so thank you very much. [applause]

all persons having business before the honorable supreme court of the united states to give their attention. >> tonight our country is in grave danger. we are faced by the possibility that at midnight tonight the steel industry will be shut down and that's why i'm taking two actions tonight. first, directing the secretary of congress to take possession of the steam mills and keep them operating. >> in 1952 the united states was involved in a military conflict with north korea and that home a

dispute between the steel industry and its union had come to a head. >> they needed to steal from your mission, tanks, jeeps, all those things you need to do the second world war. so if they went on strike that would be a problem. it's basic to the things the army and ev and air force needs to fight a war created to avoid a disruption in the production crucial to the military, president truman seized control of the bill and as a result you can extract was called off and fuel production continued, however the steel company led by the the you othe lawsuit also beat e supreme court. we will examine how they revolted in the case and the impact on the presidential powers. joining the discussion, michael

ehrhardt professor at the university of north carolina law school and author of the power of president and forgotten president and william howell, political science professor at the university of chicago and author of the wartime president, power without persuasion and co-author of wild dangers gather congressional checks on presidential war powers. that's coming up on the next landmark cases, my tonight at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span radio. for background on each case while you watch, order your copy of the landmark case companion book available for each dollars 95 cents plus shipping at c-span.org. the federalist society hosted a discussion recently on the state of civil rights and in the chronology of this as well as police and can he really should. participants talked about efforts to improve the system as well as areas they say are still

in need of reform. this is about an hour. ladies and gentlemen if you could take your seats. my name is leonard leo and i serve as vice president of vice president of the federalist society. it's a privilege to have all of you here for the annual vintage. i hope you are enjoying all the different session. we are going to have a conversation about the state attorneys general and this is in issue of great importance and should be to the american people because many states, state attorney general is one of the most important constitutional officers often times only one of two or three or four constitutional officers in the united states. over the past few years we are seeing an unprecedented amount of activity by the states

particularly with regards to push back against the overreach but often times comes in the form of litigation. not only are there in the unprecedented number of lawsuits being brought against the federal government, that an unprecedented number at a very interesting time coming and we've got a group of great people here who are going to have a conversation about this. i'm going to introduce our facilitator and moderator adam white, who has been a longtime volunteer leader in the federalist society and its now i believe is now i believe serving with some distinction at the hoover institution, starting on monday. and he just came out with a wonderful piece in the weekly standard which is out today i be

called judging roberts, the chief justice chief justice of the united states ten years in some of on this particular topic but well worth the read so with that i'm going to turn things over to adam. [applause] state attorneys general occupy one of the most important complex roles in american government. though elected or selected politically their duties to the rule of law. responsible for vindicating both of the law in the state into and the rights of their citizens and the united states constitution separation of powers and federalism. now here today we have two speakers on the subject right now. one newly elected and serving the attorney general in the state of nevada and another who served as the attorney general for the state of alabama before joining the 11th circuit. judge william h. pryor junior

and the court of appeals 11th circuit judge pryor has been serving on the circuit since 2004 but perhaps more direct route into this morning he served as the attorney general of alabama from 1997 to 2004. when first appointed him as the youngest in the nation and even liked it and re- elected in 1998, 2002 and in 2002 he received the highest percentage of votes of any candidate. he graduated from the tulane law school, clerked for a judge on the fifth circuit and in private practice taught at cumberland school of law and now the university of alabama school of law. we are also joined by the honorable attorney general for the state of nevada state of nevada and the attorney general serving as the attorney general since january of 2015 and former lieutenant in the u.s. navy. at the all pervading camp-based

victory where the team was in charge. he was awarded the joint service commendation medal and the campaign medal and the unit was awarded the joint meritorious unit award. he spent trade practice and worked and has taught law and serves on the board of trustees on catholic charities and southern nevada and cofounded the saint st. thomas more society in nevada and graduated from georgetown university so let's welcome the speakers and we will begin. [applause] if i may begin with you, judge pryor, since usurped a little while ago, but was it like serving as the attorney general? >> it was a different world. i became the attorney general of alabama in january of 1997.

my former boss had just been elected to the senate and the governor appointed me to finish his term and the first issue on my plate was whether the state would join the national tobacco litigation. i serve as the chair of the task force from both the governor and the attorney general as jeff sessions deputy. we thought it was contrary to the law, certainly to the law of alabama that was our perspective and bad public policy on a number of levels and of course a

growing number of states in the litigation. it was very much akin to the kind of litigation that the state did collectively back then. a lot of that i think was an outgrowth of their time during the reagan administration when any trust enforcement changed at the federal level and went more to the consumer welfare model perspective and state to have a perspective of the old-school kind of liberal populace perspective resisted that and engaged in some collective litigation so it was the era where the states were pro regulation.

eventually he landed in the house of congress for a while and any of the states wanted congress to step in. so it was a different era. there was a time there was the case before the supreme court of the united states involving whether congress had the power under the commerce clause to create a civil remedy for a victim of an intrastate rate and whether that was a proper exercise of congressional power. 36 state attorneys general found a court brief in support of federal power when the power in the congress to create that right. i was the only state attorney general who followed the trend of friend of the court brief on the other side and said -- [applause]

this is the product of the state and that's the way the supreme court and the united states ruled that it gives you a flavor of how different the environment was. so how do things begin to change towards where we are now? >> that is a tough question for me to answer because my service ended in 2004. there were a bunch of us who were dissatisfied with it and started working together with politically and litigation. our states and considers general when we were in the process of creating those kind of decisions in the office i created one in my office and started working together more in supreme court litigation but in many respects

we felt as if we were under siege and we were fighting back. if you look at the tobacco litigation alone this is a remarkable air over the states and attorneys general brought the industry to agree to a settlement it would bring billions and billions of dollars to the state governments what could only be viewed as a form of taxation they achieved through litigation. they gave a huge percentage of those billions of dollars to the lawyers that filed the litigation and conducted the litigation and have been campaign contributors to the attorney general's and there

were some corruption issues associated with that. so it was a different environment and i think maybe the seeds of changing my perspective were laid back then but when i left office in 2004, i don't think it was anything like the environment you see now >> just explain for us what it's like to arrive in office and i would be curious what spurred you to run for office and then once you've settled in what has your experience been in the first-year? >> federalism is one of the things that inspired me to run for office because if you can believe when i was campaigning last year there wasn't a single person that knew our solicitor

or knew what a solicitor did. our office hasn't had filed a lawsuit protecting a western state that's been under siege from the federal government for some time now. politically republicans and democrats fight federal overreach in a state like nevada but for whatever reason the attorney general's office had never been used to protect the state and i have to tell people why i was running and what they were missing from their office and what's more we could bring to the table. it excited people and they said the attorney general isn't just a boring lawyer that nobody ever hears from.

so that's been a big motivating factor for me and we've had great opportunities to actually step into that space. we had a solicitor general technically. i think that you are all used to it as a solicitor and the first thing i have to do is bring in a new solicitor general. so we have a zero and we got into the immigration litigation within a few weeks of being in office. so once people start realizing we can a bunch of things we will talk about during the panel people have been very excited.

they tell people like texas to have have 20 in their office and now i only have one. so people are like wow why aren't we fighting this or that and give me some time here. but it is i think a very different time from when the ag was predominantly used to crush businesses. i know my philosophy is the business is doing something wrong or going to reach the business and get their explanation first and see if they see the accommodation. as opposed to i think within the judge prior's day deprive

lawsuits without ever speaking. we have to protect the consumer. we have federalism in the space that we are looking at. the judge was in the wilderness with four or five ag's that were willing in the administration and now when we are looking into joining lawsuits, i believe all this started mostly with the obama lawsuit. you're looking at 20 to sometimes 30 or more with republican democrat crossovers so i think we are entering a new

era whether we found our new place or whether this administration, the timing of how this administration has acted along with all these new ag's has provided a perfect point in the selection where there is a lot for us to do trade >> let me be curious for both of you the office requires you to interpret the law and the constitution and decide practical matter whether to bring suit against the federal government and joined join the federal suit against the federal government or in the other direction you're defending state law and choosing not to enforce the state law and the grounds i would just be curious how do you approach a question like that both the sort of interpretive question and then the practical task of carrying out the office plaques stomach that is a tough

question. i have a perspective that's perhaps a little bit different from what has been expressed by many of the state attorneys general who currently serve, and i think it's been illustrated during the marriage that occasion. so my perspective is a lot of this depends on state law. not all attorneys general's offices are created the same way. 43 there was a 50 elected, five appointed by the governor still and one by the state supreme court and state legislatures or you have to make sure you understand what the state wall is in each law is in each jurisdiction. but as a general rule, the attorney generals, the chief legal officer in the state and independently elected and has -- we don't have a unitary executive at the state level and the state attorney general has

the constitutional authority to state the legal position of the state government in court and the attorney the attorney general takes the doubt in my perspective always as a state attorney general i had an obligation to take the constitution seriously and to state the correct legal position. and if that meant that i have to confess that a state law is unconstitutional, i did so. i didn't think that it was productive to have debates about doing my job. we've seen in the context of the marriage litigation case western and i criticized the conservatives who say the answer to the marriage litigation is to say i'm doing my job. i'm defending state law without

regard to what the merits of the argument are so for my perspective you ought to be talking about what does the constitution actually require and what is the correct legal position. i don't think it's productive to just have a debate about the process and we have a long history in our country of executive review. each branch we forget about it but each branch has a responsibility of taking the constitution seriously and interpreting the constitution independently. thomas jefferson refused to prosecute under the alien alien and sedition acts that they've been upheld by the federal courts and by the federalist appointed judges. he pardoned those that have been convicted under that law the law and jackson vetoed the national act on the constitutional grounds even though it's been

upheld by the supreme court in the united states going through the examples of lincoln and others and executives have an independent role reviewing the constitutionality of legislation and other actions. what will be the correct legal position? we are at a unique area right now where the administration and various federal agencies are virtually relentless in what

they are willing to do to expand their initial statutory grounds for doing whatever they are doing. and so, i think that is incumbent on congress. i know some elected to congress in and women and senators to start to take seriously they have their own responsibilities. they assume that is going on. fortunately you hear in the political space all the time it's our job to pass the law. let the judges figure out whether it is constitutional and i think it's important that we reverse that course because first of all, it is 50/50 these days of actually holding those lines of the constitutional and

not constitutional because obviously there's a leaning towards deference that continued to go against the direction so i think they've provided incredibly important roles the last few years. i just feel so fortunate to be in the position i'm in at this moment in time to be able to file lawsuits and gained very important junctions and we make that argument all the time. if we need to defend the constitution, try to get something like the u.s. and the executive states and get them frozen if you will. >> let's touch on that a little bit more. law professors said the federal government the new form for federalism issues it wasn't the

senate anymore it was the administrative state and that was years ago. you mentioned the united states and the endangered species act and i would like to hear your perspective on operating the constitutional officer on behalf of the state looking at these programs in looking at how they interact in the state and deciding what action to take to push back against federal overreach. >> we have had two big ones since i've been in office. they are very western issues, so hopefully i won't bore you to death. but waters of the u.s., hopefully many of you heard about how ten for many decades on the phrase in navigable waters. and most any crowd i speak to about waters anyone can articulate what they think in

navigable water is and obviously for federalism type of crowds that is the only reason the federal government had any capacity to be in this space. so what's happened with this rule is they decided to reinterpret the phrase and it moved into -- i'm barely exaggerating to backyard rules. roadside ditches, wetlands, any cooling water that lasts for a handful of days in the year, so for a state like nevada and many states in the case of the waters in the u.s., it's a transformative thing that they were trying to do through the executive branch through the administrative state and that's a great one to see the interaction of the new space.

so you knew that you had about 35 states that were opposed to the waters of the u.s.. there's a lot of democrat crossover in the case of the waters of the u.s. and a lot of discussion occurred across the country. they were part of the 13 states have copied first and junctions. the prior state would not have been involved. >> my predecessor involved in the litigation for the state and nevada and we ended up not only

getting in the litigation but had to pick the right one that was granted injunction in the afternoon before the rule was set to go in effect. so we are asked what -- it is a very tough rule and just boom, and and an injunction something that nevada hasn't been on the good side of in a long time. but you run into the pressure of whether or not you are in the right litigation and whether or not you enjoy the right lawsuit in this time we pick the right one. the federal government then said they are going to move forward with the rule in the other 37 states which gets gassed too early for you this morning.

they are so determined to transform administratively the country that they say we are going to have a two track rule on what it means for the navigable waters in america. fortunately, some weeks later at the circuit level they ended up giving a nationwide injunction but that's just a real example of what an ag is trying to preserve the constitution and preserve the separation of powers can do to help protect the states. >> do you have anything to add add? syndicates about half past the hour we will start taking questions in about ten minutes if anyone wants to line up then by all means. a few times you mentioned the state solicitor general's office and one guy in your office was a law school friend of mine and if you have one person in your office, take more lawrence.

you helped establish this trend at the time. i created a state solicitor general post in my office but there's nobody dozens of states that have done so and i was following an example that has been said by others. >> since there's a lot of young lawyers if you can describe the job and what lawyers might be interested in that. >> this was during the rehnquist court era and federalism is a big part of the docket and that was pretty heavily involved in

some of the major cases that were decided by that court. alexander versus aderholt case and garrett versus the university of alabama trustees case which challenge the congressional authority to subject state governments to certain kinds of lawsuits and i hired a good friend of mine who's now a circuit judge on the circuit to represent the state in some of the cases before the supreme court but i became convinced the state solicitor general model that be something that would allow us to even more bigger bang for the buck.

many of whom worked on the supreme court of the united states in just a few years out of the law school but were very talented and would love the opportunity to be involved in high-profile litigation representing state governments in the state supreme courts and federal courts of appeal and the court of the united states opportunities they wouldn't get as the juniors that the law firm. we had to pay them a salary that would be competitive to attract them but we could pay them far less than it would cause to higher big law firms to represent us in those cases particularly before the supreme court.

we learned that model from some other states. that's how ten crews started in many ways and in public service. i think it's been a highly successful model and it's not surprising that more states are doing it. >> like i said it wasn't really active in this space mostly doing habeas corpus, so we are setup so that there is a lawyer that represents the natural resources and the individual lawyers that may represent the agencies affected by this but we need a dedicated public practice and we needed someone that is going to be a book to take everything that's going on in the office and anything that's hard and have an eye towards if we end up in the supreme court or are on the federal side so

that's been very important for the office and then i will say for morgan vandyke come he got a look at the case the state had been involved in for a few years and involved patients from nevada to california and san francisco suit our state and as you can imagine someone high-profile litigation that i inherited and so here we are with the publication for a few years and it's got the appellate view walk-through and says there is no sovereign immunity amendment in this case and we ended up putting together a personal files over an emmy for burning immunity but he also got i want to say a 40 state amicus that supported the position

within weeks they filed this auburn and unity case and so both cases went to the supreme court and unfortunately for port lawrence, the case is granted and we know that our lawsuit along with getting all the states to join it was that combination that brought the case granted so having that type of thinker that can canned for us and this may surprise you if you are the lawyer for the department of education and our state you were the lawyer looking at the contract or if you're litigation went to visit in court and somehow the u.s. supreme court lawyer stay on the

case. as you could imagine that was not acceptable for me. that's just not the way that we were going to continue doing work. so, making sure that we have a solicitor's office that is now engaged in the beginning of the stuff cases to make sure that that we are setting ourselves up for the long run has already been very big for our office. and quickly, we have a new deputy solicitor they took a huge pay cuts come cut, absolutely loves his job come into these guys, i need they think me every day i kid you not for how exciting their work is and how much they love what they do in here they are basically two guys that are shaping this major litigation for a sovereign state. while folks are patiently

waiting you don't campaign for office successfully. i'm just interested to hear how you translated the rule of law issues, which are not always madrid. or opera. how did you translate that into a popular campaign that won the votes? how did you approach the? >> while, let's take the federalism litigation for example defending our state disability discrimination case, the case where i argued that congress exceeded its power in subjecting state governments for the money damages under the americans with disabilities act. they were certainly advocates from the disability community who did not agree with our legal position and made our arguments in the public square against it. but for me, it was important not

to get lost in the weeds about the legal argument but continue with voters to tell them what is at stake to read he didn't argue state governments were he to discriminate. our argument was one of protecting the taxpayers against a lawsuit that would end up at the state treasury to money damages which we were arguing the federal government can't do that. we had an administrative process damages could be awarded a state employee who have been discriminated against on the basis of disability that our argument was shorter the americans with disabilities act is constitutional but subjecting state governments and state

taxpayers to this kind of remedy is going to far and the supreme court agreed with us and it helps robots to win. i may make the made it the leader in picking your lawsuits wisely when you are an advocate and we did a pretty fair job of picking winners. and i think over time voters will see the winds and say that guy must know something about what he's talking about. i had a big school prayer case where the governor took the position of the teachers and school officials should be able to lead organized prayer and religious activity. and i didn't take that position. you know, i argued that there was a federal injunction that restricted the free speech rights of students and that the verbal injunction had gone too

far and actually violated the free-speech rights. the aclu was involved in the same litigation representing a student and was arguing that the injunction was proper and that the school officials needed to clamp down on the sensor of the student speech. well in that kind of battle, we chose the winning argument. the 11th circuit twice ruled that we were right. you have to pick your battles carefully and communicate them. but over time i think voters will recognize that if you are winning more than you are losing you might know what you're talking about. >> i would say that i think there is a notion that maybe the average voter doesn't know what we would want is and i would submit that i did not experience

that last year at all. everywhere i went in the states when i gave my speech that revolved around the importance of the rule of law following the law of the people absolutely got it. i always used to joke it was amazing and it didn't matter if it was a town of 500 people, eric holder was like the first name on people's -- the first question i ever got what are you going to do about eric holder? and the thing that they knew is laws are not being followed out of their. what's going on? why are people picking and choosing which they are going to follow and so i think that was good timing for me. we had the sort of extreme time in our country where people just absolutely new looking out there in the big space that they were

not being followed and i think that federalism for us and there was a little discussion about how hard it is to sell and i didn't have any trouble selling federalism either. and again maybe that's because i am in the west but everybody very much understands how hard it is for a state to operate when the federal government is coming in on top and changing the rules all the time. whether it is our water, land, you name it. we are fighting for our lives in many ways. we already have 85% of the land controlled by the federal government which is astonishing. probably most people in this room. so i guess it could be state to state for the region you're in. but federalism and rule of law postings are hitting home in our state, and again we've been lucky we've been on the immigration case and the waters of the u.s. case.

we are now defending against the aclu the nation's first education savings account for $5,000 to go to any parent for any type of school and we are being sued under an amendment that many of you may know the history of that that had a lot of anti-catholic bigotry. we were able to again getting a solicitor involved along with your trial litigator from the beginning of the case we are ready for this case on the merits we are ready to take it to the supreme court if we have to on those grounds so people are seeing the activity. people know that this is helping our state. this is returning decision-making back to the people and they are getting that i believe. >> you have anything to add before we go to questions?

>> just two things. all politics is local. in terms of federalism when i was a state attorney general in alabama i try as much as possible to refrain from the use of states rights which carried a connotation that really harkens back to the days of the governor wallace and i think a baseball perspective of the constitutional law and i tried to be careful about that so there's a western perspective and sometimes a southern perspective makes the position different. i was going to ask you so you've got a lawsuit that's challenging these education savings accounts and i take it to them that either then that either your state constitution or some state law provides the amendment which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being used to support some kind of religious education in my

right? >> yes, your honor. we have a constitutional amendment that bans sectarian purposes. >> here's the thing i was going to ask it sounds as if you are getting ready to argue that the state constitution violates the federal constitution. am i right? [laughter] that's consistent with my perspective of what the state attorney general should do. but it's very different from what a lot of state attorney general's conservatives have done around the country saying i have to defend state law no matter what. no you don't. you have a duty to defend the constitution. >> while -- [laughter] thank you very much for that. [laughter] we stopped about half a step short of that.

i won't bore you but there's three prongs. third is the blaine amendment and what we basically said is we suggest they find this very narrow -- they do not overturn on the amendment grounds where they will risk bumping into the u.s. constitution. >> is a constitutional avoided argument. >> thank you very much. there's three microphones and i will try to be as fair as possible. i believe the gentleman in the middle step up first, so i will start with an independent the back. >> art mac comer. we have heard some noises lately about undertaking if you look at the death penalty based on a cool and unusual argument and

putting the idea aside about whether or not the death penalty itself may be cruel and unusual there seems to be two other arguments that come up and my question is about what the state is doing about those two arguments which appear to be the length of time it takes for the imposition of the penalty and the second one being the method of the penalty. some states have gone away from the new chemical in positions that have gone to, you know, firing squads and all this type of stuff. how do they handle those two issues related to ibb they would be a speedy trial and then a due process fifth amendment issue? >> it's not something that's ever hit my desk so far so we love we'll have to see if something comes down the pike

that way that it typically does but it typically does go down as far as having the panel is they get motivated on the issue than they will circulate to see if there is support for one side or the other of the case but i haven't seen anything like that which doesn't mean it's not in the works i just have a huge office that doesn't do justice space. >> it hits my office as a judge but i'm not going to talk about it. [laughter] >> good morning. county attorney from new york. my question originates from an application as a writer for fox news.com. fantasy football, 20 states have weighed in and identified it as a gambling issue and given the

professional sports leagues partnerships with these companies, given the amount of astronomical sums of money being involved and the fact that now we have sports talk radio suggesting that the possible resolution would be a federal gaming czar so we are curious what is the likelihood that we could end up with a addition -- you're from nevada, not me. [laughter] >> the hard questions are coming next. >> i will tell you this. in alabama i'm kind of old school we play real football, not fantasy. [laughter] [applause] we played pretty well, too. i can't imagine i would have

gotten a dalia fantasy question on this panel that it was a long question i would say nevada certainly wouldn't want a czar of gaming and i think the american gaming association and the gaming companies of both nevada and around the country have worked very hard to clean up the reputation of gaming to make sure it's regulated and to make sure their solutions for gaming and all these sorts of things have been the eye towards making sure that the states are so. we were actually asked the biggest most important gaming regulator in the world and we were asked for an opinion on dalia fantasy and under the nevada state law it was as you could imagine it felt directly in the definition of gambling and sports so they will either have to apply or now they just

left the state and nevada is probably 1% and they will make their economic decision of position of how they want to move forward but these are tough questions and obviously there's a lot of movement going on in the dalia fantasy world but my job is in this situation the nevada law is pretty clear and i will say defensive of the industry is i have heard on talk radio like what you're talking about that somehow this was protectionism and we would love to have dalia fantasy. it's it brings a lot of people. it's a great driver of traffic. but our gaming companies wanted is just a certainty. they are so highly regulated if they do anything wrong or they risk losing the licenses so they are frozen out of innovation in all of these spaces until an

attorney general or until the gaming control board says they can operate this space. so that was one of the reason why this opinion came down when it did it's just a signal for the industry of what the rules of the road where you >> thanks for your patience. >> no problem. >> it's with some trepidation that i am questioning something that the judge said especially since i think the judge is one of the greatest minds in this country and would be a great guy for consideration for the next republican president. [applause] if nominated i will not serve. [laughter] >> i'm talking about president. [laughter]

>> the question of the solicitor general of the state following his own view of the constitutionality of the statute in deciding not to defend it in court i have to give you an example of new york city it's not a state but the same thing would apply where we have a wonderful program called stop and frisk end of the new mayor didn't like it. there was a court case decided by a federal district judge who when it went up to the court of appeals for district judge was so bad that she was replaced and it was quite clear the panel and the court of appeals was going to declare the spot and frisk constitutional even though she declared it unconstitutional. the mayor's lawyer withdrew the

appeal. >> i'm totally familiar with this. >> i think everyone knows about that. >> after all the the person said he persons that he was exercising his view of the constitutionality of the police action didn't surprise the citizens? the citizens of new york have an opportunity to vote for a mayor and they had a public debate about what the correct view was. now you may not agree with how the voters settled the debate but it might be be likely be like what we take an with me take an example from my experience, okay we have a state law in the school prayer litigation that i mentioned. the state legislature had passed the law that said students can pray in a nonsectarian non-

proselytizing way in school events. i'm not a theologian but i'm not sure what a nonsectarian proselytizing prayer would look like. but i was pretty sure that that was viewpoint discrimination that was choosing one form of prayer over and over and then it violated the first amendment. the same could have defended it but it was clear to me that it violated the first amendment, so we didn't fight about that. i agreed with the plaintiffs that is a law is unconstitutional. if the voters disagreed with me they could elect an attorney general to defend that kind of law but they didn't and they reelected me. but each branch of government has a role in the constitutional interpretation and here's the

thing. we've gotten to the point of the country where the president signed bills that congress passed where lots of scholars say that's got a constitutional problem and that the constitutional defect in the provision president of president today but the ultimate and said well we've got expedited review provided in this bill getting up to the supreme court and we will find out whether it is constitutional or not. the members of congress who vote on the law have taken an oath to the constitution of the supreme law of the land. they have an obligation to figure out for themselves whether that violates the constitution before it ever gets to the lawsuit. the president of the united states whose son builds into law has the same oath and has an obligation to evaluate its constitutionality. every branch and every official of government takes the oath to the constitution. to some degree, these issues

needed to be settled in the political process through elections and not just litigation so i would say to you the mayor of new york made his pitch and maybe in a few years the voters won't like what the result has been and maybe you will get a new mayor with a different kind of perspective. but we cannot cede all the power and i see this as a federal judge, all the responsibility and all the power to the courts to make the ultimate constitutional determinations other branches have that responsibility. [applause] >> did you have anything to add? >> i can't top that. >> everybody is patient but we are coming up on ten of clock

and i feel the red light on the podium is going on so if you have any closing thoughts. >> with that, i would like to thank you for your time. [applause] ..