nearly 30 years. >> the same doctor. >> same doctor. i'm curious. what was the difference? >> sees good. [laughter] >> you said when you were first diagnosed the first time, it was a wake-up call. >> it turns out the along can go off every once in awhile. >> in late 2009 you get diagnosed for the second time. what went through your head? ..

>> in then you meet with the oncologist that says it is called the garden variety

zero or whenever and actually the bad news and a good news it is it is incurable so i consider myself very lucky. >> i will ask when mark question from the audience. how is your question towards living life reflect your two battles with mortality? >> getting back to the balance i think you have to think about all of the things that you do to enjoy work to create things but there are so many other parts of life that you need to do justice to and explore. to finance balance is such an important thing. when these things happen to realize the importance of key friends and family and then you ask yourself if i only have limited time 12 focus on? so you go through the soul-searching process. >>host: one team to go back to lakeside school when

you were dumpster diving looking foreclosure? if that were to happen now with the age of the application in mobile devices of facebook and twitter would you think they would be looking for in that dumpster? >> i am sure there is so coffee stains in seattle. [laughter] but i think today the rate at which people adopt technology is breathtaking. talking earlier about how do get them excited about becoming programmers or developing things? there are so many kids that are excited to spend hours on line with the

role-playing or first person shooter or whenever i was interested in how anything worked inside internally. and how does it do graphics? those are the engineers of the future so we have to put on our thinking caps to figure out kids today in being the creators of tomorrow. >> tiger appear a few blocks from here what is interesting is going through the museum downstairs the first 2,000 years of the computer, a form the were there during the birth of the personal computer revolution i have somebody who has directly benefited from that he was able to create a life for myself and was the way to go i wanted to personally thank you for that

>> greetings fellow dead heads. [laughter] costs your favorite album is why? [laughter] hello. it is great to be here with my pal of and his terrific book, really great book and timing is everything. i want to tell one little story. costs when i went to college with the woman who later went to work for the "wall street journal" in as far as we could tell disappears from the face of the earth she was supposedly writing the book nobody had heard from her or of the book would come back and years passed and finally in the spring of 1990 this book comes out it came out the week anita hill testifies in

front of the senate judiciary committee and my friend was susan and the book was called back glass. sometimes it takes out well because i thought about that because just four jeffs benefit john roberts decided to get into a nasty fight with barack obama. [laughter] but then congress decided to pass a potentially controversial involved major piece of legislation that may wind up before the supreme court all for your benefit. [laughter] [applause] my publicist and i worked this out very carefully your last book mutual contempt the relationship between rfk and lbj was a wonderful book and anyone interested in that period, jess's one of the first that made great

use of the white house tapes. you have these people in realtime talking about the subject of the book. been your return several years later to the crisis of the mid thirties. why? >> i will speak specifically to the crisis and the minute i am drawn to stories of conflict which is of the 20th century which is the greatest constitutional crisis. >> three getting a little ringing in the sound system or is that just me? have i been at too many dead concerts? [laughter] is everybody okay? i am sorry. >> there is no colors surly. [laughter] i am drawn to narratives of conflict because of the clash between lbj or rfk or the supreme court, a fundamental issues are

brought to the fore and these two institutions and individuals are fighting. >> host: let's talk about the plot of the supreme power. set the stage 1935. what is happening with regard to fdr and the new deal and the supreme court involvement? >> kid star's too essentially declared the new deal to be against the law and begins in earnest to strike down new deal programs but the centerpiece of the new deal with the national recovery administration and the nra and a agricultural investment act and the farm program and they weren't knockdown to short six -- succession there is a

question and if they could get anything fundamental done in the country with roosevelt because the supreme court stands in the way of everything not just the federal government but this states because meanwhile they are passing laws trying to implement minimum wages and a court begins to strike in earnest these parts of registration with the court seems to have tied uncle sam up into a knot and we were not sure how to get out. >> host: even though nobody is nearly old enough to remember franklin roosevelt i think he is a familiar figure. talk about who was on the supreme court. who were they? >> the old that day shall the score in american history what people were aware of been known as the nine old men the oldest was

brandeis but there were many others to were nearly as old and the court was reliable but not consistently conservative there was a clear sense from the time roosevelt was elected that there would be a confrontation between fdr an accord. not simply they were old but many of the older justices were 19th century men in spirit. you have willis to was old enough to remember watching but abraham lincoln and a funeral procession and also a chief justice who was on the court previously and charles evans hughes when he was a student at brown university not only had no running water in his dorm bid to closets one for the stuff and one for the coal.

>> my favorite is james who has the story goes was such the appalling anti-semite would leave the conference room when brandeis would speak. >> natalee that when cardoza was inducted as a justice he was forced to sit this their money so he pulled out but miss -- newspaper and wrestled it very loudly throughout the ceremony. >> that is the core. who was the chief justice? >> charles evans hughes. i will say something about him in a second but the only -- the other thing to know about the court did not use the term at the time but it was a very activist core. it was overturning federal law 10 times the previous

rate it was the courts on a mission and the conservative justices did see it as a mission or a holy war against communism and anarchy which they saw in the new deal. >> what was the rationale for the legal reason that all of these new deal laws were in the constitution? >> there were those from the contracts clause and the substantive process and all of the things that are used to strike down the programs. many old doctrines' were revised but fundamentally the notion of constitutionality was through to the 19th century with the low was a fair and of the sense of constitutionality implies a limited government, states'

rights in a constitution of limitations. it was not as roosevelt felt, a broad avenue through which a lot of things could pass. sometimes as one of the justices said. >> host: one of those that comes up is a question that i thought about a lot is how much of our the justices applying principles and letting the chips fall where they may? how much are they finding legal principles to accommodate a political result they want to reach? as we get to the critical new deal period how does that trade-off? >> guest: there was a lot of precedents that could be applied whether the four

roosevelts and no shortage of opportunities for the conservatives to do that but also a lot of opportunities to sustain legislation both options were there in front of the court. what you see during this period is you see the justices scrambling in some cases for doctrines that happen out of favor for decades. that everybody thought had declared dead decades before now suddenly they apply them with vigor to the new deal cases we applied two of them to the same case and they could have decided on the narrow grounds and the most sweeping grounds possible so essentially pre-emptively declaring any legislation of of this kind unconstitutional. >> host: fdr the protagonist of the book and of the period talk about the

attitude of the court some great figures of american history, a talk about how he looked up the court as a political institution between him and the court. >> he saw the court as a political institution. that probably doesn't surprise anybody here but in the 1932 campaign gave a campaign speech i opened the book with this. chapter one. he goes to baltimore 1932. because of the republican rule generally we have control of warehousing congress and also of the supreme court. but it was explosive at the time or the republicans tried that he would supply

the supreme court was in politics. shocking. it still some is today but when put on the judicial robes the party with the politics. he might take a vital interest but they were above this thing and roosevelt never bought back. one of the first things he asked the new attorney general cummings to do was to figure out how many of the appointees and judges on the federal bench all levels had been appointed by republicans and democrats? there were only 28% of federal judges were democrats by affiliation. they felt they had a problem on the federal bench and roosevelt did not think this was about the constitution but special interests and

politics. >> host: alter his first term he had problems with the laws getting overturned. when does the idea stir to percolate to do something about the court itself? >> interestingly for the first time before he is inaugurated, he is aware there will be a confrontation with this court and talk about the inevitable if rose about keeps after the promises there will be a confrontation so one of the key supporters the incoming senator from california sits down with the incoming attorney general to say what will we do about the court? and the old fossils? the floated the idea they would pass the constitutional amendment to relegate any justice past the age of 722 emeritus status. this begins to circulate in the press even before very

many new deal programs were passed. >> the notion is in the air even early in the first term. one of the curiosities of the supreme court that people don't realize is the number of justice this is not established in the constitution and nothing that says that is a creation of congress by law. talk about that concept. >> it is an amazing thing to consider most people don't think of it this way but tomorrow the congress could decide to increase the justices to the number 17 and nothing suggests that it cannot do so. the founders left the number deliberately the open question and in 1789 it was

set at six and it went up and down over the 19th century. sometimes other reasons of efficiency and we needed more justices but normally a matter of politics and there were a series of presidents beginning with metacenter jackson who kept coming to congress to say i want more justices and more appointees on the court congress eliminated two seats on the supreme court just to deny johnson and the chance to appoint anybody. >> host: that is an extraordinary story. only under a grant it went up at nine and has remained ever since. when does court packing become more of a conversation with one senator to a proposal? finreg the idea that never really it establishes very

much. in the year from the beginning to track when roosevelt starts to get letters suggesting it and really does happen right away. it is a fringe idea. somebody says of course, you could do that but it is outrageous. that is what most of the roosevelt advisers said so most of the discussion is not about packing the court but amending the constitution. when things really come to a head there were 100 separate constitutional amendments propose to do with the supreme court to strip away their right of judicial review all together, i am not sure what is left of the court if you do that for social and economic or to

allow the congress to overrule the court by the two-thirds vote. these were very much in the air the country in washington in particular was like a rolling constitutional convention. this was a national discussion or debate radio programs and constant coverage in of press. when roosevelt wins the landslide reelection something will happen he has to do something about the court it will be a constitutional amendment surely. >> host: how does that evolves? >> as everybody gets higher on the idea of amending the constitution, roosevelt's hours. one is purely pragmatic and felt it would take too long and too hard to amend the

constitution. >> host: to go through the state legislatures and it is cumbersome. >> there was a practical argument but roosevelt did not think there is any contradiction between the constitution and the new deal and thought it wasn't a problem of the constitution but this group of justices actually those group of five. his focus became how do we do something quick in expedient and do it without disrupting the fabric of the constitution? it should not stand in the way of what the new deal was meant to accomplish. he comes back to the idea been in the air all along. >> mccourt packing is how it is described by a lot of people don't know what the

proposal was. how is it made public? what was roosevelt proposal? >> the proposal that roosevelt thought was very clever and to a camera while taking the attorney general to arrive they wanted to expand the size of the supreme court to outnumber the conservatives and gave up the idea so what you do? you outnumber them but they were stock on what kind of principle they could hang this on. they went back to the very beginning with the question of kj and the argument was for any justice who had passed a certain age, that the president refused to resign or retire the

president has the right to appoint another justice to join them on the court. [laughter] in 1937 if he always got what he asked for he would have gotten to appoint six new justices overnight. there would have been 15. they said to limit at 15 even if all nine were 80 years old they could only reach a ceiling of 15. this was part of the problem with the plan. a one that you suggested the number was reached in 1969 so nobody remembered it had been anything like that. also there was a sense it was sacrosanct but also the feeling that this was the

insult to old people and you have these three distinguished jurist in the view of brandeis as the oldest member of the accord. then you have the added problem that was about couched the plan and the argument not about ideology but efficiency. and implied the older justices were falling behind in their work that was true across its the federal bench sony more justices at every level. this didn't fool anyone. >> when was it made public? >> this was the first inauguration in january? he is inaugurated january january 20th, he proposes

this two weeks later? >> yes. >> host: what is the public's reaction even as a

conservative champion through free speech so there was the feeling on the part of a lot of liberals and catholics and others that there is a lot to lose to roosevelt the next president if he was a conservative and his appointees. >> host: what i find the most dramatic from your book is the imagination and response of the court itself and they were simultaneously the focus of this controversy at not technically allowed to speak out under the rules of decorum how did said justices respond?

neve was the wrong bit -- strongest supporters and brandeis was the supporter for the most part. >> but he thought the nra and aaa was a disaster so even as he was deeply involved with members of the administration that were mentored he had suspicions about this centralization of power. but he was strongly opposed and thought they do great damage to the institution of the supreme court once it became a political football. some talked among themselves about resigning if it passed and you seek your question during this period there chafing at the constraints of being supreme court

justice is in not being able to say anything publicly. this starts to breakdown of of the. the most extreme conservative do is a public speech to his fraternity brothers and talks a lot about sportsmanship. >> were they surprised was cool it was? >> i think it was vanderbilt so reynolds speaks out and there was a little tempest about that but charles evans hughes is working behind the scenes to discredit the plan the notion that the justices are behind within their work. within days of the launch, hughes has the leading political reporter for the "washington post" bring them into his chambers to provide all sorts of

information that becomes a series of front-page articles to take apart the notion that it is behind in its work then really the most damaging thing he did is he lets it be known through brandeis he may be willing to do testify against the plan in the senate and be called as the witness. he actually was to attack the plan but he gets cold feet and advises the chief not to do this but they talk about other ways to undercut the plan so he writes in open letter to bert wheeler who has become the leader of the senate opposition and very useful to the conservatives and because

here is a democrat leading the opposition. he writes a letter thank you for asking you my views. let me tell you what i think. using the same information point* by point devastates the premises of the court planned in in the next day there was a cartoon with a big target saying bull's-eye >> becomes big. >> and then points to that political sophistication his accuser was no slouch rose about, is the agreement of two other justices of the brandeis and then suggested came about so quickly it did not have time to consult but clearly you can see we speak for the entire court which was not true at all but it was very effective.

>> host: does the of plan ever actually die? what happens next? >> having a series of near-death experiences. >> sort i'd like health care [laughter] >> with a different ending. [laughter] but it is very easy to look back to see this as doomed to from day one am previous accounts suggest it was doomed from the day that he unleashed the plan. i think that's is not right to. one of the things it is remarkable is the enormous power that roosevelt had the power of persuasion and also to the strength of his argument is when he launches the plan and shocksó of betty there is all of this opposition and the congress

with the gallup polls it is even a split. even though the numbers go up back and forth and the opponents gain an edge the public remains evenly split. it does seem it could go either way. and then to talk about the twists and turns where rose about may have gotten what he asked for and gotten six justices or if he was willing to compromise, as his advisers were urging him to do he easily could have gotten four justices or two and have a court of 11 or 13 today. >> one day not yet mentioned to is a central figure is justice roberts. why is he so important? ; roberts is important because he switches in the middle of the fight. has the bill is being

debated in the senate, roberts votes to uphold the minimum wage law that is virtually identical to one he voted down exactly one year before. >> host: this is sometimes called the switch in time they have denied. [laughter] but why did he switched? that is a historic cleave rich kept questions limit a great mystery of the period. he burned his papers before he died. he never talked openly although he did imply a number of things which i will get to in a moment. o one roberts was interesting. he was from philadelphia's, industrious sam brilliant says the son of the hardware merchant went to the university of pennsylvania and did so well they hired him immediately to teach the law. he was a brilliant advocate

and a republican and city coming to the attention of president could two appointed him to investigate the teapot dome scandal and did the very effective job and was celebrated. when he was appointed by hoover but the previous choice was shot down by the progressives and the senate then as a republican and the public statements that he made in the girls thought he prosecuted the harding administration and not an ideologue been actually hid is even in accordance and

then just seem to go back and forth and open-minded in certain ways with those opinions of the early 1930's but the 1935 he throws and a lot with the conservatives not they he is voting with the conservatives but writing these almost scornful opinions that put him very much out in front and he writes opinion on aaa and other things and very strident and sweeping opinions of the seems entirely lost. it is an amazing thing when he finally switches back to 71937 what is the political impact from the court to switching from the new deal posture? >> it is tremendous.

i want to finish the thought on that roberts to come back to the original question of why he switched, he was very interested in public opinion. not all of them were too that extent but out with the political circles did seem more than the others care what people thought about him and was so attractive that even talked about seriously as a presidential candidate to run against roosevelt and he liked the attention. has ever striking everything down a lot of content to rain down on him because he put back and forth before so was seen to be responsible the same way most comes down and justice kennedy and you know, the way scalia will quote but what about justice kennedy? with something goes the wrong way they point* at

candidate -- kennedy and it was the same with roberts and he took it too hard. and it seems that the public opinion that was amassed against the core in the repudiation of conservatism of the 1936 landslide seems to have a real effect on roberts and he finds himself back in the camp of hughes. >> host: to finish the narrative, how did the plan dae? >> guest: many of roosevelts of pfizer's expected now the court has switched getting the results he sought not just minimum wage but zell wagner act the nlrb act that was upheld the first is in march the second in april than social security which everybody thought was doomed. throughout the

period, commentators and roosevelts of pfizer's said give up the fight. wait to see if roberts and hughes go back to the other side. so here is the main reason. because he does not believe for a minute they are in the liberal camps and he will flip again. the second freeze then it is an open secret in washington and the roosevelt years before had promised the supreme court seat to the senate majority leader joe robinson who was a big man from arkansas who had a dream his entire life to be the supreme court justice.

saying it was an unseemly spectacle.

what did you learn of writing supreme power of how we should you what is going on today? >> first obama's needs to be careful he doesn't personalize the fight i think it was entirely appropriate for him to criticize the decision in this "state of the union" address. he did not attack the justices that said this will have serious consequences and we will try to act to correct those. i don't think we should assume they are so vulnerable bank could not hear that. we are too worried about the sensitivities of the members of congress that of july we assume the the justices are so delicate. >> especially when they have life tenure.

>> guest: it is entirely proper for a president to criticize a supreme court decision as he thinks needs to be corrected but costs of what one episode shows us is there is serious political danger for a president with the conflict as it seems to have a running back and forth and not only have the chief justice, but saying something similar not to get as much less. >> >> but with the court packing episode shows there is a real danger in the

court as well. even though chief justice hughes was very effective coming out publicly in that way and trying to paint him as a politician there was real damage done to the court where the justices were quite clearly seen as political actors. if justice alito and justice thomas in particular chief justice roberts would continue to comment publicly in whatever fashion on the other branches what they may be saying or doing, i think there is a long term cost to the credibility of the court. we don't believe they are purified to plant on a judicial rose but we want to believe that. we don't like to think of the justices as raw

political actors. there is a danger for a chief justice roberts and the court as well. >> let's new two questions and we have a gentleman with a microphone and really ask if you stand up so we can have our c-span viewers to hear you. >> when the last supreme court ruling came down about corporate giving, i was very much enraged and thought i would send out letter but then i thought i cannot send this to the supreme court because they will not bother with my opinion. am i correct in assuming that is true? >> the answer is there is nothing that stops you. it will take some time to get there because all of the letters are checked for anthrax. [laughter] after the anthrax scare and

it takes a long time for the mail to get there. it varies. harry black man and his papers are in the library of congress and he kept all of the male of growth the wade in was deeply of assessed and personalize his identification with at in kept the heche's mail and several of the justices i would say the majority don't read those types of letters that all. but you as a citizen to write a letter you just need the zip code and it will get there with no problem. >> recently in the past years i have noticed people say justices will not retire because they want to keep their own political do or

desires why would they decide to leave the court is such a crucial time when they were so opposed just months or weeks before? >> that is such a great question. they decided it was up and roberts is not coming back even roosevelt doubted that. they were in the judicial conference and they had a strong sense which they shared with one another it was over and hughes you had gone back and forth a little bit and there was no point* in staying on the court. one by one those older justices have left in the last holdout was reynolds who famously said at the time, i will add this comment that he would not leave the court as long as

that crippled sob was still in the white house. ultimate leave by eight being reelected a third time he outlasted him and retired in then rose about was reelected again but there was the feeling it was a lost cause for at least one generation and they were write about that. >> and number of states have sued to reverse the health plan. why? [laughter] the health plan? it was rather controversial as you remember. [laughter] they're 13 republican attorneys general have sued in the definition of the state attorney general is someone who was running for governor. [laughter]

lewis is a politically advantageous move on their part. know a great deal of commentary including some buy me and elsewhere whether they have any chance of succeeding. i think the answer is no. certainly this to cite a legal doctrine that says the courts don't address controversy and tell it is joined. the thing that is most challenged in the lawsuits is the individual mandate it is not a been kicking and through 2014 so i don't think most courts would even address the challenge intel people are required to buy health insurance. for the most part it is political theater not that there is anything wrong with that. [laughter]

>> i want to hear your comments about the sector of the decision for the sick check-in case? >> that case it is what killed the nra and 1935. there was some and trepidation about going forward with this case but they didn't have very many options. and also some ambivalence within the administration whether it should be reauthorize to so of a kosher chicken plant in brooklyn. that imply a is a certain type of purity but this was far fromú the case that industry was notorious for

selling disease contaminated birds and they seem to be very clean. as in most industries, there were codes that were agreed to buy the leaders of the industry and signed by the president by which they agreed to impose the minimum wage to impose caps on the number of hours and improve working conditions. the brothers from brooklyn were charged with violating fell live poultry code and found guilty and found its way to the supreme court. this was an unfortunate case to go to the supreme court and the one new deal case where it went five/four in nine/nothing. yibin cardoza said his

famous line is this was it delegation run it right it was unconstitutional on the grounds of excessive delegation of power from congress to extract a legislative entities. . .

they always did him a favor in that regard. >> there was some talk in the country that they had done him a favor on the nra, but i phoenix that it's something i probably should of pointed out earlier, this question of why roosevelt would not wait. we've talked many times about how old the justices were coming and you who raised this manner of this incredible secession that roosevelt got. in the end why didn't he just wait? particularly if some of the decisions she didn't necessarily object to in the political sense like the nra decision and they think it's important to put yourself back in a moment which

is something i try to do in the book. there was a very real sense in the country and roosevelt shared it if they couldn't get some of these things through the courts not simply the programs, but the notion of a governmental obligation to provide economic security for citizens. if you couldn't get minimum wage is through the courts, if you couldn't get maximum hours, if you couldn't improve working conditions and recognize labor rights of collective bargaining and simple right to organize their would be violent revolution and the country and this wasn't a far-fetched notion in the 1930's. at the beginning of 1937 you have a wave of sitdown strikes across the country the become very violent, and there is this sense that if the wagner act is struck down there's going to be something approaching a revolution. one commentator said when the court reaches its decision on the wagner act the national labor relations act that would avoid the decision in blood or eink and they opted for a leak.

>> the real revelation to me of reading a supreme power is i was of course aware of the court but i'd never read a whole book about it and i always kind of assumed it was this mad power grab by fdr junk on power after winning this reelection yes, there is that element of the your portrait of fdr you at least understand why she did it. it was not an entirely irrational act and that is a tremendous contribution to understanding. but just a couple more questions before we go. this gentleman in the back. i'm sorry to send you running. just a couple more. >> you said that before 1935 there had been decades of the court being conservative. before roosevelt was there any time the court wasn't

conservative? >> christa should correct the record i'm not a professor i just play one on td on c-span2 might. >> i'm not juanita you can call me a professor. [laughter] >> the truth is -- >> there is a great shining liberal period for the court between about the 1880s and this moment when the court switches. there are certainly important liberal decisions particularly as i suggested in the area of civil liberties. and the court had actually taken over this period in the teens and 20s kind of mixed view of state experiments with social and economic legislation. there were not very many federal experience until roosevelt got in the federal government under harding and coolidge and hoover generally didn't think the federal government should be in the business of passing social or economic reform so most of it

was being done in the state and the court tended to take a mixed view and there were swings in the court. >> the court was awful. sometimes described as a lock near year as a case from 1905 weare new york state passed a law that said there was a maximum number of hours baker's could work if the court struck that down as a violation of the right to contract of these poor slob immigrant baker's. the court, as an engine of one controlled capitalism, that's certainly my -- >> i think on the whole that's absolutely right and 1918 you have the hammer decision that overturned the ban on child labor to such an extent it seems the only solution is to ban

child and we were by a constitutional amendment that picks up steam and drives away. >> one more question from this gentleman here. wait for the microphone. >> i was in college in 1937, and to what you said, i'm still here. [applause] to round up what you said, there wasn't just roosevelt. there was shelia long, there was townsend, there were all kind of nuts running around with political pherae and roosevelt had to take that into consideration. >> thank you. that's absolutely right. the states or the survival of democracy as roosevelt put it. she saw no contradiction between the constitution and the new deal, and he felt the survival

of democracy depended upon getting these social and economic forms through now as he said. we couldn't wait for the justices to retire soon he arrived at the plan that may seem to be radical to something you raised a moment ago he felt considering the alternative about the amendments which were very radical and the unbalancing of the system of checks and balances but the most modern and prudent and reasonable thing to do would be to pack the court it was clearly constitutional many times in the 19th century. would solve the problem immediately with the justices carefully and wouldn't do damages to the fabric of the constitution. he really didn't want to tinker with the constitution because he didn't think there was anything wrong with it and so i think

this was a rash act of hubris and we can say that it was the wrong thing to do we might disagree with what roosevelt chose to do but arrived at the decision as jeff indicated after a lot of debate over a number of years with a carefully considered just about every option under the sun looked at what had been done in the united kingdom, they looked around the world at other acts of judicial reform and what could possibly be done in this case, so it was a very thorough examination, she spent the entirety of the first term doing it and then he and arrived at this decision, so it was neither rash or impulsive and may or may not have been why is depending on the view that you take of it but it wasn't an irrational act. >> it was so long ago fox news was on the radio. >> if you want to have one more -- >> bill -- hang on and wait for the microphone.

william, great. [applause] >> i would say the one just as the was rarely mentioned is howard stone who was a member of the court and who was appointed by roosevelt as the chief justice in 1941 seems to indicate roosevelt's great respect for the court that was a conservative reported by calvin coolidge and in the deliberations of the court regarding what had been. my question is about democracy. the supreme court is a long space institution. the members are appointed for life and accountable to no one coming and the exercise of power that can cast with the vast majority of americans say they want in a congressional legislation or however is and it's our obligation to ask questions about the court and

criticize it and insists it be opened up as very open up and put in the books and instead of pretending that this is a group of flying people who have the best interest of the nation at heart, let them defend the federal election commission decision. [applause] speed i went to thank the ambassador for being here. there's no 1i know who has done more to preserve the legacy of franklin roosevelt and the ambassador. [applause] >> my short answer to the question is yes. [laughter] i think the court should be criticized and the decision should be questioned and while they are unaccountable in the electoral sense, this is the way the courts are held accountable by the constant public discussion of the court is doing and constant discussion of the

state's. at one point over the course of the long fight, as you know, felix frankfurter advises franklin roosevelt to take the country to school. he wanted to educate the public about the court, about its power and the effect of its decisions and that's something that roosevelt took to heart and something every president should take to heart and i want to be clear i wasn't implying president obama shouldn't engage in a similar sort of discussion. i do think that it's important that his staff members don't see this as the kind of political brawl they have john boehner or mitch mcconnell. this is a different thing and they need to proceed with caution but they should be true to what they believe and call attention to what the court is doing. absolutely. >> supreme court is for sale of the bookstore. i encourage you to buy it and think you. [applause]

>> for more history programming, checkout american history television on c-span freak or visit c-span.org/history. jul was a busy month in publishing news what with the liquidation of borders and now there's been an update with the google book solnit. sarah is the news editor of publishers marketplace. what is the latest on the books settlement? >> well, there was a hearing that took place on july 19th, where judge heard from various parties with respect to the settlement and from what the

news recounts reported he wasn't terribly happy at the current state of things. the bottom line is those parties want more time and even though the judge granted an extension, the next hearing will be september 15th he is really pushing for something to happen. and if the two opposing parties and the authors guild and the association of public service working in tandem, if they can't seem to come to some sort of agreement that the judge intimated he may have to come to some sort of ruling and force the issue she would also like to see more things happening. this hearing has been delayed. originally there was something supposed to happen in april than it was june, in july. now we are being pushed off in september and after so many years the original lawsuit happened around six years ago or

so, and the fact that the judge had already moved come he's been promoted to the court of appeals. this is one of his outstanding cases in the southern district. he would like to have some forward motion and progress and he wasn't seeing that. >> ciro weinman who did the deily benefit if anyone? >> that is a good question. i suspect it possibly might benefit to google more because they have the least to lose. so many of the books have been saddam -- scammed. it's not really i suppose necessarily in their interest to see something happen but at the same time i'm not sure that it