>> the next three hours later chance to talk with author and supreme court expert joan biskupic. the reuters legal affairs editor will talk about the politics of sport nominations and decisions. and the justices whose lives she has explored. the former law correspondent for "congressional quarterly," "usa today" and the "washington post" has written three biographies including "sandra day o'connor" under 2014 released on justice sotomayor, "breaking in." >> host: in your most recent book "breaking in: the rise of sonia sotomayor and the politics of justice," you quote somebody saying i knew she would be

trouble. what's that from? >> guest: that was my earlier subject, antonin scalia who said it kiddingly after justice on the sotomayor shook up a party by getting all the justices to dance the salsa with her. i use it to set the scene of a contrast it's been between the woman who i is a genuine, somersaults come into this institution that's a wonderfully traditional, used to certain rhythms. the rhythms frankly our salsa. she did this wonderful display that shut everybody up at this end of term party and justice scalia who watched it come a summit usually shakes people up, right? said i knew she would be trouble. he said it kiddingly but it's a perfect line for all a bit of what greeted her. >> host: were you allowed to go to the party? >> guest: no, no. it was tough to get the information. you know, peter, how secretive

this court is. a lot of people aren't aware of how we never know what goes on in a conference on cases. journalists are never invited to the end of the term party. in fact, when chief justice john roberts sent out invitations for this particular party, he reminded all the staff, there was just the full-time staff, not any contractors, not any part-timers. it is a very tight family. of course all the justices are appointed for life, it seems like many of the employees are, too. i was not at the party, but right after it occurred, a good source of mine told me about this incident with justice sotomayor breaking in the core of after the law clerks have put on a skit. that's what works. the law clerks to the entertainment. the justices it was other people there and watch. she broke the decorum by putting on some salsa music and getting everybody to dance with her, including the justices. i found out about that and i started snooping around, and

other justices told me about it. can somebody give me the actual program, and then what i did as i went to individuals who i knew were there and i talked to the justices then sells about how they felt about it. in my in the note i said journalists are not allowed up there. most people are not allowed there, but i re-created it. >> host: been reading it from "breaking in" it sounded a little uncomfortable. >> guest: the incident? yes. in fact, well, people have dual reaction. first of all generally they like things to go as planned. the supreme court is a very bland institution. we know monday morning, the first monday in october when the justices start the term they start at 10 a.m. on the dollar. be if they are, those of us inspectors should start to get nervous because we know they're getting nervous, who is coming late. i cannot stress enough how this is down to the second sort of institution. also more broadly certain

expectations of how people behave, there are certain ropes, who gets to go here, who gets to go there, when people line up they line up according to the role in life. the reporters lined up one place, the lawyers lineup in another place. the justices, they come in through the back. everyone has a certain place to go. at the end of the term party it's been going on forever. the law clerks put on a skit, they're parodies and the justices themselves do not perform. a. are not a performative lot, generally speaking. so when sonia sotomayor does this it rattles and what they're trying to figure out oh, my gosh, what do we do? first there's a lot of nervous laughter, and then people start to get into it and then people start to look at some people are trying. a few justices told me, as she approached me, i thought, i'm not going to get up and dance. please don't come here. then they get up because she is sort of a winning way.

remember it was a party. that was a party, and it happened to come at the end of it very difficult term. this was in june 2010. this was the term citizens united, determine which marty ginsberg, the husband of ruth bader ginsburg was very ill and he actually died just three days before this party. so ruth bader ginsburg ha had jt endured so those difficult days of her life, and justice sotomayor approaches are, and justice ginsburg shakes her head and says i don't want to get up and dance. justice sotomayor says to her, marty would've wanted you to. now, marty ginsberg was a very big personality. he was the kind of person who was the life of the party. so justice ginsburg actually got out of her seat and danced for a moment with justice sotomayor, and then she puts her hands up to justice sotomayor's cheeks and says, thank you. so there was another mobile. it was very emotional. it was uncomfortable. so people weren't sure what to

make of it but mostly they liked it. well, i think most people liked it. there were some who thought wait a minute, this isn't how things work here. the clerks do the entertaining, we are not. so anyway, it was a great scene to find out about and i'm glad it your book you write about justice sotomayor. the justices buried in the personal assessment as this match with any group. some founder warm, amiable. others under a broad and exasperating. at the human level these differences with her were not found -- -- >> guest: isn't that so interesting? that paragraph took some time figure out what to say. because i do want to make a big deal about a personality clash when it's really not a big deal with it comes to the law. and also you should know these nine justices always close ranks. among them the other differences and among them they're rolling their eyes constantly. if i were to come to them and

say, get a load of so-and-so, they would be very taken aback. because an outsider cannot criticize one of their own. again they have sort of a family dynamic going on. they're all appointed for life. they realize they have great incentive to get along even though they're different. some of these personality things, as i say in the human level they are not small. in the larger scheme of the laws, they are. i wanted to be able to convey that sort of delicate balance. i wanted to be able to convey the way in which she broke in. she has been breaking in all her life. i use that salsa incident to say it should weighted to another point, to a later end of the term party, it wouldn't have been as effective. she's not the kind of person who waited her term. that's why she became the first

hispanic ever accounted to the supreme court. you think metaphorically, and i realize i thought it was helpful to readers to see this culture clash. some people side with the traditionalists and say she should have never done that. of the people say, well, you know, you go girl, kind of thing. i'm hoping that people see it in the spirit of the kind of woman she is, the kind of justice she's becoming, and also to maybe pull back the curtain a little bit of what the supreme court is all about hospitality if i'm wrong but you seem to emphasize her puerto rican roots more than there has been been a growth. is that fair? >> guest: here's the thing. she identifies herself primarily as a puerto rican because puerto rican heritage comes from the bronx. but she is used the term has been congress of the she is latina, and just so your viewers know, those words let tenet, latino and hispanic are all used interchangeably by just about

everyone. the u.s. census, researchers, academics, justice sotomayor. so justice sotomayor identified yourself pretty much a portrait of bush also identifies herself more broadly as latina. when she was appointed she became a symbol for all hispanics in america. one thing i should say, peter, that i hadn't quite appreciative back to 1990s when other hispanic candidates were being mentioned on the differences within the temerity about puerto ricans are viewed, how mexican-americans ar are good, t cuban-americans argued, how hondurans argued. i felt like she helped educate differences within the larger umbrella, and i think she will refer to herself in many ways. >> host: again for your newest book, "breaking in," in the early 1990s john roberts was a subtle tactician. but neither live raw ambition as

would be proven when they ended up on the high court to get the more decade later. 2005, bush's son would nominate roberts to be the chief justice in the early 1990s. roberts were tenuous office of the solicitor general mainly involve crafting legal positions and writing briefs for that office, but roberts was a smart political operative whose judgment was sought throughout the administration. for her par, sotomayor quickly learned to work to sides of the nomination process, as a nominate and as a conduit for information. >> guest: she was so politically savvy. as was he. they are stylistically very different. with the chief justice of the united states john roberts, a very button-down individual. i could probably bet that if he had salsa before, he didn't put, he didn't put it on facebook, let's just say that. she's just much more out there. she's always been much greater

with her movements, with the delactation of search for identity he is a much more reserved man but they're both incredibly politically savvy. i love discovering in the early 1990s when he was in the solicitor general's office he actually advised george h. w. bush administration on judicial candidates. lo and behold what name comes before them but that sonia sotomayor for district court see. and they are crossing paths, if they were sitting around they would say i wasn't that ambitious. but face it, no one gets to the supreme court without impatience. one person i would say maybe should have an asterisk by his dimwitted in david souter, who she's succeeded he was all a bit more of an exit of justice but i think he still did not lack for ambition. but here you have john roberts who seem to be always making the right moves, and, obviously, quite effectively, and sonia sotomayor who came from a quite a bit different background but

you really picked up on the political channels. what you have to do is remain visible, and nomination politics. and she learned a lot from that first nomination to i also have to say that she did acknowledge in her own memoir that once she set her feet on the path of the federal judiciary, and once she knew that she would be in some ways giving her career more emphasis than her own life, she did not spin on ambition. i think sometimes people don't want to be perceived as overly ambitious, but face it, this is washington. >> host: how value in your research was her autobiography that came out a year or two back? >> guest: very valuable. when i signed this contract it was in early 2010, and i've been aware behind the scenes that she was doing her member at the same time. mine was never intended to be a biography i wanted it on justice

sandra day o'connor and justice can be. i wanted to do how she ended up on the court and help her trajectory matched the rise of latinos in america. i knew i would have to build in some biography, and when i finish of doing this memoir, you know, it had been quite announced yet. i found out in a way that he couldn't write about because it would've been dashed and what event and the skew. she's barely on the core, barely finished our salsa and she getting an agent and signed his contract. again i will never underestimate her but she is very, very smart, and she should've very compelling story to tell as we saw in her excellent memoir, which is entitled my beloved world. i am one point thought maybe my my come out before hers. mine was ready to, but i hadn't finished but i'm so glad i hadn't because i benefit so much from hers. when i talked to her once in her chambers, she said to me, did you learn anything new?

she was aware that i was retracing offer footsteps, i was reading over old speeches, visiting the broad, visiting puerto rico. but i learned so much from the book and i also learned, i learned more her attitude about things. because if you were aware of what she had said in her speeches leading up to our nomination, and at the time of our nomination, then what she writes in the book, is a much different attitude about how she regarded her mother, how she regarded her father but she revealed her father was an alcoholic. she revealed what it was like living with her mother who she characterized as very cold. something we would have never, i would have never realized from her earlier speeches. so i was quite helped by her own autobiography, yes. >> host: as the legal editor of reuters, longtime supreme court reporter for "usa today," "washington post," the justices approach will come available to

reporters? >> guest: i have had good luck getting in to see them. i have been able to get into all nine chambers for just about as long as i've been covering the court. but it takes a lot of work. because they don't like just -- feel like outsiders to come in the middle like to talk for the public record. they don't like to talk casually to some of us. they are very generally reserve, cautious, nervous bunch, and what i had done over time is to try to win their trust and to say i will be very straight with you, if you do not want to speak for the record, i will work very hard to make sure that what i learned from you, first of all is not attributed to you, definitely but also use it in a careful way to find out more information. and i think over time on this overtime i've built up a record

of trust because in 2003, four and five and is working on the sandra day o'connor book i got all of them to talk to me. most of them did speak for the record. and for scalia most of them spoke for the record, and scalia, justice league gave me 12 different interviews. but justice sotomayor, to the person they did not want to speak for the record i frankly think part of that was because she was in your college kind of do think that -- a newer college. it makes things tricky are adequate to capture that in the book. i think it became come it was too new, too new, their tenure with her to want to go on the record but yet i was able to find that things. i was glad. i was glad of that. it's always a work in progress but i think other reporters have gotten to see justices and justices will state when they are selling books. effect when they're selling books they speak a lot. that's the nature of selling books. >> host: where did you come up with a title for your biography

on antonin scalia, "american original" dresser and a great story. titles are always hard to come up with. you over think it. i always over think it. editors overthink and your friends over think and everybody -- that's brilliant title came from editorial assistant, my fabulous editor, sarah creighton. what she saw from a more casual reader was, first of all, his original discussion i was explaining his approach to the constitution, and i thought that she figured, i thought it was really great, "american original" so captured. and as you know the subtitle is the life in constitution of the supreme court justice antonin scalia. i've always liked that title. i take no credit for it. >> host: in the bucky right scalia was shaped by the sicilian immigration expense.

a single place in the family, alone among the adults and the deficits of his early years would be determinative in shaping the -- >> guest: got me to tell you how i found out about his unique place in the family? anybody covering the court would know about the fact that he was an only child but you will just know that he was an only child and he got lots of attention. both his parents were academics. the father todd romance language at brooklyn college. the mother was a public school teacher in queens. he had gotten a lot of attention. i would not have known that he was the only offspring of his generation if this hadn't happened. i happe happened to run into the justice and his wife any social occasion. i tend to be curious about birth order. happened to be the oldest the night and i am curious about the fact he was an only child that i

raised an only child. but i was commenting to the justice and his wife, only children can have certain demands of attention. and she said, do you know that none of brothers and sisters appearance on both sides have children? i thought, isn't that interesting, that he was not only a star in his own little family but he was the star it is huge italian-american clan. because his mother was one of seven, if i remember right, his mother was one of seven and his father was one of two. but he was the only offspring of their generation. and i thought, that's not the kind of thing you can pick up through research in the library of congress began to find that out from somebody close to the family. >> host: what is your amateur psychologists tell you about him being the only offspring? >> guest: well, you know, hey, the spotlight should always be shining on him. it doesn't take -- that takes

observations of the court. he does bring a lot of attention on himself by what he says all the time. in fact, my book of them came out in 2000 they're been some incidents since where peoples said he believed scalia said that? there are so many justice scalia stories, so little time. >> host: he took on the law. he believed his job was to say whether something was constitutional or not, and not to care whether he looked reasonable. >> guest: he would say, well, i do always look reasonable, don't i? he doesn't have a really strong self-consciousness. and neither does justice sotomayor. others to do. others, i think it's human nature to be quite self-conscious. my first subject sandra day o'connor was quite aware of how she was being seen. but my second to were happier to sort of just plunge ahead and if

you don't like it, that's your problem. i like it. >> host: joan biskupic, your first subject, sandra day o'connor, what is her legacy going to be, what do you think? >> guest: she did so much. personal she was the first woman justice, and in 1981 and a pointy of ron his legacy lives on in her. she was on for nearly 25 years. i cast her in some ways a politician on the court. she was an arizona state senator. she was the first woman to be majority leader of a state senate house, a state senate. i thought that contribute a lot to her political sports. i like to say she went to washington knowing how to count both. her legacy was figured out how to prevail. winning meant a lot, just about everything she did, she was really competitive. and i said on the longer legacy

has been abortion-rights. she helped craft the standard that we now have for abortion-rights and states can pass regulations. she wrote the opinion that prevailed until today and we're not sure how secure it is, but to those three affirmative action opinion from the university of michigan case that allows colleges and universities to use rape as one of the criteria for accepting applicants. she was quite influential in the federalism area. she has a pretty deep legacy now because she was more moderate as a conservative. someone that has been erased with the addition of samuel alito was more to the right than justice o'connor. >> host: welcome to the dnc spend too. for the next three hours our guest is joan biskupic. she has written three biographies of supreme court justices. she is a longtime supreme court

reporter currently with reuters, formerly "usa today" and the "washington post" if you would like to dial in, talk about some of her books, some of the justices, some of the court cases and we'll spend the next three hours talking about the supreme court. (202) 585-3880 four of those you in the east and central time zone, 585-3881 if you live out in the west. or in the mountain time zone. and you can also committed via social media, facebook.com/booktv, at booktv is her twitter handle or send an e-mail at booktv at c-span to work. regarding sandra day o'connor, once she found the middle, she never left it. she developed an incremental approach taking her cues from the country and pushing it ever so slight a. she would neither drive the culture of the nation nor serious upset it. >> guest: that was her.

she still out there, you know. she's still very much involved in trying to improve the integrity of local judicial elections. she still very active with her civic program trying to help young people understand the three branches of government and what goes on with the supreme court. i run into her -- into her every now and again and she says well, if it is a my author. she still doing okay. she's 84 now, and i hope we are all like sandra day o'connor when we had 84. >> host: that first sentence in the quote from your book, once she found the middle she never left it. did she know, i mean, was she aware of her position in the court as the fifth vote many times? >> guest: yes. if you are the fifth vote, you know you are the fifth vote. it's so tight. just think what it's like. she comes on the court in 1981, warren burger is chief justice. the conservatives are amassing

more power. she's more in the camp of chief justice burger, and her old pal from stanford, william rehnquist, who at the time is an associate justice within the, the chief justice himself. she's aligning herself more with conservatives and she is resisting pressure from william brennan who was the reigning liberal at the time. and i think justice o'connor had a little bit of a reaction going on. the more justice brennan tried to push it to the liberal side, the more she would enter early years stay on the right wing. once william rehnquist became chief, once william brennan left the court, once we have more conservatives who were farther to the right come on, i think she found essential to be quite comfortable. think of what happens in 1986 but rehnquist becomes chief. scalia comes on. scalia is far to the right of her. she's not happy with the way brin is pushing her to the left budgets are been that happy with

the way scalia wants you to go more to the right. i think she got a very countable home there and she very much aligned with the late conservative lewis powell, who was also much more of a centrist conservative. >> host: do lawyers tailor their cases -- did they tell him to sandra day o'connor and now do they tailor them to anthony kennedy? >> guest: completely. this is the vote to get. his is deathly the vote to get. he wants it to me i think that's way overstated. but face it, he is the critical swing vote, and on things like affirmative action, on abortion, on same-sex marriage. he has been the author of the leading key opinion on the rights of gay men and lesbians, and he will probably hold the key to whether this supreme court now takes up same-sex marriage and how this court rules. and lawyers would tell you directly, it's no secret that there try to figure out what

does anthony kennedy want. >> host: back to your book on sandra day o'connor him at the first woman on the sprinkler became its most influential justice, throughout the confirmation process, even when confronted like bombast of center, antiabortion picketers and pushing reporters, she has been the picture of decorum, a lady in pastels -- now to your most recent book, "breaking in." you know and i don't mean to be grappling the one after been question endlessly for weeks at a time i was so frustrated by the minutia of what i was

already being asked about and i said to a friend, i think they already know the color of my underwear. she believed the fact that she was a woman, a single woman, played a role in the query. they were private questions i was offended by. i was convinced they were not asking those questions of the male applicants. >> guest: two different styles. you have sandra day o'connor who worked very hard to be the picture of femininity. i remember her saying at one point that she didn't even like wearing headsets because she thought that compromise her femininity. let's think of the era. she's born in 1930, she comes of age in the '50s. she is not a rabble-rouser by any stretch of the imagination. but she's trying to figure out how to be most effective for her time. she wants to be visible. she does not want to be

challenging. she wants to change things but she does not want to be overtly challenging for that change. associate adopted certain convention but i think we're very comfortable for her. she did go off on a range of sorts that lecture sitting around -- watcher while she wast there with the horses and cows. but once she was in the public eye she tended to adopt the conventions of the day. flash forward, justice sotomayor born in 1954, things are much different. she's able to buck conventions in some ways. she's also, she's a new yorker. she's already going to be a little bit more, she's going to be bolder with her personal style. she's not going to tap it down. one person said to me, she doesn't happen to be puerto rican. she wants that to be up front. so she did before the confirmation hearing get rid of the dangling a rings and get rid

of the redhill polish them and talk about how she got rid of those things to conform to what the administration wanted. that's part of, that is part of how it works. and you want to get confirmed, and the administration wants to get you confirmed. the place to sort of show your identity in every way is not going to be during confirmation hearings. and both of my subjects got the. and, frankly, so did justice scalia. all three of them knew how to be nominees, and so did john roberts. and let's say that robert bork sort of did but not quite. he went into a little bit more combative and there were many reasons behind why then judge bork was defeated, but this is all part of the public theatre of washington time when has the nomination process always been as contentious as we have grown up knowing it to be? >> guest: it's been very contentious at different points. certainly getting back to the

late 1700s it was contentious and other times, even in a lifetime of those of us were a little bit older, and know what happened, -- don't act like you don't know those names. you remember those names even though many of your viewers don't remember those names. i'm talking about the late '60s and '70s, and harry blackmun even got his spot on the supreme court in 1970 as what he referred to as old number three. he was the third nominee put up after hayes worth and carswell. so we had come with a tricky moments before. but think of the '90s when justice ginsburg got through and justice breyer got through, appointees of william clinton, bill clinton. they both were confirmed i believe justice ginsburg, it was a 90 something for.

stephen breyer i think was 89 votes he got. both were approved by overwhelming bipartisan supporters. and four justices taken and sotomayor and samuel alito, to a lesser extent john roberts, the votes were more divided. >> host: joan biskupic, how did you come to cover the supreme court? when did you start? >> guest: it was back in 1988, or nine. when i switched over to "congressional quarterly." they had an opening for a legal affairs reporter. actually i was interviewing for a labor reporter job but it turned out that the editor there knew i was crazy about the law. at the time i'd not even got my law degree and is mostly covered politics and government at the time but i always had an interest in courts. is very wise editor said, let her cover the courts and letter cover legal affairs. so i started ages ago.

this is in the late 80s at "congressional quarterly" covering the senate judiciary committee, legal affairs on mail and also picking up the supreme court as an additional beat. the supreme court wasn't supposed to really be at the core of my coverage. i was doing many things are happening on the hill. it was an exciting time to those with the years of immigration reform, the brady handgun control bill. we had two terrific nominations and clarence thomas and david souter. they were really hot, contentious moment, especially for the clarence thomas won in 1991. so i kept breaking off as much as it could to cover the core. in 1992 i was hired by the "washington post" to be its supreme court reporter. then i shifted into supreme court full-time. and really haven't left a. i pick up other things along the way. and in 1989 is when i started doing law school at night at georgetown. normal reporters can't do that now because of the 24/7 culture

we have, but at the time i could because i was writing for a weekly magazine and i could, i could sort of pace my schedule but even i switched over to the "washington post" in 1992, i had about a year and have more to finish up my law degree. and it somehow worked out, so that was good. i state of the "washington post" for eight years and switched to "usa today." now at reuters i am not our main person covering the supreme court. that's my partner, lawrence early. i do write about the supreme court but i brought obligations now. >> host: often supreme court nominees are described by the presidents to nominate them as the most qualified person in the country. to be on the court. >> guest: part they all? that's right, they are, but let's get real. there are many, many qualified people out there. the years that all three of my subjects were chosen, there were people who were equally qualified, if not more

qualified. they years that antonin scalia was chosen and he was chosen over robert bork could have been picked the next year. unfortunate for robert bork, the senate majority had flipped to republicans to democrats after he was chosen and made it too hard for him to get through. but they year that sandra day o'connor was chosen, well, i don't know if ronald reagan would've said she was absolutely the most qualified out there. certainly she was qualified for the job but remember sh should never serve on the federal court. but he had promised to appoint a woman and she knew that. she knew she was being chosen because she was a woman. and so what? that's great. that's what she would say, that's great. i was qualified. was i the most absolute positive the best qualified person in america? who is to say that is even is an under what criteria? that's th the thing i get compas to get that a lot with, not so much with scalia, his detractors just don't want them there. but certainly with my current

subject, i still here and i know she hears. [speaking russian] or qualification. but look at her background, 17 years on lower federal courts, for instance, in yale. is she qualified? certainly she is qualified. the two people who she was most intention with at the time were already taken and judge diane wood from the seventh circuit. elena kagan got the nomination the next year. judge would would've been perfectly qualified for that job. so there isn't just one person out there for the cyprian court and for anything. >> host: what is clarence thomas so reticent treachery he gives me good access and i'm glad. i'm sorry he doesn't talk from the bench. he hasn't spoken from the bench during oral arguments since 2006, february 2006. i think it actually hurts him and it hurts his public profile because people are puzzled by it. school children who come to the court are puzzled by it.

they think does he not have anything to say? is he ashamed of something? what is this all about? he gets so reasons. he says welcome to my colleagues are doing plenty of talking anyway. i want to hear from the lawyers. he once told some schoolchildren that he had grown up somewhat self-conscious about the we spoke because of his poor roots down in savannah, and that he's lived self-conscious about his dialect. buddies at -- he has a really great voice, a very deep, booming voice. so when you do hear him speak, is quite strong and quite commanding. just remember off the top of my head, as little step at that jon stewart did with him when he hears his voice and his like, where is that coming from? he has a fabulous voice. he's a smart individual and he could ask many questions that could probably shed light on the issue before the justices, but

he has for reasons that only he knows stop asking questions post but it's pretty well-known that antonin scalia and ruth bader ginsburg our friends. on the other friendships on the court that are not as well known that our special like that treachery that's really special but that one is really special. they got to be very good pals when they were on the d.c. circuit together. that's the washington, d.c.-based federal appeals court. they were both former professors so they would exchange their draft opinions and ask each other for advice on writing advice just like to academics would do. they're both incredibly smart and they both love opera. one of them is much more out there in terms of his personality. scalia won't stop talking, and she speak at such a slow pace that i cannot do any kind of imitation of her. she happens to be very personally shy also. she sometimes has trouble

reading your eyes, but she is obviously quite commend and what she does on the law, and just come in several good matchup. i will never forget one time she said to me when us talking to her about the relationship and she said, i just love nina, which is his nickname. i love you but sometimes i would just like to strangle him. he really enjoys her. they spend their new year he eats together with their families at a dinner party. and ate lots of social things together. i don't think there's another pair on the court that could ever be comparable. in earlier years justice o'connor and lewis powell were very tight, very, very tight. lewis powell is the justice who retired in 1987 can opening up to see that robert bork was nominated to. the wonderful thing about that relationship for me as a journalist and author was that he saved all her correspondence in his archives that are at

washington and lee down in accident in virginia. so what i was researching the ak on her i was able to find all that correspondence and to see not only her personal observations about maneuvering on cases with lewis powell but also how she felt when she was diagnosed with cancer, when she went to the loss of her parents while she was on the court. so those two are very special relationship that i would say was almost as tight as the one between justices scalia and ginsburg. >> host: you probably saw this recent article in the "washington post," this is robert barnes writing about erwin chemerinsky, retiring dean of university of california-irvine law school. >> guest: you don't mean retiring. >> host: i apologize. i made that the. he just came out with a new book and this is something that he writes in his book and this is reported. we should realize that this is

an emperor that truly has no clothes. for too long we've treated the court as to the art the high priest of the law, released as it they are the stars and best lawyers in society. and then he writes his conclusion. the court has frequently failed throughout american history at its most important task at its most important moment. this is not easy for me to conclude or to say. >> guest: well, i love that you ready. first of all parts was by first editor of the "washington post." used to edit supreme court copy. now he writes about. and we go way back. i read his book as a reader to kind of help with things and he read my latest. he read all three and it was tremendous helpful. and it was really helpful and justice sotomayor because he really understands this justice and he understands the court. would i ever a doubt that a few of the supreme court? no. now, are one is an advocate.

he comes at this from a very distinct point of view. i am a journalist and author comes out from a different point of view. i'm not sure to throw up my hands bigger times when cindy and i hear an opinion announced and i think gosh, you, like really? but i move on. i've got to write about and i got to get both sides of got to get some understanding of why. and there are times i said and i think this is really good that this happened them that they didn't go an in a direction that some of us thought they might. but i would never say something as boldly as erwin chermerinsky would. i just wouldn't do. i think that is watched the court very carefully pick is is also born into my blue, yes, he was born in 1954, also i think in may of 1954 as justice

sotomayor was. so he is wonderful perspectives. he went to harvard. he has been a law professor at duke and then he founded the university of california law school at irvine. so he has a very wise perspective, but it is deathly a perspective that is pretty far on the left -- definitely. and pretty scrutinizing of the supreme court that has throughout its whole history, he's not just complaint in the book about the current roberts court that's more conservative. he's also taking issue with things that were recorded at different times. the warren court that stand as a bulwark of liberalism. >> host: there are people in the audience, myself included, who see the supreme court as kind of a calculus equation. it's completely not understandable how they operate, what they do. but at the same time you say it's very orderly and they know

exactly what -- >> guest: let me say this but if you are one of my editors i would say yes, very confusing. you need me to to you about it. but the truth is it's not confusing. my monitor at the "washington post" was this is your supreme court practice is a supreme court that is there, it stands for justice. now erwin chermerinsky thanks let it is down. i'm sure it has. it has let down america but it's one of three branches and there are checks on each branch. but here's how it works. i was just talking to a group of students the other day and one of the students, and a masters program, one of the students said you mean they don't start in january? they don't. it is like school. they begin in the fall. they begin on the first monday in october. that's the official start date, but as your viewers know that jump the gun as they have in recent years with an order and what new cases for adding to the

calendar for this term. so we are in what's known as the october 2014-15 sure that it starts on the first monday which is october 6. it will run to the end of june, just like school. what they're doing during this time is decide what cases to take. that justices have discretion of what appeals and petitions they hear. they don't have to take up every case it comes to them the way lower courts have. they get literally hundreds, thousands of appeals, formally known as petitions, to the nature. indicated they can choose. they normally take cases where there might be complex, conflicted roots b but lower corporate orchestrate of the law, or the take issues of big national importance, same-sex marriage perhaps they will take. we will know in a couple of weeks. they are on a cycle where they're deciding what cases today, starting in october they are also now subjecting these cases the world argument. so the first week in october

your viewers and listeners are going to do than take up cases having to do with criminal law issues, religious freedom issues, labor issues. and then they will meet in private. when they meet in private they don't even have any of their law clerks are secretaries within. it's just the nine justices sitting around a table taking votes. they do that on wednesday said friday of the supreme court. and then after they have done that they start drafting opinions. they are like those. they draft the easy ones first. basically in about november you'll start to see some rulings and they will be mostly the easy rulings. like the 9-0 once. so than some the tough ones will come out and by the end of june is when we finally get the really hardest cases that have been the toughest to resolve. and so it's simple. >> host: who gets to draft of the cases? >> guest: that's a good question because it's a majority do. say tomorrow, not tomorrow, i know this will air -- say on

october 6 to hear a case involving a test of the fourth amendment which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. and this case explores the idea of may police stopped a car that has a broken tail light and then use that incident to search the car? and find cocaine went under north carolina law, you don't have to have two working to elect. you'll have to have one. the officer made a mistake. so it's the sort of thing that could happen to a lot of people, except for the cocaine part may be. they will look at whether it was reasonable that the officer stopped the car and was able to search and found the cocaine. and they will hear oral arguments, and it will be an exciting hour of arguments for those of us who like this. and then on wednesday they will take a private boat. >> host: they will vote right

away trip to i'm sorry. i'm giving these but on october 8 they will take, they will take a private boat on that case. everything is in average. the monday cases, they then talk about on wednesday in their private conference packages and wednesday they talk about on friday. in fact, i think that's the way the cycle goes. i know it's private. i know that for sure. they will meet and go take a preliminary vote. chief justice john roberts will be at the head of this rectangular table and he will say, you know, look, the topic didn't know that under north carolina you only needed one working taillight. it was a reasonable mistake. or he might say, look you know, it's the letter of the law. we don't want officers not enforcing with the actual law is. i have no idea what will go on this conference because i this point have not heard the oral argument yet. they are yet to come.

so the ticket eliminate the. let's just say it breaks 5-4, and the chief is in the majority of the five and ruth bader ginsburg are most liberal just as is with the minority, the four dissenters. chief justice roberts will been a sensibly to write for the majority. the most senior justice on the winning side assigns that opinion. the most senior justice on the losing side i find the dissenting opinion. anybody can write a concurrent on either side, but the general thinking of the court, at least now is that you want the strongest opinion with as many names on it to convey a clear ruling the lower court judges and to the public. let's begin take this north carolina fourth amendment case. let's just say that she has assigned clarence thomas to that, and ruth bader ginsburg has assigned -- the two of them

start writing of the starts are going to trap and as you can the draft to everyone, to all mind. and now i'll work on computers but the supreme court is still old-fashioned enough that messengers actually take the paper drafts and run them from chamber to chamber. that's what i a tremendous access to what i did the first two books, the papers of lewis powell, william brennan, thurgood marshall and harry blackmun. so it was great to see these drafts. and the justice, the recipient justices markings on them. said he would ask for changes. this goes on, if it's a straightforward case they can use result in a couple of weeks. if it's a difficult case and they start having towards a brighter, even to the footnotes, it could take literally months. and then we just do what happens in the end. someone like me is always trying to re-create what went on behind the scenes. i love when i can find out information. i love it more when i get the document because then you actually see what happened.

it's like anything. you try to re-create the scene and have only three justices to you what happened, you know you're lucky enough to through a telling you but you also know, well, just three visions of what actually went on. so then i would say sometime in, let's say for the north carolina case i would suggest we could hear as early as november but probably as late as edward, march, even june if it tends to be tricky. i don't think it will be tricky for them but then we'll hear world. it will be announced from the bench, the justice of the majority opinion will announce a brief synopsis from the bench. the dissenting justice urges to does not read his dissent except if there's real anger. we live for those moments. because it's more dramatic. it gives us something to write about but it gives the public a little bit more attention if it helps with the understanding of the dueling issues of the case. in june we tend to get a few

dissents read from the bench but generally speaking at the simple only speak on paper cut for how important are the oral arguments? how much time is spent to the case prior to oral arguments? >> guest: or vitamins are important in many respects. i wouldn't say they are determined at a don't think the justice would either because the justices, these are reading people, people are marking up text, people work with highlighters. people like us doing that kind of thing understanding documents. rulings are based on prior rulings. rulings are based on precedent. that's what this court is about. that's another part of rhythm. they love president. the word stare decisis. they don't want to disrupt a pattern of where the law has been before. the main thing that will influence how the rule, let's use this north to let a criminal law case. the main thing they will look at our past rulings on what is invisible stop, what is the fourth amendment on unreason stops, searches and seizures. that's going to guide in part

where they're going to go. then what else will guide them are the written briefs from both sides. that's where the lawyers better be sharp because they want to cast something in writing so a just and can go to that writing and perhaps pick up language, perhaps be convinced of something he or she hadn't been convinced of before. then you have this great oral argument moment. this is the hour-long hearing where the nine justices are on this mahogany bench, slightly elevated. you can mostly just see their heads, and then the lawyers standing at his lectern and put them down in the well and we are all off to the side watching and eagerly trying to say what they will seize upon to figure out what do they think is important. what do they think might be about it? in several dynamics emerge during oral arguments. the most obvious one for your viewers is the justices get information.

they get answers to their own troubling questions. that justices might, again just because of the justices point of view, they get to troubleshoot both sides. the other thing from the justices point of view is basically to each other perhaps the own persuasive argument. they go into this case thinking if they are investing in fourth and in the law they want the case perhaps to come out a certain way. they might have some instincts themselves that they would like to signal to the colleagues. so they might ask questions a certain way saying, really, have we ever rolled that an officer can stop someone based on a misunderstanding of law, britain law? shouldn't the officer have its act together to know what the law says? or somebody could say give me a break, i would've thought he would have kept you working to elect in north carolina. you might have those kinds of questions.

so they might signal this. unusually -- let's take same-sex marriage but you're going to get weightier argued from the justices to each other because, dear, they have not talked to each other about this case before this moment. they don't know where it each other stands on this issue. so they're going to use oral argument to telegraph some pics to each other in cases of great importance. so you got a couple of different agendas from the justices point of view. from the advocates point of view, this is his or her moment to find out what do they need to know to rule for me, and to head on confront the other side. they have dueled inviting but they have not been matched up in the moment. and tomorrow, again, i'm sorry to say do more, but let's just say the date, october 6, jeff fisher was a stanford law

professor will stand up and represent the defendant who was charged with cocaine trafficking that arose out of this stop from the headlight. and you will make the strongest origin he can all be have opted in fy that conviction shouldn't stand. but what is going to do is he will have two or three points that he wants to make sure that when they go back to the private conference, that they have in their head, and he also wants what might be troubling individual justice so he can meet it head on. he also wants to hear what the of the council is going to say for the state of north carolina so that he can say, you might be sympathetic to this point of view, but just turn the lens all of it and think of it this way. so a lot is going to happen in that hour. and again because the first monday in october case is not one that many of your viewers would know about, it's not going to get a lot of attention. but pretty soon we're going to of the cases that they will be really watching for our the obama sponsored health care law.

probably on same-sex marriage, and what i just described is going to happen in going to have in a more intense fashion and over laundry because i but the chief justice at the pickup same-sex marriage gives a closer to ours rather than the one hour of oral arguments transport so an official vote is done, this theoretical case that we are working, the official vote is done the wednesday after the monday hearing? >> guest: yes. >> host: in the room, nine justice can do they raise their hand cut for no. using the word official is not my. i was the it is presented. it's of them so official but nobody is set in stone. you can change your mind. in fact, we have lots of reports about during the first episode of the obama sponsored health care law of shifting a vote that you are allowed to change about as you go along. you might not want to change afoot as you go along because it says everyone in a different

direction. like that happens. and actually the justices are happy when they can convince a colleague to change his or her vote. it would be like anything, it's rhetoric. they all coming with the idea of where things should go but then they see whether, does it right. and maybe you get convinced of something but, in fact, i have one of my favorite chapters in this book is when justice sotomayor actually convinced our colleagues in an affirmative action case through the writing, through what she was daring them, a position that she said, she sort of derrida them in the president that they taken on a affirmative action. certainly we saw some shifting vote on the, or at least i found out about that. so that's what's going to happen is they take this preliminary vote wednesday and friday, and then they see if it rights. then they continue the dialogue. i love the idea of this

conversation in writing. they have this conversation and it will become it doesn't sound as natural as it would be to the way you and i would converge but it is very natural for them. they feel really comfortable with the memos. they feel much more accountable with memos that in person. justice william brennan was known for visiting offices. justice breyer likes to call people on the phone and talk. generally speaking this isn't a group that goes and gets in the face of a colleague to say, you are voting that way? come on, come on. haven't you read president? >> host: how important are the distance to the rule of law? >> guest: well, the dissenters would say they're very important because maybe they could convince people down the road. the justices themselves dream of the day a decent becomes the majority opinion and that is certainly happened. distance to become majority

opinions in such cases, especially if it is five for and yet be changed in the makeup of the supreme court. a decent can become quite influential. a decent has a bit more leeway to speak to the public also. you tend to get a lot more speech and dissent because, first of all, a justice might be speaking only for himself sometimes and generally become unhinged, or say you will route the day when -- rue the day when this plays out in america. so they speak to colleagues who might change their minds down the road, and then they also speak to the public. here's another thing, they can speak to lower courts and say you might be reading this in the majority opinion but take caution not to do this and this. or famously most recently just as scully and his dissenting opinions is but justice scalia has said these rulings are opening the door to same-sex marriage, and in the windsor

case in june 2013, when the justices really did something narrow and striking down a provision didn't even comment on marriage rights. justice scalia said the game is over, this is all about marriage. lower court judges friendly said yeah, i think we believe and dissent and we're going to rule that windsor takes it much further towards same-sex marriage nationwide. >> host: joan biskupic is our guest. now is your turn. if you can't get there on the phone lines you can also get to on social media. at booktv is our twitter handle. yoyou can send an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org and final you can make a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. and callers, thank you for your patience but we'll be right with you. don't hang up. i want to start with his e-mail. he talked a lot about five for decisions and this is from alan steinberg. he e-mails in, i'm very nervous about five for decisions.

has any responsible party ever suggested that a decision in most cases should require a super majority, say 6-3? >> guest: justices don't like fight for decisions either but if you're in the majority you'll take what you can get. they don't like to appear so divided. or polarized, which they are. they brag about their 9-0 decision. that like to talk about the reports always talk about the 5-4, but we are unanimous many times over. they are unanimous in the ones that are as controversial. the 5-4 cases are the ones that can affect our lives. for example, in the windsor decisions i was referring to earlier, which involved a part of it of him by the name of edith went who was challenging the defense of marriage act trying to seek federal benefits in a -- estate taxes even though she was married to another woman, not to him into at the time federal law said these benefits can only extend to marriages that have a husband

and a wife. now, your e-mailer suggested something like that, a big decision like that maybe should've been 6-3. they won't go there. they feel like, and when your only comment if you like look, a majority is majority. and only dealing with nine people. it's hard enough to get a majority in some of these cases. even to get 6-3 would be virtually impossible for a lot of these but the most recent abortion rights cases have all come down five or. a from an action to become self i-4. religion rights to the combat 5-4. it's the nature of the institution. super majority work and the legislative branch but they don't work on the judicial branch. >> host: legal editor and reporter, author, joan biskupic is our guest. sandra day o'connor, her book, "sandra day o'conner: how the first woman on the supreme court became its most influential justice" came out in 2005.

"american original: the life and constitution of supreme court justice antonin scalia," 2009. her most recent book is on sonia sotomayor, "breaking in: the rise of sonia sotomayor and the politics of justice." nancy in lagrange georgia. you've been very patient to you on with joan biskupic. >> caller: good afternoon. i wanted to ask this this cubic about, i am big on justice o'connor and i know that she was -- [inaudible] my question is about a fourth amendment case in public health. it was chief justice rehnquist's dissent in philadelphia versus new jersey that got me interested in the court but i know that he declared for justice jackson an underwent ife knows of any cases that came out of nuremberg that impacted the court and if those decisions actually impacted bank was dissent in philadelphia versus

new jersey? >> guest: thanks to the color. and i'm off my right of the top of a hit with all the details of the case so i'm going to jump to what you're asking about with justice jackson and william rehnquist and the great friendship between justice o'connor, the caller is interest income and william rehnquist. and i'm glad she mentioned that because peter, you're asking about other friends on the court. as nancy just mention in her call, justice o'connor and justice rehnquist knew each other, they actually even dated when you're both at stanford law school. he went out and visited the family ranch in arizona and she tells if i was a story about that in her own memoir. so they were good pals. they were good pals personally. she separated herself from him on the law toward the end of her tenure. but william rehnquist is

interesting in terms of the jackson connection, and i will just tell the caller something about that. he found that clerkship in a way that other western law students probably would've never gotten clerkships. justice jackson came out to palo alto in 1952 i believe to help dedicate what was then a new stanford law school building, and while he was there he met rehnquist and he was able to say i like to cook for you, wouldn't it is, you know, clerk, and sort persuade justice jackson to take them on in a way as i said from the west to didn't regulate traveled to washington interviews would have been able to do. so your caller knows a lot of the history of these relationships and i'm so i can't comment more on how his expenses on the nuremberg panel and what

trickle-down might have affected things. but there wasn't interconnectedness of there. >> host: noted in your book, "sandra day o'connor," ken starr was involved in her nomination. >> guest: i loved learning that story. it is the most fun part about doing these books is what you find out that you hadn't known before. so everybody who's listening knows of ken starr as a former solicitor general. they know him mostly for the monica lewinsky report during president bill clinton's impeachment. >> host: and a president of baylor, right? >> guest: yes. is that what comes to peoples my first? no. it is also solicitor general of the united states and people forget that because all the starr report and the monica whiskey. he is president of baylor, but back in 1981, he was an assistant in the justice department who was tasked going

to visit arizona and to visit this woman had never heard of, sandra day o'connor come to see could she possibly be material for the u.s. supreme court? he goes out there with another guy, jonathan rose, who still an active lawyer in town, and they go to her house in scottsdale -- >> host: paradise valley. >> guest: paradise valley. i could remember which suburb. how could i forget paradise valley? and she has, this is something interesting, jewish is recovering from major surgery. she's recovering from major surgery during this incident. she's someone who these guys in washington have never heard of, and she's got to impress them with our constitutional law ability, that she can withstand what goes on during the nomination process. she's got to hold it all together in this post surgery modicum and, of course, she's the kind of person she is she serves them this exquisite salmon salad and they can still member.

so they are there and ken starr and john rose said later that they really understood what kind of person she was. that she was quite effective in making her own case, even though as i said, should not even been in any federal court. she was actually at the time she was on an arizona court but it wasn't arizona supreme court. she was ready for them. she was really ready for them. both she and sonia sotomayor for very political savvy and they knew what it would take and they both did their homework done for john in new york, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i have actually become it that i would like to just to please comment on it. and that is that, in my perspective president have limited their appointments recently, recent president. the candidates have served on courts and primarily are graduates of a few prestigious law schools. but in the past it was common

for president to select candidates from the political arena. you mentioned robert jackson. they brought a practical fear for the issues that they had to decide on the court. in my opinion that's absent today. and the other question, just a quick question is where did the four judge ruled come from academic who is going to what cases the court ordered her? >> guest: those are good questions, i like those. great questions. one is nice and brought and one is down to the specifics of how this place works. first of all i'm glad i call the race to because it's so true. when you think of the warren court, earl ward, former governor of california, people who were sectors, people have been in the justice department. your people have been out there, people who have run for public office. that is all change. in fact, sandra day o'connor during their yearly 25 years on the bench, she was the only one among those nine would ever even stood for public election.

again, back in arizona. and now with exception of elena kagan, every single one of the justices came from a lower federal appeals court bench. your caller is absent be right, that the experience level has been narrowed. and also all of them have either graduated from them i'm going to put asterisk on this, all of them either attended yale or harbored for law school. justice ginsburg attended harvard and didn't finish at harvard. she finished up at columbia as of course no bad school itself. they're all ivy league. she's finished at columbia because she moved to new york city with her husband was a year ahead of her or his job at the time in the '50s. so you have all these justices who come from a fairly narrow band of expense. of course, clarence thomas and sonia sotomayor and ruth bader ginsburg have their different

backgrounds through being only the second woman on the court, justice ginsburg, the first lady and and, of course, the second african-american, clarence thomas. so they bring a different perspective to those things but they still come from sort of a narrow range of experience. and the caller has hit upon something that presidents themselves have thought about bucking. bill clinton spent a lot of time trying to persuade mario cuomo who at the time had just recently been new york governor, to be a nominee. he tried to persuade george mitchell had been senate minority leader to be on the court. he tried to persuade richard riley of the time i believe was education secretary. and pieces we considered bruce babbitt who as interior secretary. bill clinton thought about going that route. and i think president obama might have a little way thought about that, but the safer

nominees are nominees who have a track record in writing opinions. that's what presidents have gravitated towards. and i think many people think it's a loss to the country. regionalism, we have five justices know who are from the boroughs of the bronx or from new jersey. so it's definitely an east coast dominated court. summerlike sandra day o'connor really understood water rights and great west is gone. two of our justices grew up in the west but they hardly are westerners into traditional vein. stephen breyer grew up in san francisco, and then went to harvard and taught at harvard. he's got more east coast sensibly i think the west coast in some ways. and nancy kennedy tasha anthony kennedy grew up in sacramento, but he went and he also went to

harvard and then to the london school of economics. >> host: the second question that john had. >> guest: this is good. this is important for people to know. thank you for memory that he asked the. he's talking about how many justice it takes to grant tertiary or to say we will take that case. right now asked the justice decide whether to take up the same-sex marriage is an issue, it takes of course five justices to decide it but only for to say we want to hear it. and that's been the way as long as i've been covering the court for a really long time, so i don't know when it started. i think it should one not known to the public mainly because people don't get interest in what happens but don't takes for justices to grant. and sometimes one of those four justices who might think we should we take up this case because we got a lower court ruling doesn't seem so wise, might frankly vote against it not one in the supreme court

then as a majority to come in and national law, a role that maybe could have more harm, at least in the justice point of view, do you know what i mean? defensive vote on that, not just votes for granted. >> host: javier, miami. >> caller: yes. this is an observation and the question. referring to justice o'connor, and you describe are as chanting quote-unquote abortion-rights. ..

>> guest: but her legacy certainly does involve abortion rights. and i presume what the caller was saying is, you know, how fair is that? how fair is that in terms of a woman's right to end a pregnancy versus people on the other side who say life begins at conception, there is no right to abortion in the constitution, where does the supreme court get off doing this? and that is an enduring dilemma. the supreme court in 1973 issued its roe v. wade decision, and it has remained so controversial til today. so i think that it's one that people struggle with, it's one that judges continue to struggle with. i wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get another case back

there soon. we had a very controversial ruling out of texas recently that has caused several clinics there to start to shut their doors. so abortion remains an incredibly difficult topic. i remember when i first started writing about abortion rights, i likened it to controversy over the vietnam war. well, nobody's talking about the vietnam war anymore, and they're still talking about abortion rights. >> host: in the chapter from your book on sandra day o'connor -- >> guest: sure. >> host: shifting ground on abortion is the name of the chapter. you write, at bottom her opinion reflected her brand of judging in the face of strong anti-roe rhetoric from the chief justice and a near majority, she had retreated from a position that could have reversed the 1973 landmark. this would happen in other areas of the law too. she would step to the brink and then back away. her opinion in webster v. reproductive health services was a pivot that would set her in another direction, but that

would be clear only when she took her next step. >> guest: that was right. [laughter] that's right. that took me a long time to craft also, but that's right. she, just to also tell your caller, that she was actually much more in the camp against abortion rights in her early tenure there. she always had very mixed feelings on it, certainly, and it's a tough issue. it's a very tough issue. she would acknowledge, and there's just people at the extremes who say i don't see why it's so tough, but it's tough, and she found it tough. and what happened after the 1989 webster ruling which caused huge uproar nationwide, and there were big marches here in washington, d.c. against that ruling, justice o'connor pulled back. she pulled back, and she realized how important the right was. and she helped engineer the decision that the nation got in 1992 in the casey ruling that

upheld abortion rights and set the standard that we now have that says that state regulations may not put an undue burden on a woman seeking to end a pregnancy. and so she -- i don't know if i'd say she changed her mind, but she altered her thinking enough to become a stronger supporter of the basic right than she had been originally. >> host: velma, carlsbad, california, you're on with joan biskupic. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm very interested in your opinion on the passage of citizens united. i'm really quite disturbed by this, and i would like to know if you think this will be reversed. >> host: velma, my guess is that joan biskupic will not share necessarily her opinion on the case. what, what's your opinion on the case? why does it disturb you? >> caller: it disturbs me because i feel it's a threat to our democracy.

and being, and also because, you know, how it will affect the power of the individual vote of an american. >> host: thank you, ma'am. joan biskupic. citizenned united. >> guest: yes. the caller's referring to a case that's not as controversial as roe v. wade, but a good runner-up definitely. issued in january of 2010 by a 5-4 vote -- referring to your other caller there -- the justices said that the congress was wrong to set limits on certain spending by corporations and labor unions. and it allowed much more corporate money into campaigns. it's been seen as giving a boost to super pacs, it's been seen to just letting much more money in to the democratic process and favoring corporations over

individuals' speech rights. and it's 5-4. there is a chance it could be reversed down the road, but that would take a change in the makeup of the supreme court. right now those five conservatives who ruled that way -- chief justice john roberts, anthony kennedy, antonin scalia, clarence thomas and samuel alito -- are all there, all fairly healthy, none of them giving signals about retirement. and as i'm sure your caller knows because she was so concerned about this ruling, they have followed it up with other decisions and actions that, essentially, reinforce it. i should note that the one time last term that we had a major disruption in the courtroom where going back to the earlier, prior discussion, there are no major disruptions at the supreme court during oral arguments, somebody stood up and actually complained about citizens united, had an outburst, and the chief justice had him taken away. but at the same time, somebody

secretly recorded him and put the recording on youtube. as a result of that incident -- which, again, was sparked by citizens united. so you can feel that there's a lot of passion about that case. the security screening to get into the courtroom is much tougher now. just phyllis is in ridge crest, california. phyllis, you're on booktv. >> caller: yes, good day. how are you? >> host: good. >> caller: yes. i have just one question i've been thinking of several years now, that how come such an important body of politic such as the justices are able to sit for their whole lifetime if they choose to do so? how come they aren't given a term, maybe 20 years, maybe three terms? because being that they're making these moral value judgments and the policies and the thoughts and ideas of the american citizenry isn't always reflective of what they themselves are making when they make -- can excuse me -- when they make these judgments, judgment calls.

so, you know, maybe sometime in the future we should consider at least having them appointed only as long as the president that appoints them is in office as well as maybe giving them a 20-year term just like anybody else who gets a job. you don't sit there and work all the days of your life, you know, on that job. you burn out. everybody burns out. so we have to think, i think, we should consider taking these justices, giving them a term of serving so that we can get a better reflection of the ideas and the moral values that the american people really -- >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> caller: thank you. >> guest: it's a discussion that comes up, but it's in the constitution. they're appointed for life. for better or for worse. the framers of the constitution felt that would be the best way to insulate them from politics, so that they weren't effectively running for office, or they didn't have to please the person

who had appointed them. so there were benefits to the idea of this impartial judiciary, of a judiciary that would have more integrity, be blind to certain political constraints that the other branches would face. so that's, that's the background of why our supreme court justices and, frankly, every member of the federal bench from district court judges up to the appeals court level to the supreme court level on the federal bench are appointed for life. now, you get complaints about that, but they tend to be -- they didn't tend not to be like the caller's complaint. the caller's raising concerns about burnout, bringing your own moral judgment to it that, you know, might be outdated after time. usually it comes down to kind of questions of politics of one justice over another. sometimes it comes down to why is that liberal still hanging in there. justice john paul stevens retired at 90 and, boy, was he a

active, free-thinking 90-year-old. justice douglas, basically, had to be willed out. so, you know, it depends on how long they hold on. chief justice rehnquist really, really wanted to hold on, and what does he do? he died in office, september 3, 2005, from thyroid cancer. he thought he could last another term, and he couldn't. so they tend to think that appointed for life means appointed for life and then death. and they hang in there. now, justice o'connor left just shy of 25 years, but she left in part to go home to take care of her husband who had alzheimer's at the time. he ended up dying a few years later, and her colleagues -- including justice ruth bader beginnings burg -- think that she regretted leaving when she

did. >> host: why? >> guest: just because she -- well, twofold. it's both personal and professional. she's left to take care of her husband who was ailing, but she couldn't adequately take care of him, so he ended up in an assisted living home because his disease had progressed far enough. and she ended up herself being quite active and able to keep being out there professionally, so maybe she didn't need to leave when she did. it's, it's a personal choice, and once you leave, your world just isn't the same. >> host: well, just to follow up on that -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: louise houseman asks that question, whether or not justice o'connor regretted leaving the court which you've talked about. but number two, to bring up what the last caller brought up, there's a belief that the supreme court's decisions in the last 20 years have become increasingly politicized. what is your opinion? >> guest: okay, i'll take both of them. first of all, justice o'connor herself has never said to me i

really regret leaving. i don't think she would ever say that to anyone. she's the kind of person who makes a decision, sticks with it and keeps rowing in the same direction. but i do know that it has been subject of speculation, and ruth bader ginsburg said directly to me, you know, i wonder if sandra regrets it. so that's to answer that question. and i think that if i had to bet money, i'd say that somewhere deep in her heart, justice o'connor probably does regret it in some way, because it's been nearly a full decade since she's been off. okay, now the political polarization. i think that this court is polarized, polarized in politics and ideology, but it's not all that it is, and they surprise us sometimes. with the chief justice's vote, upheld obamacare. they've taken more incremental steps on hot button issues like

affirmative action when i didn't think they would. so it's not all of a complete piece, but if you look just in terms of who's on this court now compared to where the kinds of differences we might have had in earlier decades, all five of the most, the strongest conservatives were put on by republican presidents. we didn't have -- and the four more liberal justices were put on by democratic presidents. we didn't have that before, you know, there were democratic appointees like byron white appointed by jfk who tended to vote more conservative, and we had republican appointees like john paul stevens who voted more liberal. so that might have given more confidence to people that politic wasn't playing a role, but now we have this unique political division of 5-4 which, i think, helps feed the public perception about politics at the court. >> host: is it unusual to have two former living, relatively

healthy justices -- john paul stevens and sandra day o'connor? >> guest: no. no. in the olden days, in the earlier decades like, for example, warren burger stepped down to head the constitution committee, so he, let's see, he stepped down in '86 and didn't die until mid '90s, so he was around. harry blackman stepped down in '05 -- am i remembering that right? no, no, no. he stepped down in -- because breyer succeeded him. so he steps down in '94 and then dies about a decade later. and byron white stepped down in '91, he was succeeded by ruth bader ginsburg -- you're testing my memory for all these dates, yes, i can tell. anyway, it's not unusual, peter. >> host: currently on the court there are two president obama nominees, there are two clinton nominees, one reagan nominee, three george w. bush justices and one george h.w. bush

justice. >> guest: right. >> host: stanley in maryland, please go ahead with your question or comment for joan biskupic. >> caller: i am struck that there are two myths that are existing regarding the supreme court; one that it is rational and, two, that it is based on the constitution. i had a professor in law school many, many years ago who was also a circuit court judge who said that every judge should be psychoanalyzed before he's on the court. and i'm struck by the fact that all of the people considered the conservative justices are catholic men, all of the usually thought of as liberal justices are jewish or women, and i'm just wondering whether that gives us any confidence of the court as a rational body at all. >> host: stanley, are you a lawyer? >> caller: yes. >> host: and what kind of law do you practice? >> caller: mediation. i worked as a mediator for many years. i'm retired now. >> host: thank you, sir. joan biskupic.

>> guest: thanks for the question. and i'm glad to talk about the demographics in terms of religion and gender. you know, is the court rational? again, that's in the eye of the beholder, but i want to talk about something that the caller raised that's serious in terms of how the public should perceive the religious differences. the caller's absolutely right that the five most conservative justices happen to be roman catholic. the five men i just mentioned are roman catholic. now, sonia sotomayor is also roman catholic, she was raised roman catholic, and she doesn't vote with them on most of these tough social issues. the three others in the liberal wing happen to be jewish, of different -- everybody's sort of a different degree of how much they adhere to the their religious thinking, how much they go to church -- [laughter] how much they abide. i'm trying to remember the last time -- you know, a couple times i'll see justices come in on ash wednesday with ashes, but not

all the catholics would on ash wednesday. so it varies in terms of how their catholic beliefs feed into how they vote. and what they would say to a person is they don't. let me tell you something else about the catholicism at the court. william brennan was a catholic, and he was one of the strongest supporters of abortion rights. so i can't, i can't say that this breaks down on religious grounds for their reasoning, but it does break down just as a matter of identification, that the five catholics tend to vote more conservatively, and the three jewish justices along with sonia sotomayor tend to vote more liberally. and i do have to say that i think it tells us about the place of religion in america that when barack obama appointed elena kagan to the court in 2010 to succeed our last partisan on the court, her religion wasn't

an issue. she happens to be jewish. it meant that we would now have a court of six catholics and three jews, no protestants. protestants, of course, have run the world forever. [laughter] so it was kind of interesting that the wasp idea had suddenly disappeared from the supreme court. but people didn't object. and there was a time actually in the early '90s when i had some lawyers say to me now that ruth bader ginsburg has been appointed, it will be harder for stephen breyer to be appointed, and it wasn't. so it is, it is interesting to see, and it does shatter in some ways some of the stereotypes about how the public might view religion, but it's still there. the religion cases are almost as tough at the court as the abortion cases. >> host: what is the red math? >> guest: oh. okay, the red mass which is celebrated like, as we're

speaking, right? on the sunday before the first monday in october, it's held at st. matthew's cathedral church -- i think that's the official name of it -- the apostle here in downtown washington. and it's, essentially, the kickoff for, of the -- it's a riggsal mass held with -- traditional mass held with, i think it was originally red garments that priests and bishops wear for this. that's how it got the name, "red mass." and it's attended by not just catholics in washington, d.c. who are involved in the law. stephen breyer, as i said who's jewish, often will attend. and it's quite ceremonial and it's mainly just a pray for good judgment. on the old days i would go on occasion just to see the justices there. >> host: and we're showing you this year's red mass -- >> guest: oh, good. >> host: you can see elena kagan -- >> guest: can i turn around and look? >> host: that's fine. >> guest: okay, good. >> host: john roberts and the whole gang.

>> guest: there's elena kagan. >> host: so it's not official, it's just a tradition that developed. >> guest: yes. to say it's -- i'm not sure, i don't want to try to characterize what the catholic church is saying, but i believe it's saying, you know, here's to encourage good judgment and not necessarily religious judgment, but just good judgment for all who are involved in the law. it's not just for judges, lawyers will attend also. >> host: we have an hour and a half left with our guest, joan biskupic. she's written biographies on antonin scalia, sandra day o'connor and most recently on justice sonia sotomayor. we're talking about those as well as the supreme court. hour and a half left. but, first, we went to her house to see her writing. >> guest: my process is basically the same. i put a lot of energy into the proposal itself, because i want to make sure that i want to live with this person for many years,

that i want to take time away from my family, you know, work late at night, work on weekends because that's when i do the bulk of the work. so i write a pretty in-depth proposal, and then once i get the okay from a publisher, then i basically do a lot of research. i research for months and months, and then i start writing, research, writing, research, writing. and i do mix it up. and i've found that even until the very end with justice sotomayor, i was still looking up things, still doing extra reading as i was still writing. and i find also it's quite motivating to -- for me, at least -- to mix the two processes. this is the hardest part, the time crunch. and this one was much harder than the first two. for the justice o'connor book, i took off nine months from my day job. i split up the time, and i -- and then for the justice scalia book, i was off for six months. for this one i had a summer at the woodrow wilson center. and i just want to say that the woodrow wilson center here in town is fabulous.

it helps people like me, other journalists write books. so i took off some time early on. but then in february 2012 when i switched to reuters and had a more demanding job, i thought i am never going to finish this book because i would come home late at night, i would have fairly long days, and i would come home late at night, i'd fix dinner, and my husband would go read or watch tv, and i would come in here and look at this computer or -- first, i was working at the upstairs one, and that one broke, so i'd come in here, work on on the this compu, and i'd think i don't know how i'm going to get this done because, of course, you're exhausted. i happen to get up very early for work. and then i'd work on weekends. i would do all sorts of things for motivation. mainly, you know, i'm a real deadline person, so i tend to get things done. but it's very hard to get things done when you're exhausted, of course. so i would do research, i'd work in here, i'd work in the living room, i'd work upstairs, i'd go to the library of congress.

i just kept going. and i played all sorts of tricks on myself. i would break down my increments and think -- it's like i used to say to my daughter when she lived at home, if anything happens to me, please, destroy all those post-its that say in this 15 minute increment you do this. but i found if you work in those short chunks, you're getting things done. you're like, okay, cross that off. i'm a great list maker, and i love to cross things off my list. so that's how it gets done. [laughter] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: joan biskupic, south side of chicago, huh? >> guest: yes. >> host: why? [laughter] why are you from that area? >> guest: i couldn't control where they birthed me, yeah. my parents both came from first generation homes. my mother, irish, my father croatian, and they grew up on the south i'd of chicago -- side of chicago in the beverly area for people who know the south side, and those of us who are

from the south side tend to identify ourselves that way. when i was at the washington post, there were three or four of us, and we used to have to do these mini bios, and those of us from the south side would say we are from the south side of chicago. so i was born and raised there and moved out to the suburbs when i was at the end of high school. but both parents from there, and i love that my own daughter when she got old enough went back to the university of chicago, which is on the south side -- i always say the brainy south side, not exactly where i grew up -- when she went to college. >> host: were your parents college graduates? >> guest: they were, they were. they were slightly unusual in the neighborhood. my father was, at least, because he had a law degree. he was a lawyer. my mother, they met at loyola, actually. they both went to loyola at different points; my father for law school and my mother for undergrad. and she taught. she was a teacher until i was born which was pretty quickly

after they were married. so she taught and then she had all these children. so they were both, they were both educated, and they both were very much interested in words. my father went on to do a lot of municipal law, represented the city of chicago fire department at different points and then, you know, various municipalities in the region and was, essentially, in a maul office with a partner -- small office with a partner as he did that. he wasn't with a big firm. >> host: do you remember the first time that you were interested in law? >> guest: i was always interested in it. my early journalism jobs were covering government and politics, but i found that i gravitated toward the courts. i was always interested in court rulings, interested in cases. and then when i got to washington, it was, it became very convenient, actually, to go to law school on side. and i kept saying to myself

because while i was, you know, i had a full-time job at congressional quarterly and "the washington post". and i had a baby in the middle of it. and i always thought, you know, this is getting kind of hard, and i kept giving myself permission not to finish law school. okay, it's okay, you've got a big job. you don't need to finish. but i did. you know, i finished, and i enjoyed it. and, you know, i kind of liked the pace of school, and i like law, and i found that with politics and government it's very mutually reinforcing. and i actually know several journalists who either went to law school or aspired to be lawyers at one point. i think journalism and law tend to be quite compatible. >> host: why? >> guest: both have to do with words. you know, writing is a big part of law. you know, when you take -- you write, you have to write lots of essays when you're in law school, and writing's, obviously, a big part of journalism. i think it attracts people with the same sort of skill set.

and i was reminded of something you said about how you think of the supreme court as calculus and something that you kind of are afraid of. i'm, i find that it's very easy for me to swim in the world of law, humanities, journalism, those kinds of things. it's more science and patent law which has become very important at the supreme court that i find, i resist more. i would resist more science and calculus than i would resist the law. and i have a good friend who's very smart on patent law, and i said, oh, but it involves so much science, and he said the trick is not to be afraid of it. that's what i would say to you about the supreme court; don't be afraid of it. don't think of it as calculus. think of it as something you can learn about. and i've liked that about the law, and now i'm trying to get smarter on science and patents. >> host: 202-558-3881 if you are out west. if you can't get through on

phone lines, try social media, @booktv is our twitter handle, facebook.com/booktv if you want to make a comment there and, finally, send an e-mail, booktv@c-span.org. and from our facebook page, dan says: what, if anything, can you discern about the three justices you've written from the working relationships they've had with their law clerks? >> guest: oh. oh, gosh. talk about bonds that are very tight, between a justice and his or her clerks. in fact, justice o'connor really liked to fix up her law clerks. nothing made her happier than a marriage between two clerks. and she called the children of her law clerks her grand clerks. she was very tight with her clerks. and once a supreme court law clerk, sort of always a supreme court law clerk. as some of your viewers might know, it's an incredibly difficult job to get. each chamber has four clerks,

nine chambers, four clerks, 36 -- and then a couple for the retired jus diss. so -- justices. so not many people can hold these jobs. they last for just one year, and typically a justice will hire a person who has graduated from law school and then clerked for a lower court judge. and there are certain feeder judges. judges who are known in the business of being really thinking, intellectual judges who might send clerks their way. so it's a very prestigious, limited spot. you have a lot of -- the young clerks have a lot of face time and interaction with justices. the justices rely on these people to help them with drafts, help them with research. and, again, this is an incredibly insular institution which is why when justice sotomayor came on the scene, you

know, there were some sparks flying. but she will even herself hire mainly from other lower court judges' chambers. she's not breaking the mold. clarence thomas tried very hard to hire people who aren't just from the ivy leagues. he says i want to go from the top student who might have graduated from the university of georgia, i want to go more others. and justice byron white was that way too. he liked young beyond the ivy league. so it is -- you're getting the elite of elite students in all chambers, and i would say including in justice sotomayor's chambers. she certainly has her own elite markers with princeton and yale. and all of them do now, you know, because we're not talking about anybody who attended anymore even north western, and northwestern's a very fine school, but that's where justice john paul stevens had gotten his law degree, and he was the last of the non-ivies for a while. >> host: i don't know if you did this on purpose or not, but on

"breaking in," i noted two significant references to the ivy leagues. number one that justice sotomayor chose an ivy league school on purpose -- >> guest: she did. >> host: -- and that it has become so exclusive. >> guest: she, see, this is where i understand how much she appreciates having those markers. she's not going to lose her puerto rican identity. but, boy, when she had the opportunity to go to princeton or an ivy league undergraduate, she was going to seize it. and then she told me once she had had that experience and realized how important that was just, not just for the learning, but the credential, she was not going to go to a law school that was not in the ivy league. others might have thought, you know, my degree's from georgetown, i went at night, there are plenty of other people who have been on the supreme court at different times who had perfectly fine legal credentials without the stamp of the ivy league. but she, even as a young woman in her 20s, was not going to

change course once she got to an ivy league school. and she now add vies young people -- advises young people, get the best education you can, the best credentialed education you can. go into hock, do what it takes, get it. because she's realized how in some of these more elite, snobby worlds that can make a difference. now, it's, it doesn't always matter, certainly. i don't think that -- i can imagine in the next couple of confirmations that we'll have somebody that went to a state school. i mean, that would be okay, you know? it would really be okay. but right now there's something else going on that seems to place a pretty high value on certain selective schools. >> host: back to "breaking in," the experience of clarence thomas at yale, the experienceover sonia sotomayor -- >> guest: right, right. clarence thomas wrote in his own memoir called "my grandfather's son," about how painful it was,

how he felt like he didn't get a very good education, that everyone there at the time and then afterward thought that he got in only because of affirmative action and he wrote -- i use some of his passages from his memory in -- memoir in this book about how he felt as if he was really mistreated by people who thought they were doing him some good by taking him under certain conditions and also signaling to others that maybe you might not be as credentialed as white students who had graduated from yale. i hi it was a pretty painful -- i think it was a pretty painful experience. i do know that he has gotten over a certain degree of it enough that he has gone back to yale now. for a long time, he would not go back to yale x. in october, mid october -- or maybe it's october 25th -- a reunion weekend for the yale law school, justices sotomayor, alito and clarence thomas will all be together at

yale. and all three had very different experiences, the most notable would be clarence thomas who at the time really felt like the school had let him down in some way. >> host: joan biskupic is our guest. mike in kingston, north carolina, thanks for holding, you're on the air. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i've got a three-pronged dialogue here. first of all, i definitely side, i read online that 73% of the public -- 71% of the public feels there should be term limits for the supreme court as well as the congress, and i agree. they're totally political, especially in the last years and totally reflect the background of those who aspire or get elected to the courts. so i think there should be term limits. and then my second, second prong is i think there's no -- you're making, and i think the news media has been the biggest purporters of this -- and this is my opinion -- there is no

such thing as same-sex marriage no more than you can marry two bolts to two nuts. there's no such thing as abortion rights no more than anybody has right to take another person's right that made it outside the womb. and my last comment -- and thank you for accepting -- is i think that, and this is, hopefully, a constructive criticism, i think that both on washington journal and here you spend way too much time just talking, talking, talking instead of getting the social media or the telephone calls. just like the visit to the author's house. nothing wrong with that, but i think a lot of people would buy the book -- which i recommend -- and read it instead of spending so much time on glorifying the people that you have on there. and i thank you for taking my call. >> host: thank you, sir. any comment for that caller, joan biskupic? >> guest: well, i liked it. i liked, especially, the part that he's still going to buy the book. [laughter] so that's good. that's great. and he raises -- i'll go right

to the touchier ones. look, same-sex marriage the phrase we're going to use because they're two people of the same sex. you know, some people call it gay marriage, you know, people use all different phrases. and the polls are showing that the american public has come to accept that more than before, but i am mindful of the fact that right now only 19 states and the district of columbia actually allow gay men and lesbians to get married. you know, 31 states it's still illegal. the it's a very real issue out there, and even though i am one of the people who actually thinks the supreme court is about to take that up, there's a chance they might not. they might feel like the country is not ready for them to take it up yet. so i think it's always good the hear from people who don't like the trend as it's going, because it's a bit of a reality check sometimes on the east coast.

but it's also, it's something that we're constantly monitoring. we are constantly polling on this. and there's not a story that i write on same-sex marriage that i don't mention that it varies out will in terms of public support. but i think there is no denying that public support has really, taken off for allowing it. and whether the justices will declare that there is a constitutional right to marry, we'll know in the next couple months. >> host: roger, decatur, georgia, hello. >> caller: hi. joan, thank you so much for remembering father dryman. >> guest: oh, yeah. yes. >> caller: early on in the show you said but this is washington. and washington is really social, okay? so i'd like to know with whom the justices socialize. and i'll do the easy ones, leave you the hard ones. we know ruth bader ginsburg's a culture vulture, and we hear

that justice breyer hangs out in georgetown which for me means sally quinn, and we know that justice thomas likes nascar, but his wife's well connected, and, you know, john roberts is definitely well connected. so when they go out, who do they go out with, who do they hang with, who do they listen to? >> host: roger, why is that important to you? roger's gone. sorry about that. >> guest: okay. well, what i know is limited, of course, because they're not hanging out with me. [laughter] so i can tell you what i pick up on, and i'll start at the top. you know, look, the chief justice of the united states, john roberts, is raising a couple of youngsters, so he's hanging out at, you know, hockey rinks, hanging out at places where his kids will be, but then, but he also, of course, has longtime connections here in washington with people from, you know, the late '80s and '90s who were in the reagan administration, who are part of, as roger would recognize, some

of the elite legal club. so he's hanging out with them in some way socially, but he's also someone who's raising two kids, so he's got that on his plate. justice sotomayor lives in a really neat, up and coming area -- or it's not up and coming, it's already come -- area of washington, d.c., and elena kagan, and they both bought in this region. and so they're doing, they're going out to restaurants with their pals, they're mixing with folks who they knew at earlier points in their life. elena kagan has been in washington a long time, and she was, you know, back and forth between here and up at harvard and the town of chicago. but they're all hanging out with friends from past experiences and here in washington. when you, when they're -- according to the court, they're usually older in life. justice kagan was reported at roughly age 50, but she was a youngster and still is the youngest member of the court.

she was born in 1960. but the others are older, so their social groups are established, and that's a little bit about what roger's getting at, is that they're not branching out to that many new people. they're sort of is sticking with the folks they know. ..

so he likes to, and he likes to travel. out west and down south so they all have their different pals. i'm trying to think of anything notable for roger to say about any of these justices that he might not know. >> host: do they pal around together? besides scalia and ginsberg? >> guest: justice sandra o'connor was social glue. that after oral arguments they all eat together at lunch. justice souter said, i don't want to eat lunch with you people. i want to eat my apple and yogurt. she would say, david, now you eat with us. she was saying it is important to shake hand and touch people and get connected. constantly organizing field trips for the clerks and field trips for the fellow justice. i would say that there is not that kind of person on the court right now and they do things together.

justice kagan goes overseas with the other justices. the newest justice. they do social things and celebrate each others birthday with a little wine conference. so there you have it. >> host: in fact in your book on sandra day o'connor you write that one of her conditions did not get circulated on time. this is the reason why. apparently her tennis game with first lady barbara bush this morning and luncheon appointment precluded her final precirculation review. next call comes from joseph in pittsburgh. joseph, you're on booktv on c-span2. joseph, are you with us? >> caller: according to the supreme court, to be appointed, according to the constitution to be appointed to the supreme court you simply have to be law knowledgeable in law, not necessarily an attorney. can we foresee down the road

person who is not an attorney being appointed to the court? and one other thing? i think the red mast is in dedication to st. thomas moore. thanks for taking my call. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: right. st. thomas moore. david: hero for justice scalia. thanks for filling that in. the loop on the quote, those were not my words about justice o'connor, those were a clerk, right? >> host: i think justic blackmon who wrote that. >> guest: i know it wasn't me. i want to make sure you let viewers know. >> host: it was from a clerk. >> guest: someone critizing her social calendar. >> guest: thank you to the calendar. the red mass was thomas moore. >> host: non-lawyers on the

court? >> guest: not in my lifetime. not in your lifetime. i can't remember the last non-lawyer. i is absolutely right, you don't need to have a law degree to be on the supreme court. >> host: not boeing to happen? >> guest: first of all, law degrees are a dime a dozen. you could have experience with the law degree. that is what all the other justices of the past did have. early warren had a law degree and was a governor. so you had very, a lot of variation with the law degree and traditional legal experience. i would endorse what the scholar is saying trying to broaden the experience but just not talk about, to not have a law degree in this day and age would be hard to get up to speed. it is very hartford new justices to get up to speed anyway because of the way cycle of the court and all that. >> host: tr tweets, in to you, joan biskupic, would you comment

on the court's relationship with congress? >> guest: okay. >> host: why the hesitation? >> guest: it varies. it varies among justice. take somebody like antonin scalia. that is the branch he didn't work in. he works in the executive president and third branch the judiciary. he never really liked the messiness of congress and how laws get made. justice stephen breyer worked for teddy kennedy on the senate judiciary committee. he helped write the legislation for the sentencing commission. he helped write the legislation that deregulated airlines. justice breyer gets and appreciates the congressional process. so individual justices have different relationships with congress just in terms of understanding and appreciating the work of congress. isn't it funny to appreciate the work of congress? when we think of how polarized

it has been in recent years. they are different that way. elena kagan worked for senator joseph biden when he was chairman of the senate judiciary committee when justice ginsburg was being reviewed. interesting how the court reads the work of congress and understands in interpreting the law. the majority of justices do look at legislative history and do try to understand what congress wanted to achieve in a law. justice scalia is against that. justice sklar leah says, look at the black and white letter reading of law and what penalties are with regard to that law. at different times depending on the issue and there is tension among the branches and in some ways that can be very healthy because they're supposed to be checks on each other.

i think for the machinery to run smoothly, there should be understanding of the constraints each of the branches are up against. >> host: is the supreme court a supplicant of congress? >> guest: supreme court has nothing but its ruling. it doesn't have money. it can't enforce its rulings. it doesn't have the power of the purse certainly. it doesn't have the power of the sword. it doesn't have, it has only its own institutional authority. the justices can be nervous and timid how they might appear, i'm talking all ideas. they don't want to compromise the integrity of the court because it doesn't really have power. doesn't have enforcement power. it doesn't have money at all.

if people follow the rulings, people have to believe in it. that is what it has. early warren, i never covered him. we have a person in our ranks that did cover the warren court. didn't coffer earl warren and mainly covered rehnquist area and covered chief justice john roberts, all those men took seriously the concern about engendering high public regard. they care about public opinion. they try not to show it in their rulings. they try not to show it in the public speeches but they want the public to believe in the institution. >> host: but they have to come to congress for money. >> guest: in a way that is very minimal. congress does oversee the court's budget, the federal judiciary's budget through the commerce justice states of

committee but it is in a minimal way and they can't have, they, congress has only limited way to cut back its jurisdiction and only limited way to effect its salary. so no, not at all. >> host: deb business, al about kerr key. hi. >> caller: hi, joan, i don't know if you are able to answer the question but i'm always waiting to talk to somebody about the supreme court. section 2, article iii of the constitution says congress is going to decide how the supreme court is set up. jefferson really had a problem, i think it was john marshall in the early 1800s, the supreme court should not be the final tribunal of all laws made and enacted by congress and signed by the president. he waited until after jefferson died of course and turned around made them the final say on everything. when the constitution doesn't say that much. so it makes, it was supposed to have a three equal branches. if everything the supreme court can overturn anything, you say

they have no power, they have power because they can turn around and mold the constitution into anything they see fit. basically we don't have a democracy. we have an oligarchy, nine people who weren't elected sitting there for life. i don't care if they're there for life but they were the weakest part of the three branches. now all of sudden, nobody ever questions what they did, because the first couple of decades of our republic starting, nobody ever thought that supreme court would turn around overrule any kind of law that was already passed. i was just curious on your going back into -- >> host: got the point. >> guest: actually she raises, what she just raised, referring to marbury versus madison, 1803, when chief justice john marshall wrote, the majority wrote, the court wrote, that the supreme court is the final ash bitter of

what the law says -- arbiter. that is a very big deal that has endured until today and that is what is the supreme court -- gives the supreme court its authority to say what's in the constitution. now just, to mention to the caller, federal statutes, congress can always go back and rewrite the statute. take as real lot to rewrite the constitution as we know. so what she is referring to is the fact that yes, in terms of what the constitution says, the supreme court does have the last word and it was the doing of john marshall era and at the supreme court, the most prominent piece of sculpture is john marshall seated, beautiful bronze piece, right in the, on the ground floor level that chief justice john roberts used to touch the toe of before he went to argue. it is quite a statement there because the statement that chief justice john marshall brought to the law.

>> host: from your sandra day o'connor book, from former chief justice warren burger, the truth was his personal style rival. he used baste and technique to control the opinion writing assignment. berger would wave his term to speak first in the justice's conference and vote with the side that would have majority would give him as senior member of thatside the power to assign the opinion of the case. >> that was him he did that. yeah. it is nice you brought that up because, there have been personal differences among these justices at other points. when he was on the court, warren burger, antonin scalia was on the court, what he left in '86, succession, rehnquist becomes chief and scalia comes on in his seat. so we've had some unusual personalities, tricky personalities throughout history and warren burger came from the d.c. circuit that i referred to

earlier. became chief justice i believe it was 1969 and he had he had a very strong personality but his colleagues got wise to some of his techniques and, you know, they would watch out for each other. but since then the word on chief justice rehnquist and chief justice john roberts there isn't games playing of that kind of nature. there is an awful lot of power in the authority to assign opinions, because, you can, the chief can decide, you know, how wide or narrow it might go depending who is he giving the opinion to. so that is quite a good deal of power and maybe it can, it could be abused in other ways but in terms of fairness, i'm not hearing at all those kind of comments about either late chief rehnquist or the current chief john roberts that were circulate ad lot with warren burger. >> host: pat riley emails in to

you, joan biskupic, astute legal scholars using abilities to promote adendas of their political party, how to explain so many 5-4. >> guest: she probably did that with a little bit of irony. you look, two things when you look at justices rulings. you take a bit of the word that is in it. but you also realize there are a lot of factors at play and politics is one of them. i mean i would be the first to say, i wouldn't ever go as far as asker erwin who we referred to in earlier part of the discussion. i try to guard against cynicism in some of the things i see but i think her suggestion is exactly right. that politics can enter the mix. ideology can 10er the mix. sometimes personal experience enters the mix. lots of things enter the mix. i think that some of the

justices would deny that anything does and other justices would say, of course, we're all human but we're trying to take the most neutral and partial route that is based on precedent here. >> host: our next email comes from robert in las vegas. he puts up a warning. >> guest: okay. >> host: loaded question below. >> guest: can we end it here? >> host: do you think the supreme court will select another president? >> guest: you know, robert in las vegas, those were great times to be a supreme court reporter for bush v. gore. i don't know how it great it was for the country. those were 30 some days, heady and exciting. no. i think that happens only once ever century 1/2 or so. so it is not going to happen in his lifetime or mine or probably anybody connected with this program right now. >> host: i think he is going through the political motivation question we saw earlier and

pat riley email. >> guest: here is the interesting thing about that, the 4-4 -- 5-4 rulings, it was divided politically in terms of 5-4, you know who was on the majority? sandra day o'connor. a lot of people forget that. sandra day o'connor, voted with majority to cut off recounts in florida, thereby assuring george w. bush got into white house over al gore, the then vice president. so it was a big moment a huge moment, very politically-charged moment and when five justice who generally had not really favored, you know the federal government overstates, essentially stopped action in a state. and four justices who come from the opposite side, went sort of in a different direction themselves. i think that there's lots of complaint about the ruling in many ways. for justice o'connor, who became

my first subject, i think she was quite chastened by the public outcry after that and i felt that that also added a bit to some of the moderation we saw in her later years. >> host: there was another decision in that case, a 7-2 decision, in the bush v. gore. what was that and how is that related? was that a more significant case? >> guest: no, no. what you're, okay. if i'm remembering the exactly right i think we get bush v. gore on december 12th, two. what i'm remembering. there were two parts to it. the main parts, can recounts continue in florida? should the florida supreme court additional louing the recounts to continue stand, or, is the nation up against a couple of different deadlines, one involving the electoral college, does that mean the recounts have to stop? there was an electoral college

issue but there was also a due process and equal protection issue. and the question was, are the standards that are being used in florida fair? the standards for recounting? remember hanging chads? we all remember that. most people, most of your viewers will. the way these ballots are being counted, is it being done fairly? and are the standards in place? it was a part of, the supreme court the key part of that bush v. gore opinion was 5-4 to stop the recounts and to reverse the florida supreme court. but there was another element that was in the mix and it wasn't really a hard vote. it wasn't a hard and fast 7-2 vote but seven of the justices did question the standards that being used to count these ballots and it was a couple of liberals that swung over, breyer and souter if i'm remembering right. there were problems with how these ballots were being counted but they thought that the

florida court should set some standards. they didn't want to cut them all off. so, peter is that what you're remembering? what happened then, and i remember this, it goes how does a journalist cover these things. former secretary of state baker, if i'm remembering right, went on the air and said, oh, but there was also the 7-2 ruling. even some of the liberal justices believed that the standards aren't right in florida. forgive me if i'm forgetting that evening. it came at 10:00, 10:00 on that night and you know, we were all a little crazy but at least we got it right, about what they did. but i remember that there was some question about what is the 7-2 business? but 7-2 business was not a vote in terms of who should really win or lose. it was more of an issue having to do with are the standards in place? this is the most important part with counting ballots.

are there certain standards for, how we regard a hanging chad? count it as in, count it as out? does that person vote count for al gore, count for george w. bush, count for pat buchanan on some of these ballots at time. that is what you might be remembering and it actually played a little bit into the mix. i got a lot of calls from editors saying, but many of the republicans are asserting the court ruling wasn't really 5-had, it was really 7-2. no the basic important ruling everybody should remember was 5-4. >> host: kate, sacramento, good afternoon. >> caller: , good afternoon. thank you so much for taking my call. i really enjoy the show. joan, i've enjoyed your reporting over the years. to me the most fascinating justice on the court is justice ginsburg, for many reasons but primarily recently seeming evolution from a low-key

judicial incrementalist to more visible abject for the liberal wing of the court. case in point the hobby lobby dissent. were you surprised by that dissent? do you have any plans for a biography of justice ginsburg. thank you again for your time. >> host: thank you. justice ginsburg is fascinating. she was born in 1933. she came of age just as justice o'connor did but instead of trying to sort of beat men at their own game, as justice o'connor did, justice ginsburg tried to change the rules and she did. she argued five or six cases, i think six cases before the u.s. supreme court, winning five of them, on behalf of women's rights when she was with the aclu women's rights project. she tried to make changes and she did. so she came up as an advocate. then she become as professor at rutgers and, eventually at

columbia i believe and then she becomes a judge on the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit. that is when she first gets to know justice scalia as a pal. she is appointed in 1993 by bill clinton. now she comes on and, very cautious jurist in many ways. but what happens and what the caller is referring to is kind of her more demonstrative liberalism emerges as she becomes more vocal as the senior member of the liberal wing. when justice john paul stevens left the court in 2010, ruth bader ginsburg became the most senior justice. she became power to assign dissenting opinions when the four liberals were on the losing side. the caller refers to the hobby lobby disend which is a quite powerful and earlier the

shelby county voting rights case and she said she took months to write and took a lot of pried in. we have seen her much more outspoken as she ever was and her new role as senior liberal on that side of the bench. there are biographies in the works about justice ginsburg and they have been in the works a very, very long time and presumably will be published soon. she is really interesting figure who deserves continued national attention. >> host: joan biskupic, your brand new book, breaking in, spent four years on, contract publication, correct? >> guest: on the side, yeah. >> host: what's next? >> guest: what is next. this is kind of time-consuming too. i always say it is hard to write a book and hard to sell a book. you sell it one book at a time. so i'm doing this. then i go to bookstores and talk to the law students and i do this like reuters is having me do this great little twitter

chat on monday which is not my genre i have to say. tweets are not my easiest -- >> host: hard for you to stick to 140 characters? >> guest: very hard. i have a colleague you could do one of this thing, do one of 15 so people follow what you're saying. i so i will do that tomorrow or october 6th. >> host: people want to join in that twitter chat, what is the address? >> guest: see i should have said that first. hashtag ask reuters. between 2:00 and 3:00 on october 6th, monday, between 2:00 and 3:00, that is the hashtag. they even kind of explained how i then reply. so i have to do that for an hour. peter, my mantra today is talk long for these three hours. and write short tomorrow for my twitter. so i'm doing that. let's see where am i? i'm going to speak to some people there. i'm going to up new york city to a neat event that the new york city historical society museum

will do on saturday, october 11th i think it is. then i go to a couple book festivals this time of year. down in miami and tampa st. pete. it is fun. when i, when i wrote the o'connor book i wrote to some bookstores. tough say many of those bookstores in 2005 i visited are gone. some of them were gone in 2009 when i did the scalia book. now a lot more are gone. you do a lot of radio and other stuff. when that is all done which actually took a couple weeks, couple months, then i launch into my next project. i do the day job. >> host: joan biskupic, like asking who your favorite kid, who is the most fun to write about? or the most interesting that? >> guest: i just love finding out about these people's lives and their times. justice o'connor was interesting because she actually was in an era and a part of the country that i didn't have a lot of

familiarity with. i didn't know what her ranch world was like. it was fun to go to palo alto to stanford's campus. it was fun to go to the ranch and fun to get to know her brother who showed me all around. and it was a delight to go through all of her legislative files and find things she had done. so she was exciting. she was my first subject, i still have great interest what she's up to. justice scalia was more difficult, because plainly he was more difficult. but i've always been intrigued by him as manifestation of the true reagan revolution. justice o'connor was not a manifestation of the reagan revolution even though she was an appointee of ronald reagan. so i was interested in the movement that scalia was part of. and how that emerged in america and how liberals have tried to counter it. and with justice sotomayor, it

is not straight biography, it is more political history but i learned so much about this trajectory of latinos. i always knew, the basics civil rights era that african-americans inspired but to learn more about the role that latinos played and what was going on in her life at the time was fascinating. and also her role in that. she was not an advocate in, in the mode of ruth bader ginsburg or thurgood marshall who helped found the naacp legal defense fund. she is second generation. she said, i'm not a flame thrower. i was not one of those people who was out on the front lines of advocacy. she was more of a board member of the puerto rican legal defense fund than somebody who was representing it. that was interesting to me. no, i can not directly answer your question who is my favorite. >> host: claire, you're on with joan biskupic. in boynton beach, florida.

>> caller: thanks so much for taking my call. i have two questions about the bush versus gore election. is it true that james baker brought john roberts down to florida early on during the recount problem, and of course, we know ultimately that john roberts got, was a appointed by president bush not only to the court but as the chief justice? that is my first question. my second question is, is it true that this determination is the only non-precedent setting determination that the supreme court has made in its history? i would appreciate hearing about that. thank you. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: thanks. both really good questions. first of all, yes, john roberts was on the legal team down in florida for the republicans as

were hosts of other young republicans at the time. born in '55. it was 2000. he was into his career. he was pretty active as a republican in party politics even though he was in private practice. he had not yet been appointed to the d.c. circuit. which i remind the caller, you went on, he was nominateed in 2001 right after president george w. bush took office and then eventually ended up on that court, the d.c. ircircuit and then on the supreme court in 2005. so yes, he was very much a part of that team but lots of people were part of that team. miguel estrada was part of that team. he was a nominee to the d.c. circuit, didn't get on. in my book i suggest if he had gotten on d.c. circuit and in line for the u.s. supreme court, maybe sonia sotomayor might not be there today. it was such a big deal for the first hispanic.

that was a threshold question about john roberts. at the same time, democrats pulled in all their legal heavyweights down in florida too. it was set of stars battling each other and democrats prevailed largely in florida. when we got up here, the republicans prevailed of course. and then her second question -- >> host: not being, only non-precedent-setting ruling. >> guest: she is reminding everyone of. it could be precedent but not cited by them. the joke, it was a train ticket for one ride only. yeah, right, no, no. you do not see a lot of references to bush v. gore in supreme court opinions. in fact i think maybe we've had one or maybe, you know, just, it is not cited. they basically rude and then that was that. >> host: we've talked a little bit about past connections. that caller brought upjohn roberts. >> guest: yes, yes. >> host: from american original you right this, the 14-page opinion shepherded by scalia,

said nixon app son's recordings and white house documents were his personal property. >> guest: what you're talking about there, that is not a court opinion. that was opinion head of office of legal counsel. >> host: goes back to ken starr and -- >> guest: going way before ken starr on that. we're in '74. u.s. v. nixon. we're in, let's see. watergate is in june of '72. nixon resigns in august of '74. shortly before he resigned there was big question who owns the presidential materials, tapes and papers and all that. in the early '70s, who is just dying to be part of the nixon administration but antonin scalia. he gets hired. he is in the office of legal counsel and he is, he comes in trying to remember exactly the timing. but it's, he writes, he is working in the ford

administration which of course gerald ford was nixon's vice president. he takes over in august of 1974. can't remember the exact date that scalia comes into the office of legal counsel. that is very important part of the justice department. he was assistant attorney general for that division. and he is asked, by president ford and his people, what constitutional, constitutionally who owns these papers? what has the tradition been? justice scalia writes an opinion as a lawyer in the justice department saying that the papers belong to president nixon or any president and congress, congress nixed that pretty quickly. then of course we also, through court rulings, congressional action and all sorts of other wonderful measures helped public and reporters understand what went on during watergate, all the tapes and papers are now available. the tapes are wonderful thing for any of your viewers to listen to at the national

archives. they were a blast for me to go through, in part because, as watergate is happening, as it is really coming to a head, president nixon is also choosing the successors to hugo black and to john harlan in lewis powell and rehnquist. all of his conversations about those choices are on the so-called watergate tapes. so you can find out about what went on behind the scenes with watergate and what you don't know from movies already. through actually listening to nixon on these tapes talk about things. you're right, justice scalia was with the executive branch during all that. and he rooted for nixon till the very end. >> host: strategically speaking, this is an email, from bishop, why do you think justice ginsburg is not retiring to allow president obama a chance to nominate another justice, when in her advanced age she might not have that much more time left?

closer her departure comes toward the end of president obama's term, the less likely an appointee by president obama will be confirmed? >> guest: caller, emailer is exactly right. if something were to happen to her or anyone else over the next couple of months, till, the end of president obama's tenure, i question who he could get through, seriously. i think that he would, if, you know, she is is 80, born in '33. she is 81. but justice kennedy and justice scalia are both 78. so it is not like, you know there is chance they might, they're definitely not thinking about retirement but you definitely don't know what could happen. if president obama got a chance, it would be very difficult to put through anybody who was truly a liberal. already difficult to put through anybody who is truly a liberal. her feeling is, i will leave the political scene to somebody else. i feel like i'm strong. i feel like i'm not slipping.

only thing that matters to me can i do my job. and she saw john paul stevens last until he was 90. it's a big deal among liberals. erwin chem merry ski who has come up, saying she should strep down. maybe breyer should step down because of what is at stake for the court and liberal legacy. >> host: court land, lakeland, florida, you're on booktv with joan biskupic. >> caller: good evening, greetings to you both. my question, it is not a question but i think we grapple with issues of state versus church because of roe versus wade. roe versus wade established strongly the state be separated from the church. church opinion says this shouldn't happen where state is rule of the people. so we still grapple with. that i think also the separation of powers, checks and balance, i

think we still grapple with that. my question, how far have we come from the separation of church versus state? we still need church for the issues of morality to establish and balance that, we don't want the state, the rule of people who override the personal lives of people. how far have we come from that? >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: it's a very tricky line. when we talk about 5-4 decisions and their value and controversies that lead to them, this is an area of the law that generates a lot of 5-4 decisions. the caller seems to know what has been happening at court with various cases. remind others from the last term, from the town of greece, which the issue was legislative prayer and how inclusive, did the city council need to be who got to say the prayer. the idea of potentially only christian voices at this, at these city council meetings and

by 5-4, the justices essentially gave, city councilses local governments, for allowing prayer to open the council meetings. that was 5-4 decision by roman catholics, and opposed by more liberal justices, three jewish members and one roman catholic. notes how divisive it can be and plays to a lot of religious divisions in america. it's a tough line for how much, goes to the balance between everyone's free exercise of religion in the face of the constitutional mandate that government shall not establish religion. and those two clauses can work compatibly but often seem intentioned at the supreme court. >> host: in an american original, this is from the last

page, the supreme court is likely never to go as far as scalia wants on racial policies and in an equally explosive area of the law, he will likely never see the overturning of row v. wade. kennedy would block that. scalia is likely to continue on the losing side of gay rights, courtesy of kennedy. yet in upcoming years, scalia could help bring about more mingling of church and state and less government regulation of campaign financing, et cetera. this is book came out this 2009. >> guest: somehow it still stand up. so, that's true. >> host: greg in ohio, you're on with joan biskupic. >> caller: good afternoon. my question is in terms of political rivals, can you give examples of appointees to the supreme court that were potential political rivals and were appointed to, to kind of get them out of the way? second part, have there been any

justices that have been impeached over the years? >> guest: okay. the first one, we had, in some ways, there was, a question of whether president eisenhower put earl warren on the court to get rid of a potential rival. so, that has happened. for our current crew, i have to say i can't imagine a president thinking i better elevate the lower court judge to put them on. the caller is wisely thinking of different era when we had more politicians on the court. a president would think about a potential political foe to maybe, someone over at the supreme court. it has not happened at all, really in our time. when president clinton was thinking about big public figure in mario cuomo or bruce babbitt

or george mitchell, he was not thinking of getting rid of a political rival here. that just reminded me of something that, that, comes up with bruce babbitt, who i invoked because of bill clinton here and sandra day o'connor. it was bruce babbitt, who as arizona governor in the, that would get us back to the 70s, yeah, in the 70s, who actually named sandra day o'connor to the intermediate court she got on. i think i'm remembering this right. there was a little talk about whether bruce babbitt was trying to remove a political rival in sandra day o'connor. remember, she had a fabulous political background and she was quite a politician, very effective in the state. and, just you know, as i said, just coming to mind now. i could have a couple of the details wrong. but i refer that was a little bit of the flavor of it. in terms of any justice impeached in recent history, no. samuel chase back in the

1800s. i can't even think, we had a couple lower court judges impeached since the '90s. alcee hastings i believe. and walter nixon. does that sound right? i think i got that right. >> host: alcee hastings is a member of congress today. >> guest: i know. >> host: do you have a favorite supreme court justice from the past? >> guest: not really. one tour on the bench i find so much more interesting in ways, but i have, you know, i am a student of history too, but i don't, word favorite doesn't quite work. favorite case doesn't work either. there are cases that, people always say, you know, what case did you love to cover? in some ways bush v. gore was a great case to cover. there were flaws and many ways to it, depending where you sit but it was a great case to cover, just like affirmative action case was a great case to cover. there has been, the word

favorite doesn't seem to, seem to work. i mean they're all, they're all somehow, i find, lots of cases and lots of justices interesting. >> host: rebecca, woodland hills, california. >> caller: hello? >> guest: hi. >> caller: i have two questions. first of all in regard to the hobby lobby case, that basically gives employers the authority to control female employee's access to birth control, do you think that is makes this court one of the most regressive on women's rights in decades? because i know ruth bader ginsburg has said so, i agree with her. i was very much against the hobby lobby decision. my egg second question, is in regard to the voting rights act, recently struck down under the argument race system is not really a -- that racism is not

really a problem and i clearly think it is a problem. do you think that they ruled badly on that case, striking down parts of the voting rights act? >> host: rebecca, how closely do you follow the supreme court? >> caller: i try to follow it fairly closely. >> host: why? >> caller: i personally went to law school. i'm a political science major that i'm interested in. i'm very interested in the subject. i'm very liberal that i find that the courts, too conservatively kind ever chuckles me. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: both very goods points. who would have thought in 2014 we would be thinking of deeper, deeper gender divisions on the court and in america. a couple actions by the supreme court toward the end of the term, revealed. the bench split along those lines to some degree. rebecca was talking about the hobby lobby ruling.

it involved closely-held companies. but essentially could involve any kind of corporation. if the, owners have religious views that would religious beliefs wouldn't allow certain contraceptives, they have the right to say we don't want those contraceptives as part of our health insurance plan. the court found that was required under a 1993, was that was -- i think religious freedom restoration act. 1990s religious freedom law. justices said that these companies, hobby lobby and con -- con that stowing ga wood, it was very disturbing to justice ginsburg and other dissenters, there was a male, even among the dissenters. i thought her opinion raised a

lot of issues from the '70s and 08's about women's rights and women's economic rights, the kind of rights that rebecca was implying in her question that women had come to depend on an array of contraceptive methods to be active players in society, for their own economic control in this world. and justice ginsburg was saying that the court was going backwards on that. and i think this is not the end of the issue, this issue at all. we're going to have other, other questions coming to the court involving the contraceptive mandates of the obamacare law, and, rebecca is probably aware of this since she covers the court, i want to mention a pretty interesting case that will be heard later this fall on the pregnancy discrimination act. it has to do with employer's rights to restrict when pregnant women are able to work on the job, that you would think would have been answered before and you know, just because those

kind of issues have been percolating out there for a long time. it is very important case and important to employers. it has to do with, a ups carrier, united parcel service hauler and how heavy the packages were when she had to carry when she was pregnant and what kind of accommodation could be made. these questions reemerge and i wouldn't have predicted so many sex discrimination questions would be reemerging at this time but they are. >> host: joan biskupic, if anyone reads your biographies of the supreme court justices would they come away saying wow, she was complimentary? >> guest: to the justices? >> host: yeah. >> guest: i know what people will say. i've gotten ranges of opinion. i don't think anybody thinks i'm hard on a -- you got to deal with the extremes in anything. we've talked this polarized

court. i have at least two figures who are quite polarizing. so on the scalia one, on scalia one, all my pals on the hard left, says you have one bullet, can't you use it effectively? why do you have to be so even-handed. on the sotomayor one, early reviews used word admiring. as journalist, you aren't happy with the word admiring. people think i appreciate your differences. some people think that maybe the lens through which she should be seen should be much more heavily ethnic and race rather than political and cultural, which is the way i go at this one. so, just like rulings that, it tends to be in the eye of the beholder, what i have to say, i think most readers, in the criticism, you know, usually quite positive, is that, people see me as being even-handed towards my subjects. i hope that continues. >> host: in the sotomayor book, "breaking in," you quote jeffrey

rosen, head of the national constitution center in fill deferral. you said rosen said the most consistent concern, this goes way back, that sotomayor, although an able lawyer was not that smart and kind after bully on the bench? >> guest: she still gets that. she still gets it. she knows she get it and still counters it. i felt it was important to take that on and reveal it and not run from it and not to ignore that criticism. that endures today and she will, when she is out giving public speeches try to counter herself. she said, after she was approved by the senate. to then to the confirmation process. it was very painful for her to hear those kinds of comments and, to have it suggested, in other quarters. jeff rosen did not suggest, this as other people might have, you know that she wasn't up to the

job and but she said it was suggested, it was suggested by others. she said that was very painful for her. why do you think that even was, that people said that? do you think it had to do with anything other than the fact that i was hispanic? what i try to do in the book to raise it. look this is what this woman is still dealing with. this is what people say. and this is how she counters it. this is how she has been effective or not been effective. >> host: you get angry, don't live angry, a quote from "breaking in." host. >> guest: yeah. >> host: maria, san pedro, california. >> caller: i'm a hard lefty from california but i admire many things about justice o'connor. i can't say that i don't. but i want to know, possibly, she will never say she regretted her vote in gore v. bush. but i believe she says she

wishes the court had never taken this up. could you speak about that? please? >> caller: of course. i really appreciate, i appreciate though you can identify yourself as hard lefty, you're open to and interested in this conservative centrist, o'connor. those are the kind of readers i really appreciate. people who can look broadly at, how these justices have emerged over time. you're absolutely right. what justice o'connor said, she wishes the court never had to at thattake it up. i think she was shocked by the public fallout. she is the kind of person, who, as i said, once she make as decision whether it be personal or in the law, basically says that is my position. i'm moving on. i will not second-guess myself. so she is not second-guessing herself on bush v. gore. darn if she could replay that election and wished it hadn't been that close and ended up in

her left. >> host: greg, at bam, a few minutes left with joan biskupic. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm actually conservative to some degree but interested in the dynamics that justice sotomayor brings to the court in regards to the deference that existed there for so long. justice kaig began talk -- kagan with reference dealing with people and she can be fiery at some times. i wonder how different justice sotomayor is with regards to her actions on the court and how she deals with the more conservative justices? thank you. >> guest: that is good question. i'm glad to have opportunity to talk about how her personal style might play in rulings. and, bottom line on joe's tis sotomayor she is really a product of structure herself.

structure informs precedent. she was on the federal bench for 17 years before she became a supreme court justice. so she is, she even says, she said to me, you know, i'm not aable rouser. she is trying to do things on the supreme court in lawyerly, judicial way. she is not, she might be shaking up the place in a personal way and she might be out there on the stump with her own memoir and all her speeches in a way so different than from what other justices have done but she is, when it comes to the law, she is looking at precedent first. she is trying to deal with her colleagues through the usual channels. i have a couple incidents in the book that found out from behind the scenes that show her making more waves than we would have known. but even, even what we know from her public, public statements she is interested in process. and where she is breaking off from the majority, even breaking, broken off from her liberal colleagues is to bring

more process to criminal defendants appeals. so, it's, i wouldn't even put her in the mold of thurgood marshall. she is not that kind of advocate. she is not a first generation advocate but she is doing something different given her background. just she still first and foremost a judge. >> host: how would you describe john roberts? >> guest: a lot of different ways. he is definitely interested in tradition. in going through channels. making sure things look just right. he is actually quite, quite a public speaker. he is quite a, you should -- >> host: c-span has covered him several times, whenever we can. >> guest: great public speaker. pa great sense of timing. he cuts a very positive public

presence from the bench. he used to argue it from the bench. he argued 39 cases. he is a very effective advocate for himself. as i said, he is a pretty button-down individual. he is just give some folks. roman catholic. he is from indiana. child of a father who was, worked for a steel plant. was an executive. he is one of, i think, three or four children and he was only boy in the family. i think he has two or three sisters. the eldest. went to harvard for undergrad. harvard for law school. he is, he is playing a long game. he is a very, very smart. i'm always surprised when he says something that seems out of character because i think he really, really can keep it in check. i think that there are some questions about whether he might take some baby steps over to the left. he is definitely not, not the

conservative that samuel alito is. definitely not the conservative that antonin scalia and clarence thomas are. where he fits into the center, how much more he will align with anthony kennedy and how much he will align more middle to the right are very open questions. >> host: does very, very strong friendships on the courts, relationships? >> guest: woe make sure those relationships are good. he understands that is part of being chief, is being an administrator and trying to. trying to make sure his colleagues treated fairly in processes of the court and assignments. i think he put as lot of attention to, to his, those relationships. a few years ago in indiana, i know you're a native, i covered a 7th circuit legal conference and he was the opening act for elena kagan.

she was going to be speaking. and he gave some remarks. and now she is very liberal and he, he was great. he was only favorable. he had his usual sense of timing. she gets up and she says, i'm supposed to follow that? so he, he says the right thing and, i would recommend, people look at some of his rulings in the last term, for signs where he might not be exactly as he has been pigeonholed in, hard-right conservative. look at june 2012 ruling in the obama health care law case. >> host: jodi, venice, california, we have a minute left. >> caller: okay, you say the court is insular and almost shy yet a few of justices attend political strategy planning conventions and fund-raising events. to me on the outside that looks awful. >> host: can you name a instance

where you know about this. >> caller: clarence thomas and i believe scalia went to a koch brothers planning strategy convention in palm springs. samuel alito was seen at a republican political fund-raiser. there is even footage of it. and reporters tried to stop him as he was leaving to talk to him and he just was scooted down the back -- >> host: any liberal justices attend these type of meetings? >> caller: honestly not that know of. i don't want this to appear this is partisan question. i just wonder if there is going to be any move in the court to, you know, at least use the same rules for ethics that, are, the district court judges. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: this comes from time to time. the justices actually are not supposed to attend fund raisers. that is part of their own internal rules.

the caller hit on something having to do with exthicks rules for -- ethics rules of government. supreme court justices operate on their own rules. they don't follow all the rules lower court justices do but effectively follow them. their their own masters. they don't usually attend fund-raisers. they try not to. there are instances conferences where political strategizing going on but it was not part of what they were doing. but that, that kind of controversy comes up through the years and, they, wisely try to avoid sending those signals because again, what i said was, that all they have got is their integrity. if people doubt their integrity they will doubt the have lid of those rulings. >> host: did samuel alito attend a political fund-raiser? >> guest: what she is referring to, might be referring to federalist society meetings they have spoken at and fund-raising

component. the koch brothers thing, if i remember right, the caller might have recently looked back to those clips, is that, these justices were not in on any kind of political strategizing. they were offered like keynote speakers forelarger conferences. >> host: can the justices make outside income? >> guest: do they make outside income? their books, their books, okay, sonia sotomayor made at least three million dollars off of her book. justice scalia has made, tens of thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands off of all his books that he does in coordination with west publishing which is part of thomson reuters. so maybe i'm sort of getting rich through scalia? i don't think so. or scalia is getting rich through thomson reuters. i don't know. they can make unlimited income off of their books. and, many of them are authors. but then they have a certain limit on honoraria they can take for speaking. it is 25,000 roughly.

>> host: joan biskupic. joan biskupic.com is the website. biographies on justices scalia, sotomayor and o'connor. . . >> good afternoon. i'm a member of