need to respond and i'll end with one thing, the representative to my left. you need to respond to the activism of the court and you saw that in the sotomayor hearings closely and you saw a beginning of that promisingly in the remarks of senators such as al franken and judiciary committee chairman patrick leahy but i think we need to be even more coordinated with that. and christie mentioned the led better ruling and one of the best things we have don't pass the lilly bed ledbetter fair pay act that responds to the ruling by overruling it and there is no better way to sandy message to the supreme court. they are overstepping their bounds, than doing precisely that and what i think we need is a more coordinated effort, to not -- there's a lot of corrective legislation that is

bott bottlenecked right now and representative nadler is a perfect candidate who will view the roberts ruling as on end of -- an end of self and to respond to the activism of the roberts court and with that i'll let you ask another question. >> thank you, jerry nadler is a nine term congressman from new york's 8th congressional district. and he's a champion of civil rights, civil liberties and a host of progressive issues in the house. gong man nadler, sonia sotomayor is clearly a moderate but there were 338 votes against her and it does not signal a change in the supreme court alignment but some acted like it was the last send against quote-unquote liberal judicial activism and how did weaned up here? is this kind of treatment of a nomination unique to the supreme court or will we site in other kinds of nominations to lower

courts or to the positions in government? >> certainly going to be more prominent in the supreme court nominee, because the media pays more attention to it and people pay more tientings and you'll see it in lower court nominees though the records are not as fulsome to make the case, and i think it has been said on the panel we are coming off a -- in the middle of a period of 30 or 40 years, the conservative movement has been making a concerted effort for 30 years to pack the courts, and they pushed their presidency candidates and they have -- and enlivened their base by so doing, and they have affected republican presidential primaries by who is going to pack the courts, with people, who are going to be movement conservatives and that is conservative. justice stevens said that since his nomination by president ford, every, single nominee was

more conservative than the person he or she replaced. and that is true and i agree with you, interest are no liberals on the court with the possible exception, maybe a little of justice stevens. but there is no marshal, goldberg or brennan or warren or black or douglas or... you don't have that kind of leadership on the court today. you have moderates and look at the -- on the court and three or four, depending whether they -- on judge thomas, conservatives, right wing corporatists. and you have holding the swing vote, justice kennedy, who is far more conservative than the previous swing vote, justice o'connor is very conservative but not quite in lock-step with the other four and these four are fairly young. they'll be with us for a long time. and they -- the conservatives made the effort and have done several things, number once had

a change of promotions from the federalist society to the clerkships to the reagan administration to solicitor general's office to llc, to appellate courts and to the supreme court and have a chain of candidates. still in the wings, if we should have another republican president and the liberals on the other hand -- and they've done something else and developed a simple doctrine, two doctrines which they've repeated over and over again, number one, we don't want an activist court. liberals are activists, they will overrule the elected branch of the government and undemocratic and now, by any measure of activism, and the only semi objective measure of activism is how often do you overturn law by congress as unconstitutional and state laws and so forth, this is the most activist court in the history by far, activist on the right wing direction, not the liberal direction, but it is extraordinarily activist court

and is also an activist court in overturning previous settled law. overturning stare decisis, although robert doesn't want to overturn settled law and carves it out and leaves you with a shell in name only and didn't overturn the decision but the law is going exactly the opposite direction and he didn't lie, he can say he didn't lie to the senate, judiciary committee in the confirmation hearings and the ledbetter case and i was one of the authors of the bills to overturn that was an example, 40 years of settled law, perfect example. and they are very activist, number one, though, they have -- they've gotten the mantle that liberals are activists and the warren court and 40 years of propaganda and second of all they have the doctrine of original orders, simple. they claim you shouldn't go beyond or a contrary to the original intent of the court, even though, they do all the time and you don't know what the

original intent of the framers was, and framers probably had no original intent, and tell me thomas jefferson's position on abortion, i'm sure he had a wealth of opposition on abortion or other issues that didn't exist in the 18th century and the constitution consists of very glittering general phrases, due process of law, equal protection, protecting... in terms of modern realities and you can't look at original intention in reality but, nonetheless, it is a -- an appealing thing to say and they've claimed the mantle for it, and, liberals or nominees, where we've only had two presidents and one nominee for the supreme court so far from this one but we've only had two presidents, democratic presidents the last 40 years, except for carter had no nominees at all, and they have nominated briar and ginsburg are

-- business issues -- they are moderate to liberal on other issues, now, we have to start emulating what they do. and we have to seize -- show when they are being activist, as against the elective rules of government, they have a number of goals which are dangerous, number one they want to go to back to pre-new dell and say -- and restrict the ability of congress and the states to restrict corporate power. to regulate the economy, which is another way of saying to restrict corporate power and this case that they ask for reargument on -- in which they look, determined to overturn the ability of congress to restrict corporate campaign contributions, if that happens that will be a complete disaster, and imagine if general electric can decide that it doesn't like some senator or congressman and put $20 million

into the campaign, in one campaign out of corporate coffers, now they have to use the pac and get contribution and it will totally destroy any kind of -- will make national what you have with mayor bloomberg who has $100 million of his own campaign but it could be in every campaign and would be a disaster but we may face it and we have to decide how to fight it. we have to duplicate what they have done on the other side and we have to press democratic presidents to nominate liberals, people who will be leaders on the court and justice sotomayor seems to be moderate. you never really know with a new justice, so who knows, now that -- we'll see, maybe she'll turn into a leader. -- a great liberal leader, hopefully but there is no great reason to expect that but it could happen. we can pray. but we have to push president obama for his next nom nasa to give us a -- some -- that he is

going to be a liberal leader, having been one in private life, the senate, the house or other activity or at a lower court. into thank you, congress manage. the long time president of the alliance for justice and 80 public interests and civil rights organizations, working to advance justice for all americans and is a regular commentator on these kinds of issues and taken off from what the congressman says, the last 30 years we have had three republican presidents and none of them lawyers but they have been careful and tra strategic paw packing the federal courts so much so they almost made the federal society into a prerequisite for anyone to be appointed by a republican to the federal bench. and the last two years we have had two democrat presidents, both of them lawyers and at least the first one by reputation didn't appear to take as much of an interest in

transforming the federal courts. our latest lawyer democrat, has only been en office for a few months. what can we expect, will the obama administration focus on judicial appointments more, focus on changing our federal courts, district court, court of appeals, supreme court, what can we expect. >> thank you very much, and it is a -- really an honor to be on a panel with these individuals, long time heros, of mine, and tom just became the head of law desk which is wonderful for the advocacy community and also, to all of you in this audience, who have done amazing work on this issue, day in, day out. we are very, very grateful to all of you. let me just start out with something jay leno -- not necessarily a hero of mine, but, nevertheless, when there was -- when souter announced what he was leaving the court, jay leno

said, a vacancy on the court? let's just hope the president is better at picking a justice than the justices were at picking a president. [laughter]. >> and i think with justice sotomayor, we have got a really fine jurist on the supreme court. i know that her record, certainly alliance for justice, we did several reports looking at her cases over the years. i think she will be excellent. she's got a wonderful record. and i think we will see from her something like we saw from thurgood marshal, producing something of a marshal effect on the supreme court. i think the dialogue, the conversation among the justices, will change. not only because her -- of her substantive input but also, because she is a person of color, and i think that will inevitably shape a lot of

transpires at the court and that is a very positive thing. having said that, it is important to recognize that not one court of appeals nominee has yet been confirmed by the united states senate. now, court of appeals judges, i don't know that many of us have a firm understanding, but, think of it. think of two numbers when you think of a court of appeals judge. 200 and 300. there are only 200 court of appeals judges in the country for 300 million americans. so think of how powerful those 200 individuals are. years ago, when warren burger was at the helm of the corporate that supreme court decided over 150 cases -- 150 cases -- a year and now the court decides less

than half of that, which means that these appellate-level judges are that much more powerful and that much more influential and yet, not one has been confirmed, because of holds in the senate. what does that suggest for us and going back to the question tom has raised. this president is going to have a very difficult time marshalling the political power and that -- in that institution to move his judges through to confirmation. we saw it during the clinton years. do you know at the end of the clinton administration, over 60 judges were blocked by senate republicans. and if you look -- and i think everyone voted on it -- look at the sotomayor confirmation you notice we only got 6 -- no, eight republicans, and this was

a nominee with a mainstream record, and a stellar, stellar academic and professional record behind her, which means that no matter who president obama sends to the senate for the court of appeals to the supreme court to the district court, those republicans are going to vote against that nominee. there is no question about it. it is a critical issue to the right wing base of the republican party. and even though this woman enjoyed broad public support, representative a critical constituency group and growing constituency, in this country, very few republicans ended up voting for her. so, what does that mean for us,

going forward? and what does that mean for president obama? one, the president has to make a priority of naming progressive justices and judges to the court. these are individuals with a strong commitment to core constitutional values who will be leaders and strong voices, not just on the supreme court, but the lower courts as well. two, it is -- has got to become a priority for our united states senate and for harry reid, our majority leader. he has got to begin to work with not simply republicans, they are not going to vote for these democrats, but, for democrats, the moderate democrats who are afraid of standing up and voting for good, progressive judges. he's got to approach those moderate democrats.

he has got to buttress those democrats. we have to do our bit to give those democrats -- and we know who they are -- confidence and standing up for good judges. we need to ensure that the senators on the senate judiciary committee step up to the plate as well. now, we know judge sotomayor, now justice sotomayor as doug mentioned was a little bit timid at those hearings but she had a job to do and that was to get confirmed. the senators on that judiciary committee, particularly those democrats, have to articulate as everyone has said, a very broad vision of why judges are important. why courts are important. and why we need strong progressives on these courts and

so we all have our bit to do. i am very, very confident that people in this room and listening will do that job. and we have got to ensure that at the end of eight years of the obama administration, and i'm an optimist -- eight years of the obama administration we'll have these court of appeal and district courts and the supreme court doing justice around the country, and protecting our rights and free documents for all americans. thank you very much. >> thank you, nan. kristin. you smaukd about the importance of what the supreme court does for the american public and then alluded to think, predicted, correctly, that justice sotomayor will be a different kind of justice and she brings personal experiences and professional experiences in her -- that are not currently represented on the court and she

will bring that unique perspective. it is also true that in our history, there have been a happenedful of justices -- who have been -- justice sotomayor is replacing david souter who was a surprise, certainly to president bush who nominated him and to some of those pro predicted how he might act as a justice. nan talked also a little bit about the kinds of experiences that justicings have had. given the importance of the supreme court to the public, what can the public do, what should the public do, to influence justices as they develop, particularly, new ones, to influence the choices, the kinds of experiences that we're looking for, in judges and justices? what should the american public do to manifest the very important interest in what the supreme court does that you talked about earlier. >> i think one of the best

things people can do is to stay involved in politics both that the local level and the state and national level especially, and i know, now, one of the ways is we have an election every couple of years, where we reelect folks in the house and a third of the senate, at the national level, and i'm sure that representative nadler is all too aware of that. but, you know, we need to elect more progressive folks into office and from there, those -- especially the ones in the senate will be the ones who make decisions, who vote on judges who are coming through not just for the supreme court which does get the lions share of the media attention but also for all of those, circuit and appellate court level judges that come through and now there is a judge who has been nominated by president obama, whose nomination has been stalled for a little over 7 months, david

ham the t hamilton and jim inhofe has had a hold on him back and forth since the time his nomination came forward and he is basically stuck in limbo and we have seen -- it is not just judges, it is legal positions, have to come an enormous political background on the right and it has been bubbling up since the reagan administration and ed meese and has been a planned effort on the righted and we don't see that same plan from folks on the left and that really is a shame. because, if we are not exerting the same public pressure on the left, if we can't be bothered to pay attention to care, to make phone calls, to our members of congress, to right letters to the editor, to work on these issues in our own towns, you know, with our union groups or with individual women's rights groups, all of the different aspect that go into this, if we can't be bothered to do this, then the only voices people inside the beltway are hearing,

are loud, angry voices from the right. which means that what we get are moderate to right leaning candidates and the left wing gets shut out altogether. when i was growing up my granny used to tell me that the squeaky wheel is this one that gets the grease and we need to be more of the squeaky wheel. make those calls, to your members of congress. pay attention to the decisions when they come down. you know, we have talked about the ledbetter case and there were any number of national security cases that have been decided. the fisa case which, instead of being looked at by the court, was denied cert recently by the supreme court which would have been a very classic battle between the legislative and the executive branch but they declined to hear that particular case. there are so many things that come up, that liberals should take an interest in. because they deal with our individual liberty. they deal with civil liberties that are enumerate in this bill

of rights and our constitutional rights and deem with so many things that impact our daily lives and if we see the floor on those, if we don't stand up and say, our piece or make our voices heard, then the only voices they are hearing are the voices from the federal society from operation rescue and from all of those right wing groups who fund-raise on outrage, that they manage to gin up from the right wing base. we need to be doing the same, because if we are not talking, loudly, about what we believe in, then nobody is going to hear us, if we are not doing i. >> thank you, christie. doug? you talked about progress identify or conservative activism. in the court system. one of the things that justice sotomayor was criticized for during her confirmation process was for acknowledging what i would consider to be self-evident, which is the judges make policy, and she was

criticized for that. you talked a little bit about some of the other dialogue that has been set by the right, and how we can change that. how do you combat criticism that is based on something so ludicrous as an assertion that somehow judges don't make policies? as i said, if judges didn't make policy all of those conservative guys wouldn't be so interested in being on the bench. how do we come pat that kind of dialogue? >> that is a tough question. i don't know that... i think i mean, it was even worse than that, because what she said was actually that judges set precedent for lower courts, appeals court judges, which this is most bane nal point you can possibly make about the role of the supreme court and it was turned into, she's -- you know, an asertings servings she was saying judges make broader social policy which in context is not what she men and the one-off even of the pointed you are making and i don't think you

can ever -- the confirmation process has bogged down to the point where we are talking about just about nothing in them, in that, it is all focused on the critics of the nominee, because that is where the press sees the action. they focus -- and the critics of the nominee focus on some very, three cases out of 3,000 that she decided, a few snippets taken out of context in the speeches, the entire case against sotomayor, and all of these important issues about what the supreme court has before it, what it is deciding, what the court -- you know, the constitution point, in these -- and the profound differences between conservatives and progressives about those very real legal issues, get completely drowned out, and i think one of the things that was interesting about the hearing was how many democratic senator,

russ feingold, al franken, senator specter, talked about, we ned to make this process more informative. we have to make this about the very real issues that we -- the court is actually wrestling with and debating. how that gets -- how we get there, i think, senator cole and senator feingold made some suggestions. i don't know that any of them have any real life in the senate process but it is something that we should all be as citizens insisting upon. >> thank you. congressman. doug mentioned early that you had been a sponsor of the legislation that overturned the ledbetter decision. historically there were only a few instances where congress chooses to overrule, virtually directly a decision wrongly made by the supreme court. and the process for getting them passed are always daunting. so, is there a role in the

future, a bigger role for these kinds of legislative acts, that overrule decisions by the supreme court? is that something that is -- the progressive activist community should be focused on? >> it is something the progressive activist community can be focused on but only where several conditions hold. one, where the decision of the supreme court is based on statutory, not constitutional grounds. where it is interpreting a statute. and the ledbetter decision was a decision interpreting section 7 of the civil rights act. and, they completely went against not only 40 years of interpretation but the plain meaning of the text and it was an egregious grasp of power and we had a majority in the house and couldn't pass it the year before and had a majority is on the and the senate and the president signed it and we were able to do it. there are others we should go through and do others. many of the very bad decisions will be constitutionally ground and that you cannot do anything

about, except, waited for a new supreme krt or pass a constitutional amendment, given the makeup of the senate is almost impossible and one other role for congress, believe it or not. the supreme court, this restrained, judicially restrained supreme court has done something incredible, with as a democrat with a small d and member of congress a find offensive, starting with the bernie decision in 1997, which i found -- it overturned a law i helped right, but that aside, part of the language of that decision said that we're going to -- that congress can't do something unless it makes a record that it is reasonable to do and well, the court, will second guess the reasonableness. well, the reasonableness of

something is of quint -- a quintessentially legislative decision, not the supreme court but they have made the ruling and i presided personally over 17 hearings to design -- designed to make the record that section 5 -- the voting rights act was still necessary, we did this back in '05, '06, '07, i shouldn't say i presided, i was ranking minority member of the subcommittee at the time and later became the chairman. we went through thousands of pages of hearings, thousands of pages of testimony, to make the record that we shouldn't have had to make, we should have had the power to determine that for ourselves and we made the record and yet the court almost overturned it, now. we have to spend a lot of time and effort making a record to protect decent legislation against attack on the supreme court. the other thing, is making a record a different way. one of the major thrusts of the

bush administration, and one of the major dangers is the aggregation of power in the executive branch, and in the name of national security, the -- under the war powers, the doctrine of -- the ability of the president, the ability of the president to the do things on his own to national security and the ability of the president to designate someone an enemy combatant and hold you in jail without pedue process and the torture cases we are getting, we have to be energetic in pushing back against this. now, the supreme court by one vote margin in a number of cases, pushed back against the most energetic, most extreme claims and some of these claims go back to overturning magna carta, 800 years of tradition,

and that is how -- it was too much for the supreme court -- by one vote. and it is important for us to hold hearings to show it was done and show the torture and show the reasoning and to push the administration now, on holding accountable people who violate our laws of the previous administration, war crimes, all of this, the supreme court exists to a large extent above the political fray but also part of it. mr. dooley said the supreme court follows... and we can push back on that. >> thank you. nan, taking off from the earlier -- when the congressman talked about the notion of originalism and the only thing that matters is what the founders thought the constitution meant but there is a counter current that says the constitution is a living document and all of us have something to say about what it means and what it might mean in the future.

what can the general public do, what can the american public do to try to frame what that living document means as it evolves in the future, terminal as we look to a future where issues that were never anticipated like abortion, that was mentioned previously but like gay marriage, never anticipated, by the founders, what can we do to lay the groundwork for progressive decisions, in the future about what our constitution means? >> well, i think that conservatives on the supreme court long articulated the view of originalism, that you go back to the original intent of the founders to determine the -- some meaning and application of the law to every day problems, and i think most of us recognize that the founders of that constitution were a very small,

select, elitist set of individuals, not to be selective, all white males, but i think we should recognize that -- and kendall has done a lot of thinking and writing about this, and we think of the constitution not so much in terms of what those individuals thought but in terms of every day reality of life. and, therefore, we have seen some amazing decisions come down from the supreme court, on privacy, civil rights, some in terms of vinyl protections, and gun rights is another topic that gets caught between the debate between originalism and evolving constitution. but i don't really think that --

that is the heart of the intellectual debate that goes on around the courts. but i think the debates are much more, at this point, a political one, to debate between original intent and evolving notions of decency and -- certainly the underpinning of how republicans talk about the courts. but, i think for us progressives, this is a debate about power. and we have to recognize the fact that in order to control the debate, that takes place going forward, that we have got to amass political power and leverage around the courts. how many times did we hear

republican senators use the term "judicial activists." or we want judges who interpret the law, not make the law. this is really just a smoke screen for republican attempts to prevent the obama administration from confirming judges who respect constitutional rights and freedoms. it is just a smoke screen. but it sends an important message out to the right wing base of the republican party, don't worry, we are there for you, we'll keep these pro depressives off the bench, we'll -- progressives off the bench and wait and hold seats open until the time we can get a republican president-elect and put more sam alitos and more john roberts on the federal courts and on the supreme court.

so, let's remember, there is a very important intellectual debate going on around the courts. and a number of groups are doing some very important work at articulating a different notion of justice. but, for all of us in this room, this is a political debate. and as much as we may not like the fact that the confirmation process has been dumbed down over the years, judges have been political from the beginning of the republicans. even george washington's first nominee to the supreme court was defeated because of votes he took on the jay treaty. judgeships are designed to be political decisions. that is why we have got a president who nominates and a

senate that confirms and so let's all decide once and for all that we are going to just beat the other guys at this game. >> those of you in the hall i invite you to join the political debate, there is a microphone in the middle of the room if you would like to go to the microphone and ask questions. yes, sir. >> i have a couple part question. the people who follow the general news are not able to understand what goes on in our country. and then, secondly, we have the problem, the basics that you are talking about... >> can't hufrment closer to teae mic, perhaps. >> the first point is if people follow the regular news in this country they cannot understand the issues. the news is not dealing with the complexities of it but on this issue, the basics, basic understanding of what you are talking about is not known in

our country and, now that in many states, civics is not even taught in high school any more, we have got maybe a generation of people who need to be educated on this. >> that is why people should read firedoglake.com, there are a lot of bloggers and alternate media sources who are trying to fill in a lot of those media gaps, a lot of the media have gotten shortened down to 30 second sound bites for what people are trying to do and the long discussion and intelligent debate types of shows a lot of us grew up on don't exist very much any more though bill moyers i think does a fantastic job on pbs on fridays but i think the information is out there, it is just that people have to dig for it and that really is unfortunate, because a lot of people don't bother to dig and that is where all of us come in, in making sure that people we go in our local community or our

families or our friends or whatever there are better sources of information, and, you know, can look for those themselves and i think that is a good first step. it is not a solution but at least it is a first step. >> and what about this next generation, when you all learn in high school the you. >> dish year is the third branch of government and not much more and what should our teachers be teaching high school and middle school students in order to engage them in the process? >> well, obviously, they should teach civics but they should teach reality, too. and the reality that they should teach is that the courts have played a major role in the american government, not just as umpires, i mean, to hear the nonsense in the confirmation hearing, the courts are umpires and call the balls and strikes and don't make decisions an decide things, that is absurd and courts decide very profound issues and the u.s. is one of

the few societies where we have in effect judicial supremacy, since marbury versus madison the courts decide issues which you can't second-guess them and the other branch of government cannot second guess it and -- except with extraordinary difficulty and i would also think that we should teach the history of the courts, some of the key decisions the questions of individual liberty, how that has fared an the question of the incorporation of the bill of rights over the years, to be binding on the states, not just the federal government, and the fact that property rights are elevated and almost all types of the history of the republic except for after the -- 1937 and the new deal and the warren court now, we seem to be going back in the other direction and the fact that the supreme court for most of its history, one of our best authority, wrote a piece, a new book on the history of the supreme court, as a major reactionary bulwark for most of

its history except for the few years after the new deal and the warren court and, which comes out nicely in that book, and which any student of the court knows, but would be useful to point out, especially in terms of current debates, and things are not foreseeable. fdr placed i think nine members of the court, appointed nine members of the court and destroyed the anti-new deal, anti-government regulation and pro court consensus that existed and everyone he put on the court was willing to say this government has the ability to pass wage and hour laws and to regulate the economy. and new issues then came along, what about, does it make it a crime to be a part of the communist party and free speech in the context of the cold war and the fdr appointees, went in two different directions, and black and douglas going in one direction and the others in the other and you have a completely

divide court from what was unit normally liberal, in appointees and we should also teach that new issues come up and you cannot always assume. you can't even be totally secure -- unfortunately now we could be pretty sure but can't be totally sure that 20 years from now, the conservatives of the court will agree on issues that we cannot foresee right now. >> i put $50 down they still would be. >> probably. you cannot be totally sure. >> doug? >> one point, which is, i think the point the gentleman made is incredibly important. we don't teach, you know, the civics lessons are -- are just shockingly bad. and let me give you one example which is, how we teach the reconstruction amendment. i think the reconstruction amendments are the heart and soul of the constitution and eliminated slavery and granted -- made equality and liberty at the center of our constitution

and they gave the free slaves the right to vote. those amendments more than any other part of the constitution are the heart and soul of the constitution, and the framers of those amendments should be on a level of madison and hamilton and the people who wrote this original constitution and they are viewed in our civic textbooks and history textbooks as drunks and people who didn't know what they were thinking about... scaliwags, because the jim crow story and wrote the history we are still learning and that history is now out of the ph.d. history books. and out of the constitutional historians books but has not filtered up to the supreme court and filtered down to the high school textbooks and so, you are right. we have to not just talk heral we have to go into our schools and teach history right if we are going to turn the debate around. >> sir. >> i want to ask about how the

structure of the legal profession creates a problem for getting progressives on the court. the way the hiring practice works for the lawyers who are identified at the earliest in their careers, as being exceptionally talented, the ones who go to the best schools, and the ones who do very well and become the federal judges and so on and so forth it is very, very easy for those attorneys to find jobs in elite corporate-side law first an almost all of them do and it is actually very difficult to find a job early in your career, no matter what your resume says, in an elite public interest story, one of the elite plaintiffs side law first and there are not the volume of jobs there that are available and what it means is that, first of all, someone can be a democrat in good standing, even though they spend their crier helping drug companies get immune from state laws or helping the cigarette companies get immunity from verdicts they think are too

large. but, if someone spent their career working for a plaintiffs firm or a union firm or working for a public defender, they might as well erect a sign over their head that says communist when they come up for a confirmation hearing because they have made a very visible decision to not take the path of least resistance and do something that, you know, demonstrates their liberal values and at the same time when job roberts was up for confirmation, no one looked at the fact that he was a partner in a big corporate law firm, and said, oh, well that is a sign that these are his values, because it is considered a -- acceptable for a democrat to have the same job, and work on the same cases and we don't impugn an ideology to them because of that. how is that a framework that we can work within or do we need to push lawmakers to hold people who have john roberts resumes, you know, to impugn something

onto them in the same way we would someone who spent their entire career working for unions or as a public defender? >> i can talk to that. one other point you left out, that was a great question. about john roberts is he actually hid his involvement in the federal society from the senate and the rest of the public until some enterprising reporter disclosed that he has long been involved with the workings of the federal society. you are absolutely right. there is almost, i think, almost a force of -- a fourth of the republican appointed court of appeals judges belong to the federal society which is -- as you all know is an organization which encourages young

conservative republicans to become judges. actually recruits young conservatives for judgeships around the country. and we saw during the clinton years that individuals who belong to the aclu, the n.a.a.c.p., anyone who had been involved in work against robert bork's confirmation in 1987 was automatically excluded from list of candidates. i am pleased to say, that we have submitted a slated of candidates to the white house. of individuals who have spent time in public defenders offices, legal services offices, union side law offices, president obama is about to nominate some union-side lawyers for some of the influential court of appeals. but, let's not kid ourselves.

that is wonderful. but once these nominees hit the senate, their going to be attacked. based on their records. and that is the work that is before all of us. to stand up for them, and to ensure that the senators don't get fearful of attacks by the right, because, those attacks will come. but, we have got to push lawyers from many different backgrounds. it is -- we have seen eight years of the not only members of the federal society, ascend to the bench but also u.s. attorneys, prosecutors, and large corporate lawyers, at the very least, we ought to have corporate leaders who have demonstrated commitments to public interest causes and law. they need to have shown in their careers that they have done work

in furtherance of the poor, people living at the margins. so i think that is a very good point and something that we ought to really work for to change. >> kind add one thing here? you see a pattern even with democratic presidents. when you look at the lower federal court, federal trial benches, if you look at the state courts, certainly, i can talk about new york, if you look at the state courts you see people who come from legal aid and you see people from come from da's offices, legal service, all kinds of things. and the moment you hit the federal court, it is corporate law. people who are not involved in local politics and never were involved in the local bench, were not involved in legal aid or anything, the democratic nominee -- first of all, the senators, senator schumer and i don't need to pick him out but they form review committees, to look at a nominee -- nominees to

the courts and first thing they want to know is what law firm were you in and you can be a state supreme court justice and you can be a state justice but you will not go to the federal bench and that has to be changed, too. >> you're right. >> my question is for -- comes off of -- a actually don't know his name, the gentleman who asked the question before me, which is, how do we develop a stable of highly qualified advocates in appellate and supreme court advocacy for the progressive mutual and the reason i ask this is, 40 years ago, the most experienced supreme court advocates were general counsel of the aclu and the n.a.a.c.p. and gec for the afl/cio. >> excuse me [sneezing].

>> and now, the american center for law and justice... a nice job for the aclu. and the night job equivalent for the ac l and there is research about this, and identifying that experience matters before the supreme court and talking about the corporate capture of what they call the supreme court bar and talking about how the presence of the supreme court bar, whether representing corporate or public interests, had had an enormous effect on the courts in public interest law, i think, when -- i think when the highly experienced advocates including john roberts when he was an attorney, appeared before the court, they win for petitioners 76% of the time and respondents, 51% of this time which is remarkable considering that the court reverses the lower court 55% of

the time. and so my question is, how do we get some of that, some of that power, that advocates have, over the supreme court, and bring it into our movement? >> one of the ways that i think interviews especially and progressives really need to do a lot of work is in infrastructure building. especially in the legal areas. you look at the infrastructure that the right wing started building when they put together the federalist society, when they put together a lot of the legal groups an advocacy organizations to back them up. they put together a very strong organization in the college republicans and actively recruit from college republicans to find people who do media work, that they fund media scholarships to do media training so they can better -- appear on tv shows and do talk circuit stuff and learn how to do the 50 second sound

bites all of the talking head shows absolutely love and you see that same thing in the way that recruiting is done for folks who are in law schools, if you are known as a conservative law student, a number of the federalist society within your law school, you may get tapped to a special clerkship or one of the more conservative judge and i know several of the judges hope to d.c. circuit specifically do a lot of recruiting pretty heavily from the d.c. law schools and from harvard and yale, and laura ingraham, a fairly well-known talk show host used to be a clerk for judge -- justice clarence thomas. and you have seen a lot of that through the years. and the infrastructure that underpins that, pays for salaries, pays for housing, pays for a lot of stuff for folks who work on magazine internships with, you know, "the national review," or with the other

organizations who are involved in that. there is no -- there is no liberal response to that. i mean, there is none. i blog every day, you know, the little bit of money it takes to keep the servers going, comes in a lot of times either from ad revenue or from, you know, the donations that come in from our readers who are fantastic for the web site. and you know, i do work on legal issues every, single day, we have had -- i know a panel that i did a couple years ago with chairman conyers, and he scolded me for sending far too many phone calls to his office, a couple of weeks before i did the panel because he thought i was trying to say hi before i did the panel and it is funny, we get a lot of push going on the liberal side but we don't get -- you know, there may be the myth that george soros funds all of you, but i'm still waiting for that check! that doesn't happen. and, on the right, you know, the

skates, pittsburgh alums, people in several different groups on the right, fund a lot of that, unless we don't -- on the left we don't do that and set the infrastructure up to push left wing judges forward. to push lawyers on the left forward. and we need to think about ways to do that. >> let me say -- >> one brief comment, if i can. the conservatives have done everything that we talked about. liberals on the other hand, the skates on the liberal side, people who are liberal and have a lot of money and want to contribute, tend to contribute to human services. and that is all to the good. but, it means there has not been a lot of money to set up the heritage foundation, and unless that changed the last few years because we've realized the necessity of it and same for things in the judicial area. you have to find that through those flan pisz.

>> and the -- i thank you both for your answer, i like it very much. unfortunately we have only four minutes left and i want to give the panelists one minute each, to sum up what you think the action plan from here should be. christie? >> i think people being more involved, is really the plan that i would say. you know? call your members of congress. call your senators. one think i would like to see happen the next few weeks would be for don johnson's nomination to the office of legal counsel to finally get approved. [applause]. >> dawn johnson has been held up far too long and we need to make law, especially pro depressive law a priority. -- progressive law a priority. >> that is similar to what i would say, we need to all be following what the roberts court is doing. and responding to them directly, as the rulings come along and it is hard to do because they don't always rule when you expect them

to and they always rule -- don't always rule exactly how you expect them to but over the next 7 or 8 years, the roberts court is going to be showing its stripes over the course of rulings, and it could come very quickly in the citizens united campaign finance case, but we have to look for opportunities and this is what the right did, very effectively, starting 40 years ago. where they started to pounce on the criminal procedural rulings of the warren court and brand them as activists and started running campaigns against the warren court. we have got to start doing the same thing with the rulings of the roberts court and we could see one that comes quickly and could see them over time but we need to be looking for them and starting to -- as was said, develop clinical strategies around the courts that actually work. >> i would agree with that but i would add that we have to also pressure members of congress,

and, most importantly, the administration. if the present -- pressure the administration to say we want to see liberal leaning judges not just liberal judges but people who take a leading activist role as liberal judges and second of all we want to see the administration take good legal positions, when dawn johnson is there, we want to see for example the accountability for the torture and we want to see that the people who wrote the torture memos are not ruled out of consideration for prosecution. maybe they didn't have the legal intent and maybe -- you cannot automatically say we'll have a special prosecutor only for some of the small fry, and so, these are kinds of things we ought to be pushing the administration on, on these and on state secrets and those kinds of issues that are very important to civil liberties. >> last word is yours now. >> all right. well, i would agree with everyone. i think we have to pressure harry reid and let him know how important it is to stop -- start

confirming some of these judges as well as christie said, dawn johnson and other executives, positions at the justice department, too, when our senators come home, you know, they get a lot of questions about health care and the environment, and obviously, that is really important. we ought to make sure that any time any of us knead meets with a senator we talk about judges. they don't hear from us enough and there ought to be at least one question, any time they are at home, about the importance of appointing strong and progressive judges and, finally, we have all pointed out, a lot of this is local. and what the right did very effectively is in communities around the country, recruit candidates for the federal bench. and then help put together a little campaign so that they

would be selected by the senators in their states. we have got to do the same. it is a local issue. and we can identify some wonderful judges, but it means that we have got to coalesce around these candidates, and work with them, so they are chosen by the bar association and by the senate commission and then we'll be there at the national level, to try to fend off some of these attacks. we saw more involvement, more engagement, more law professors, more law student, support sonya sotomayor than any other supreme court nominee in years, so i know the enthusiasm is there. and we have just got to act on it. thank you. >> there you have it, beginnings of a -- an effort to turn the supreme court into a supremely accountable court and i want to