student, what it was like to come to a firm, what things people were worried about, what was important to them, what they saw as important and possible in the life of the law. that kind of desire to continue to understand what is going on in the lives of all kinds of people is when combined with this great scholarship, combined with his great intellect, and combined with his great compassion has made him to me the very perfect person it to sit on the highest court of the land. justice stevens, it's an honor to have you here, and we thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you, roberta. before i read you my prepared remarks, i have to acknowledge

what a nice introduction that was because i remember that occasion very well, too. part of the reason that i was very happy to be privileged to talk at the american bar association convention in florida when roberta was the first woman chairman of this association, and it reminded me that's not particularly revel. it did remind me of the fact that i sort of specialized in talking at bar association occasions honoring first woman presidents because i had previously talked to the chicago bar association back in the 1970s when keegan because president of the association, and she was the first woman president of the major bar association. roberta followed up and as greg told me at the time, she was going to have a sensational career, which, of course, was an

obviously correct prediction. but this afternoon i thought i would make a brief comment on bush against gore, because there has been so much discussion of the remedy issue in that case in which a majority of the united states supreme court issued a stay that halted the recount of florida votes in the presidential election of 2000. the significance of the courts opinions reliance on the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment has been generally overlooked. as you may recall, in the 2000 election, florida used voting machines to count ballots on which voters had used a stylist to punch a hole in the small circle opposite the preferred candidate's name. voters who successfully followed the written instructions punched

a complete hole in the ballots, and their votes were accurately counted by the machines. the voters whose votes weren't counted by the machines, fell into two categories. so-called overvotes and undervotes. the overvote category included ballots on which the voter had tried to vote for two or more candidates for the same office. the undervote category included balance on which the voter had designated one candidate but failed to make a complete hole in the ballot. there were two subcategories of undervotes. hanging chads and dimpled chads. in the hanging chads subcategory, the punched-out piece of the ballot remained only partially attached whereas a ballot with a dimpled chad contained an indentation but no

hole. the florida supreme court ordered a manual recount to be conducted according to the vote standard established by florida law. that court did not require a recount of overvotes presumably because of a re-examination of those ballots would seldom reveal the identity of the voter's preferred candidate. the question with respect to undervotes however was not whom the voter intended to support but whether the voter intended to vote for any presidential candidate at all. in the typical case either a hanging chad or a dimpled chad opposite the name of one candidate would both identify the voter's preferred candidate and indicate his or her intent to cast a vote. during the recount election, officials differed on whether the question to count both dimpled chads and hanging chads

or just the latter. nerd those for which light could be seen through the edge of the chad. in palm beach county, for example, the officials began to follow a 1990 guideline that drew a distinction between hanging and dimpled chads. but they ultimately ended up counting both subcategories of undervotes. in the per curiam opinion the united states supreme court described that change in a way that gave the reader the impression that the officials had engaged in a standardless endeavor. the opinions stated, quote, palm beach county, for example, began the process with a 1990 guideline which precluded comments completely attached chads switched to a rule that considered a vote to be legal if any light could be seen through

a chad changed back to the 1990 rule and then abandoned any pretense of a per se rule only to have a court order that the county considered dimpled chads legal, unquote. the paragraph is misleading in two respects. first, what it describes is switching to a new rule was, in fact, only a clarification of the original rule that considered only hanging chads as valid votes. the quote new rule clarified that a hanging chad was one through any light could be seen, since that evidence that the chad was not completely attached. second, what the paragraph describes as changing back to the 1990 rule was just a continuation of the practice of not counting dimpled chads. of most significance, however, is the fact that the county

ended up treating dimpled chads as valid votes before the united states supreme court ruled. while the court's per kuriam opinion is miss leading in other respects, for example the implicit suggestion that the failure to reorder recount of the estimated 110,000 overvotes were error, despite the lack of evidence or argument suggesting how one could tell which candidate the voter intended to support. the principal point i want to make this morning concerns the absence of any coherent rationale supporting the opinion's reliance on the equal protection clause. the equal protection clause requires states to govern impartially, and as particular for us in protecting the right to vote. there must be a neutral justification for rules or practices that discriminate for or against individuals on the

basis of identifiable characteristics including groups of individuals that are defined by race, by political affiliation or by the residence in a particular location. the one person one vote rule, for example, prohibits states from giving greater wait to votes in rumor areas than to votes in densely populated cities. if residents upon beach county or perhaps members of the democratic party were more likely than other voters to produce dimpled chads rather than hanging chads, there might be reason to hold that counting the two subcategories of undervotes differently would violate the equal protection clause. but there was no claim by anyone in the case that variations in the method of counting undervotes had any systemic significance. the mere possibility that accidental and random errors

might have occurred during the voting and recount process would not establish any intentional discrimination against preidentified -- a preidentified group of voters and would not even establish any unintended despaisparate impacts on either candidates and surely nothing arguably discriminatory in applying a rule that counted dimpled chads like hanging chads. perhaps the florida supreme court's opinion ordering a statewide recount of undervotes was flawed because it failed it to state expressly that the dimpled chads as well as hanging chads should be counted as valid votes. if that omission was a flaw, it could have been remedied on remand by the following two sentences from an illinois case decided a decade earlier. the objection that the chad should be fully punched out or

at least there should be a hanging chad on the backside of the ballot would set two rigid a standard for it to determine whether the voter intended to vote for the particular candidate. many voters could be disenfranchised without their fault if, fampl, ballots with reperforations ots chad could be regarded as the intent to vote, unquote. i have never thought that the florida supreme court's decision will be flawed however, so it seems obvious to me as it did it in the illinois supreme court in pull ham that the, quote, intent of the voter stand on which the florida supreme court relied was sufficiently clear to dimpled chads. my principal purpose for calling the attention on the eagle protection clause in bush against gore is to emphasize how that provision of our constitution properly construed

would invalidate an inhideous form of political behavior that remains popular today. if a mere defect in the standards governing voting recount practices can violate the state's duty to govern impartially, surely it must follow that the intentional practice of driving bizarre boundaries of laektsal districts in order to enhance the political power of the dominant party is unconstitutional. in recent cases, however, members of the majority of the supreme court have written opinions concluding that the absence of judicially manageable standards precludes judicial review of even the most obvious political jerry manders. several opinions including one written by louis powell in 1986 as well as several of my own

have identified such standards for reviewing partisan gerrymandering. even a majority of the court has applied manageable standards in cases involving racial jerry mand jerrymanderring. it has left a category of intentional skrilgs against voters unchecked as long as the discrimination is predicated on the basis of political party and not race. for example, just last year a three-judge district court rejected a challenge to maryland's redistricting plan because the plaintiffs, quote, had not shown that the state moved african-american voters from one district on to another because they were african-americans and not simply because they were democrats. even though the plaintiffs' claim that democratic politic n politicians had drawn district lines to reduce the number of

republican-held congressional seats was in the words of the court, quote, the easiest claim to accept factually, unquote. the court declared it the weakest claim legally because the supreme court has declared partisan jerry manderring. i will refrain from repeating the arguments i made in opinion in this topic. they should recognize their responsibility to curtail this insidious practice. the tools for doing so as a judicial matter have already been developed in the supreme court's racial gerrymandering jurisprudence and in a number of separate opinions by members of the court discussing political gerrymandering. thank you for your attention and for your continuing efforts to improve the law.

>> consumers are very frustrated right now that their mobile devices are working so so slowly. >> robert mcdowell on spectrum auctions, competition for wireless space and two new commissioners tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. tonight live remarks from president obama as he delivers the commencement address to students of joplin high school in missouri. it's been one year since a tornado killed 161 people and destroyed six schools, including joplin high.

see the president's speech at 9:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> u.s. nuclear regulatory commission chairman gregory jaczko announced his resignation from the agency. he had drawn criticism from his fellow commissioners over what they characterized as abusive management practices. la last year the chairman along with four other members appeared on capitol hill where they were given an tount to address the accusations am here's a 45-minute portion from that house oversight committee hearing from december. >> appear before you today, however, to address topics related to the current functions of the commission itself and the engagement between the commission and agency staff. i have served as a commissioner with six other individuals, four currently serving and two whose service has ended and under the tenure of two different

chairman. although some amount of tension is expected in any body, i believe the level of the tension is impeding the collegiate processes of the nrc and is object structuring the functioning of key processes between the commission and agency staff. these tensions are rooted in an interpretation of the nrc chairman's statutory authorities as well as his conduct towards his commissioner colleagues and nrc staff. despite these problems i believe it's likely the commission would have continued the tug-of-war over issues to the extent possible out of the public spotlight. events have pushed the commission beyond the tolerance for circumstances and let us communicate the concern beyond the commission. as a result that grant the chairman the authority to decide which issues appropriately involve any of the statutory functions and to interpret for the agency outside the meaning

of direction from commission decisions, the situation at the nrc has in my view become increasingly unwork ablg and threatens the viability of a functioning commission structure. while the reorganization plan number one of 1980 created certain administrative responsibilities -- concentrated certain administrative responsibilities in the hands of the chairman, the legislative history makes clear it was not intended to display the ultimate authority of the full commission over the affairs of the agency. the plan itself includes a provision that the commission may decide by majority vote in any area of doubt whether any matter pertains to one of the commission's stault to her functions. in it's deliberation on the plan, congress emphasize z they shall have full access to all information within the aegs including that in existence. the chairman may not withhold or delay providing information requested by the commission. if both critical areas, how far, i do not believe that the processes under the current chairman satisfy the intent of

the law. over the past year and a half, the commission has engaged in a pro tracted effort to resolve the disagreements over the respected roles and responsibilities through a comprehensive revision of the international operating procedure. this proved unfruitful however in resolving the underlying disagreements. exacerbating the long-standing disagreements are recent events of concern. in october of this year the chairman appeared at an annual retreat held by the agency executive director for operations and senior agency staff. within days of this event a number of attendees from retreat statute me out to express their strong reaction to the chairman's statements. they described the content of his remarks as an expression of contempt for the commission. it was described to me that the chairman instructed those present to advance his agenda and this must come at the price of having their own independent assessment and representation. the executive director described it to me by saying we were

pretty much instructed to leave our brains at home. hearing of this event was a formative moment to lead me include that the points of tension between the chairman and commission were no longer isolated to the commission itself. interference in the flow of information was occurring to such an extent and was being conducted to brazeningly that the commission needed to take additional aaction. another circumstance that i believe caused commission to bring the ishs forward is the outbust of abusive rage directed at subordination within the agency staff. all members have been on the receiving end tf this conduct, which was also acknowledged by the nrc inspector general in his testimony before the house energy and commerce subcommittee on environment and the economy earlier this year. these incidents appear to have grown more frequent however and i'm wear of this conduct directed against staff at various levels in the agency. some of these employees have spoke to me privately of the embarrassment and humiliation to

be made to lose composure over policies and to be seen exiting the chairman's office in upset. i regret we have come to this point that's premised on the variability of individuals to speak out. it's my hope that a positive lesson is drawn by not just the nrc staff listening to this hearing but by all those responsibility for safety and security across our government. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner magwood. if you could pull the mike a little closer there. not very good from a distance. thank you. >> thank you, chairman. thank you, chairman. chairman, ranking members and members of the committee, it's

with considerable sfoimt i appear before you to share my concerns regarding the management issues in the nuclear regulatory commission. i have provided a written statement. i'll try to summarize my comments. >> without objection, so ordered. >> let me begin by reassuring the pub that the staff has and continues to work diligently to carry out the responsibilities to protect the health, safety and security of the american people. they were led by an excellent career manager who did a fantastic job of insulating most of the staff from the serious problems the subject of this hearing. my colleague have endured a distasteful media campaign over the last week. we see a wide range of misleading and untrue reports about our motivation, character and commitment to safety. it's clear that this campaign is intended to convert the attention of congress from the public from the very real concerns we have about the leadership of our agency. i do not intend to allow this tactic to succeed. one item i feet i must address is the commitment to safety. after 20 months working with the

people at this table, i can promise you we place the safe and security of the public we serve at the very top of our considerations. we do not always agree on how to achieve the goal of safety, and we always do not view issues the same way. i believe we are all equally committed to the same goal. the motivations of the members of the commission because of disagreements on strategies or approaches is irresponsible. now, as i discuss the real concerns facing us, i feel my true role is to give voice of the dedicated men and women that serve the nrc. many come to me to discuss concerns. first, i'm most concerned that the chairman made a regular practice of interfering with the ability of the commission to obtain negotiation from the nrc staff. he asserted the authority to provide information and increasingly what the information contains in the reaching of the commission. this behavior is contrary to both the letter of intent to the organization plan and no commission can carry out the legal role obligations under the conditions. in my written statement i

outlined a specific example in which the chairman had prevented the staff from providing the commission a voting paper regarding or program for prexz and nuclear power plants. he sent someone to break up a staff briefing believe held. for the record we didn't allow the briefing to end. aets it's routine for individual members of the staff to come to commissioners to alert us about issue they belief require attention and staff can't get through to the chairman. the commission has come to rely on the individuals in the staff to keep us in whiched is a sad statement. what worries me most is the fact we don't know what we don't k w know. there's a growing cancer of a work environment at the agency. i've observed the effects this chilled environment first hand and i believe it's fwhors recent months. i believe the commissioner suggested some of that. my final concern, however, which i raised in the chairman's abusive behavior towards the staff.

to understand this matter, i spoke with three of the women who had personal experience with the chairman's he can treem behavior. these women remain very disturbed by these experiences. a common reflection they shared with me was, i didn't deserve this. one woman said she felt the chairman was irritated with swuns and took it out on her. another told her she was angry at herself for being brought it to tears. a third described how she couldn't stop shaking through her experience. she sat talking with her supervisor until they could come down enough to drive home. service fee maul staff are tough, smart women that succeed in the mail environment. this is aprofoundly painful experience for you and the word one woman used was humiliated. another woman told me it's embarrassing enough i went through. this i don't want to be dragged through the mud. these are major concerns facing

the agency today. blocking staff from providing information to the commission, the creation of a chilled work environment and aabuse of staff. i do not believe that fear and humiliation are acceptable leadership in any organization. thank you for your attention. i'm ready to answer your questions. >> thank you. commissioner. >> thank you, chairman, ranking member cummings and members of the committee. i served in this independent commission since april 2010. during that time i've come to better appreciate the reputation nrc has historically enjoyed a competent regulator and a leader in nuclear safety. not only in the united states but in the international community. the reputation can be attributed to the employees of nrc who show dedication the nrc's organizational values of integrity, service, openness, commitment, cooperation, excellence and respect.

for decades these values have served as a guide to the operations with nrc staff as well as for the commission. the values historically foster an open and collaborative workplace that brings out the best regulatory and technical judgments of the nrc staff without undue influence or pressure. unfortunately, we find ourselves today in the environment where the historical values have been compromised and the agency's reputation placed at great risk. left uncorrected this trend damages the ability of the nrc staff and the commission to carry out the nuclear safety mission for this country. i have over 30 years of service to this country. we have the nuclear subterrain officer and i served in six submarine and there's a tax squadron of eight submarines. i've been accountable to the united states government, the white house, the department of defense for ensuring the safety

of the nuclear powered warships. i take great pride in this service. these principles ensure reactor safety. after retiring from the navy in 2002, i worked upstairs in the armed services committee as a council for atomic energy activities with the department of energy. subsequent to that i spent two years with the senior official with the department of energy now with nrc. with significant experience in leadership positions dealing with nuclear oversight, whether it's nuclear weapons or nuclear power, i can honestly say to this committee i've never seen an environment where the highest level of the organization does not reflect the values shared by the whole. along with three of my commissioner colleagues that signed the letter on october 13th who took the same oath to, quote, well and faithfully discharge the duties of our office, i refuse to be silent while damage was being done to

the nrc's work environment. it is important to comment briefly on what i'll label as an unprecedented action writing the letter to the white house. that's the letter that this committee received last thursday evening. this letter is not about politics. it's signed by two democratic and two republican members of this commission. i regret that that letter has been portrayed by many in congress over the last three or four days as being politically motivated. i assure this committee it does not. it is not about yucca mountain and other policy disagreements. it's not about internal conflict between commissioners, though that is one element of our concerns. with great respect for the white house, i must take strong exception to white house chief of staff daly's letter from monday night that i believe mischaracterized the situation of the commission. what is this letter about? this letter is about management actions that have eroded the

prized open and collaborative working environment of nrc, the nation's nuclear safety agency. these actions serve to prevent the commission from being fully informed the nrc's staff's views and recommendations. it's about behavior that if exhibited by one of our nrc's regulated licensees would be subject to investigation and potential enforcement action for a chilled work environment. it's about bullying and intimidating behavior toward nrc career staff that should not and cannot be tolerated. in a lot of our unanimous agreement these actions cannot continue, the four of us fulfilled our oath of office and took what we viewed as appropriate action and wrote the white house. that letter clearly stating our grave concerns. i appreciate this committee's oversight role. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. commissioner. >> chairman isa, ranking members cummings and