulate this film because it was going to be given out before an election. this come class at a very controversial time for campaign finance. there were 2 decisions that pointed in different directions, the first on communication restriction was the mcconnell decision in which the court

upheld against a challenge saying the government could ban collection year communications by corporations including non-profit corporations 60 days before an election but subsequently, in wisconsin, for life, as a challenge, succeeds, and justice roberts writes for the court that something won't be considered in election communication unless it can't be interpreted any other way, as an attempt to get you to vote for or against a candidate and that sets the stage for this lorillard given. the question is how is the court going to deal with this? this turns out not to be a

election-year and the communication -- the constitution will protect something unless it is a direct or functional equivalence of an attempt to get you to vote or against someone before an election, 60 days before and election, i dunno how plausible that is, it is not a nice word against hillary clinton even at the height of the primary. secondly, the court might try to expand the as applied challenge in wisconsin to suggest that movies really have a different standard because, as justice scalia said, this isn't about willing listeners, willing speakers, the constitution protects that as sacrosanct, and the final out reach movies.

the downside of that from those who want to regulate campaign finance, we will see a lot more movies like the hillary movie around election time. it is possible that this case could be used as a vehicle for overturning the decision. when we talk about the personnel of the court, it is important to understand it is different in important respects from justice o'connor and already seems to be much less sympathetic to campaign finance restrictions than justice o'connor. the context in which we might see a decision reversing mccain, another issue that came out of the oral argument is many of the justices became very uncomfortable when they realized the theory of the mcconnell case would allow the government to

prevent even books, love alone fillms, from coming out before election, that underscores the oddity of first amendment doctrine for some time, the first amendment is being pushed in a variety of ways and yet narrowed in this day of, let -- political speech around election time. i expect the court in one way or another is going to allow films like hillary to flourished, so we can look forward to a lot mo

of them in 2012. >> we are in west virginia as we speak, this is the case -- there are not many cases which are more familiar to readers of newspapers, this caperton case has to be on our docket. >> many of you know the background facts of this case but let me summarize briefly. there is a major dispute between two coal companies in west virginia. one accuses the other of using malicious, aggressive tactics to drive the first coal company out of business, there is a trial in the neighborhood of a $50 million verdict against the aggressor coal company. the defeated aggressor coal company says we are going to

appeal, the president of the company says i am going to participate in a big way in collecting the next available justice to the west virginia supreme court. that individual spent something like $3 million of his own money to replace one of the justices received to be less favorable in this case with someone perceived to be more favorable. the coal company -- asked that the justice recused himself. the case goes to the united states supreme court's, in violation of the due process. every litigant is entitled to a

fair tribunal. they decided to make a long story short. one of which was 6-3. an individual, in circumstances suggest that objective person might think that that jurors might have a hard time the constitution's due process cause recused in the case. there was a strong defense, constitutionalizing motions,

people challenge different types of alleged bias. in the chief justice's opinion, there were 40 questions that might come up. if you finance the losing candidate, is the winner going to be against you? what about trade associations, all of those are legitimate questions. what was concerning the court, obviously, retired justice o'connor had spoken about this very case quite a bit. the appearance of justice for sale, judicial races, making people believe they had to participate in some way in financing judicial elections or they wouldn't get a fair hearing when their case came before the court. i argued this case, the court was not going to be concerned about opening the floodgates and

where are we going from here and what bias could be demonstrated by going to someone's wedding. and that sort of thing, i focused the lot on the justice foresail concern, what the justices were concerned about. there was something to the same affect, justice will not be for sale, justice cannot be bought, so we found something, picked up by blackstone. they still -- four of them voted against this. to pick up the fifth vote. one of the justices in the oral

argument, i think it was justice stevens, said wasn't the due process caused a concern for the appearance and integrity of the judiciary? my opponent said it is only the right of the individual, not the right of the judiciary to be perceived in the right light. that bothered justice stevens, we need -- we have got to be mindful of justice as well as actual justice itself. having taken the case, once they took the case, it would be hard to say no problem. >> as we move to the conclusion it would not be appropriate to end without a comment or 2 on the retiring justice who leaves

the court -- i had not met david souter before he was nominated to the bench. i remember covering his confirmation hearings for the mcneil news hour. i was taking what i was seeing in the hearings. i have to say the justice has been on the bench, seems to be fairly common ground with the figure i saw before the committee. i was not among those who was terribly surprised but i might not have predicted he would be as liberal a justice as some people think he turned out to be but as you know, he was called the stealth candidate. he has been, during his time in washington, and commonly disengage from washington's social life of me there is no justice who appears less on the social scene than justice david souter. he will be happy to go back to the farm in new hampshire to which he will be very happy when

he sees washington in the rearview mirror. what his legacy will be, historians will say. there are no great grand doctrines produced. i will tell a quick story about him. each year, the road scholars committee to held organized a good bye event for the new been elected road scholar, david souter was a rhodes scholar. they need him at the court in addition to going to capitol hill and the white house and the rest of it. when we debrief this dollars on the things they have done in washington, every year, year in, year out, david souter has been at the top of the list. the one person they would not eliminate from the next year's scholars, my impression is they have seen someone who is

thoughtful and measured, he talks about how he goes about his work on the court. it seems their impression is of someone whose private persona is the same as his public persona. washington, that is a rare commodity. i don't know, we have a minute if anyone wants to add to that. i wanted to be sure we don't conclude today without a word on the retiring justice. >> i will say one word, he is a very decent, for man. the president talks about empathy. david souter manifests that a great deal. he gave a farewell speech to the third circuit. that was at the independence conference a couple weeks ago, 2 different speeches, he spoke -- this is someone who is not to post a like public speaking or public engagement, spoke with a simple note in a passionate way

about a justice, what a justice is, what a judge is, what it means to be that and what separation of powers meant to him after going to these town hall meetings. both of those speeches, i hope there was a record of them some place. >> he wouldn't allow them to be recorded. >> it was too bad. >> thank you. i turn it back to judge medvedev. >> i want to thank professor howard and the panel. [applause] >> john mcginnis. >> this discussion has, i am sure you agree, been enlightening and stimulating. we have learned about fish that only die temporarily and other

matters conlan and it is no wonder that this panel has become one of the popular high light features of our conference. we are now going to bring the conference to close. i would like to call judge karen williams. >> i too want to thank each of our panelists today, and also professor howard, for the wonderful job that he did as our moderator. this term included decisions on a variety of subjects, and you all did a masterful job of exploring those decisions

providing us with important take aways. there were several other people i would like to thank. chief justice roberts, his willingness to be addressed to the conference. this session added a lot to the discussion. to the most recent supreme court 7. my good colleague, paul newline, i am committed to you for what you did as program chair, this has just been fabulous, it was most informative.

and a great success. to my good colleague, judge wilkinson. i might be the chief judge, he is the dean of this court. i also want to thank sam phillips and the staff of the executive's office for the fine job they did planning this conference and making sure everything ran so smoothly. finally, you, the membership at this conference call these judges look forward to being with you. the opportunity to get to know you and form lasting

friendships. this is our 76 conference, and i hope you all had a wonderful time. our 77 conference is tentatively scheduled to take place. on june 24th if to the 26, we look forward to seeing you all there. in 2010. i wish each of you save travel home and we stand adjourned. [applause]

>> the associated press reporting senate democrats are urging minnesota's governor to certified democrat al franken's the election to the senate following the state supreme court's ruling that the former saturday night live comedian defeated gop incumbent norm coleman. he will sign the certificate afforded to do so by the court. the court's ruling stopped short of ordering the governor to sign the documents saying only that out franken was entitled to it. those candidates planning news conferences today and we plan to bring those events to you live on c-span. when they take place, we cover those events live on c-span. c-span.org describes the supreme court opinion. we have that on our web site.

more briefings for you tonight with the head of the multinational forces in iraq. he spoke with reporters earlier. we have that press conference in its entirety where at 8:00 p.m. eastern on our companion network, you can join us on c-span2 for books tv. gretchen peters will talk about the taliban, harry stein and his book, ethics and other liabilities, and lily burana on her life as the wife of a military intelligence officer. that starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> this holiday weekend, discover an unfamiliar sight. historian and author john firming on the ascent of george washington. join our 3 our conversation on in that. is part of the 3 day holiday

weekend. >> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded. >> i have no idea. >> government? >> c-span3 gets its funding through taxes. >> federal funding. >> public funding. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago america's cable companies created it as a public service, private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >> an event with navy operations chief, admiral gary roughead, his remarks on the future of the navy last about an hour, this is hosted by ogilvy public relations in washington. >> good morning, i am the managing director in washington. it is a pleasure to see you here

this morning. thank you for coming to our series of lectures. we are honored that admiral gary roughead is here with us today. admiral roughead, chief of operations and a member of the joint chiefs, principal naval advisor to the president and secretary of the navy. and oral -- general roughead leaves the service during a time of printable activity. our country is conducting wars in iraq. at the same time the defense secretary and the obama administration is increasing emphasis on other areas of national security strategy. for example, admiral roughead leaves as the illustration put high priority on areas such as preparing for hybrid and regular warfare and, as we saw last week, cyberof warfare. in a recent speech to the naval

war college, the admiral outlined his views that the u.s. will, quote, face military threats from across the spectrum and no conflict will easily be identified as know -- low end are high end. all of us need to be thinking about that. admiral roughead is putting the navy at signature on the defense review. the review of the military as required by congress, the admiral had a long distinguished career among the high points, the first officer to command -- the admiral is one of two offices to have commanded a fleet in the pacific and atlantic. after his talk he will take questions. >> it is a pleasure to be here with you today.

i don't look forward to getting to your questions. for me in recent events. i have mentioned the need for able debates to enter public discourse. little did i know the efficient public affairs officer would have me in front of a pr firm. one could think that the things we have, what we do globally would be enough to tell our story, like top gun, which i know when it came up the secretary of the army made the comments to the secretary of the navy, i don't know what you guys are doing right, you get top gun and i got full metal jacket. to many of our citizens our

oceans are transparent. paradoxically, the oceans may seem unimportant and invisible, they really are essential to everything we do. if you walk into a wal-mart, i would venture to say the shock that is just outside the entrance to this building, if you were to walk in and stand around, almost everything in there cam across the seas. they are essential into you don't have them, then it becomes a problem. for me, i some of the importance of the ocean in 3 words, commerce, communications, resources. commerce because 90% of all the trade that takes place in the

world is moving on the oceans, communications because 95% of international communications move on the ocean floor, not off of the satellite you often see in the powerpoint slides. the communication on the ocean floor represents $3.2 trillion of trade taking place, and resources, because 65% of the known oil reserves, 35% of the no-reserve our in another area of the continents of the world. that is not to even mention things like tidal power and wind power and power that i believe in the future will be derived from things such as algae. unfortunately, although while we may agree the oceans are important for the reasons i listed, i think the american

people don't have a full or good appreciation of what the navy is doing everyday, and i would like to talk about that a little bit if i could. we still have the firepower that people can conjure up from the old victory at sea movies. our navy is still capable of doing that, but every day our sailors are out carrying out what i call the 6 core capabilities that we set forth in our maritime strategy almost two years ago. those capabilities are, in some ways, what we have been doing over the years. but there have been some additions. the capabilities that i planned for and think about all the time, that we called out, be a forward navy to be globally deployed, to be out and about in this vast maritime domain that you see up here.

to be a navy that has the capability and capacity to be a deterrent force to deter potential adversaries and to ensure friends and partners, to be a navy that can project power, and that power projection can come from aircraft carriers, it can be missiles off of combatants and our submarines or it can be in the form of marines off of amphibious ships, providing for c control, to control areas of oceans where the commander-in-chief may call for that to be done. it is to be able to provide for maritime security, such as what you see happening off the coast of somalia. it is also to respond to disasters as we have done for route our history. in recent years, a new addition to our capability, to provide pro-active humanitarian assistance much like we are doing o