the judge was right in the decision that was rendered, and look at the other references in the case to see how closely this followed the existing law, and whether it appears that the judge might be trying to make law as opposed to decideing law. that's important because of the standard the president has laid down for his nom he knees, which strongly suggests something beyond deciding the law. in 5% of the cases there is no precedent or legal mechanism for deciding how the case should come out. we have to base it on other factors. everyone is well aware of some of the factors this nominee has talked about, and the president has talked about, the empathy, background and experience in other matters, so the question is do you find a trend of deciding cases on something other than the law? potentially the making of law, in this particular case. even if, as the leader said, you

can to review 76 cases a day, that is just the decisions that she has participated in or the opinions that she has witten or joined in about the other writings, her speeches she has given, the f.b.i. report, the a.b.a. reports which we do not have yet, the questionnaire which has not been completed. in other words, a variety of things have to be reviewed and read, and then you discuss the nomination with witnesses to say this matter has been raised. what do you think about that? we will receive reams of letters and comments from people who will say she is a good nominee and a lot of comments from people who suspect she is not a good nominee. we need to go through all of that. people write to us about these nominees for or against. we don't just ignore what they say. we take it to heart. that's part of our job. all of this takes a great deal

of time and effort. the final point here, mr. president, we don't just want to leave this to staff. we're going to read those opinions. i have instructed my staff on opinions i want to read. i'm used to reading court opinions but not everyone has done that fairlies recently in their career and that takes a lot of time as well considering all the other work he we have to do. to do this right, to conduct a fair and thorough hearing that senator sessions talked about, and to follow the precedence and tradition that the minority leader talked about here, i think it's important for us to do it right, get it right, to take the time that requires and if that means going beyond july 13, then do that. senator specter worked in a bipartisan way with senator leahy. senator leahy can work in a bipartisan way with us to ensure there is an adequate amount of time. at the end of the day, we want a hearing that everyone can say was fair, thorough, resulted in a good decision, and hopefully,

and presumably, will allow this nominee if es she's confirmed to take her position prior to the beginning of the october term. justice roberts was confirmed, i think, on the 29th of september. that was four days ahead of the time i think he needed or two days. the court reconvenes on october 5, an therefore, i see no reason why, if we do this right, i see no reason why we didn't can't do it. this right by the time the term begins in october. let's do this right and not try to push things beyond the point that is appropriate under the circumstances. >> the senator from alabama. >> i thank senator kyl for his leadership. i appreciate his insiepghtses as we all do.

the white house was quick to get the noom knee's confirmation through the senate? in a hurry and the number of press releases went out and boxes were delivered but in many ways the questionnaire was incomplete, the result of that kind of your, and in others the nominee failed to provide s.u.v. sufficient details required. the scwumg did not include her recommendations to the puerto rican legal defense fund to lobbies against a new york state law that would have reinstated the death penalty, an and it had quite a bit of rhetoric in it, but i suggest that if somebody hadn't been aware of that omission, maybe we would not have received that document at all. what else might she have failed to include might be an important

bit of information as our committee does its oversight work. in addition, the nominee was supposed to provide opinions and filings for cases going to final decisions for three cases, and he indicates that the district attorney's office is searching for records and she did not provide those. 14 cases she omitted, noting that she tried and the record is incomplete there. we don't have any documents related to these cases. as another example, the nominee is supposed to list speeches, remarks an lectures she gave and in the absence of prepared texts to provide a outline and summary of the subject matter. several entries lack any subject matter description or are so saying as to be utterly

uninformative including these quotes i just note from the record, and we have had problems with her speeches. a lot of speeches she has no text for. i would note this is on her questionnaire. i spoke on the second circuit employment discrimination case, close quote. she didn't indicate what or give any summary of that. another one, quote, i spoke at the federal court externship class on access to justice, close quote. it is not clear what thats was in any way and no summary and no text. quote, i participated in a panel entitled sexual harassment, how to practice safe employment, close quote. no additional explanation. next, quote, i spoke on the united states judicial system, chose quote. next, i spoke on the topic of lawyering for social justice, close quote. i discussed my life experiences in the role of

minority bar organizations. close quote. i participated in a symposium on post conviction relief, and i spoke on the execution of judgments of conviction and spoke on the implementation of the haig convention in the united states and abroad. close quote. i participated in an a.c.s. panel discussion on sentencing guidelines, close quote. i participated on the art of judging at this event. that would be nice to know about what she thought about the art of judging. "i contributed to the future of judicial review from the bench at the 2004 national convention of the official theme of lib are ti and equality in the 21st century." that's some of the things that i think are there that are rin adequate responses to the questionnaire's requirements. this questionnaire is one we use for nominees of both parties for

a number of years. the chairman justifies our schedule because to allow the nominee to respond to unfair criticism of her record, but the chairman, and all our democratic colleagues know that the republican senators who will actually be voting on this nom nominee, i am confident and certain have been nothing but extremely fair and courteous and respectful of the nominee, even when she made mistakes like omitting several things from her questionnaire, we haven't criticized her for that. in return for this courtesy, i'm disappointed that we are being rushed to complete this process. i don't think it is a good way to begin the p proceedings. i look forward to working with my colleagues on this day. perhaps we can do better as we move forward. it is an important process. it is the public's only

opportunity to understand what this is about, and i think we ought to do it right, as senator leahy has said and not rush it. i thank the chairman and yield the floor. new york district attorney robert morganthal met with vice president biden thursday to approve support of justice sotomayor and was joined by the president of the national district attorney's association. they spoke with reporters afterwards at the white house. it is an mon honor and privilege for me today with the vice president to endorse president obama's election of sonia sotomayor as the next justice of

the supreme court. as i said earlier, judge sotomayor grew up in the south bronx where i patrolled for many years the streets of the south bronx. additionally, she went to cardinal stellar high school. i went to cardinal hayes in the south bronx. it's much more difficult to get into cardinal spellman than cardinal hayes. nonetheless, she graduated valedictorian from spellman, on to princeton, an graduated to go on to yale law school. with her background and potential she could have chosen lucrative careers in the private sector at a big law firm but she didn't. she worked with bob morganthal as an assistant d.a. where she proved her capabilities over the next four years. i have spoken to my colleagues

that worked with her over the years, and they used great adjectives like compassion but one common theme is that she is the salt of the earth and that you would be proud to know her. then she went into private practice and served 16 years on the bench of two different courts. what i remember about her, though in those years when shes was one of the commissioners for the board of elections, there are strong opinions there, both democratic and republican, and when you look at how she has credited herself with her credden shalls, it is an

american story. it is rags to riches. if you work hard honest, high integrity, the sky is the limit. she has proven that. as i say, she is one of us from the bronx, and it is a great pleasure to meet her. let he me turn it over to he joe and then the d.a. morganthal will speak. my name is joe castley, and the president of the national district attorney's association. i'm sort of hiding behind the mics here. the national district attorney association is the oldest and largest organization of prosecutors in the united states. we are pleased to he see the nomination of judge sotomayor to associate justice of united states supreme court. prosecutors prosecute 95% of all criminal prosecutors in the united states. the rule rulings of the supreme

court have a far reaching impact on the street, with the police and into the courtrooms with p prosecutors. we're very interested and excited that we believe we have a supreme court nominee who has the sense of the street, an of the courtroom, and understands how jibl decisions an judicial pronouncements out of the supreme court impact prosecutors and need to be constructed so they are understandable by the police and easily applyed on the street and in the courtroom. for those reasons, we have looked at the judge's history as an assistant district attorney and spent a great deal of time looking at her opinions in the area of criminal law and constitutional law and based on that, the district attorney's

association will like to have her confirmed as the snect associate justice. i now introduce mr. robert morganthal, the d.a. from manhattan. >> i see you were fortunate enough to bring your own umbrella. i came here to speak to the supreme court. she was the first job out of law school with the manhattan d.a.'s office and served for five years an and then she went on to private practice when she became a member of the campaign finance board and then she showed her

independence and her desire to be fair to everybody. her decisions are well-known to the public. i want to say that based on everything i know about her, she will be an outstanding judge on the supreme court if he elected, and not just a member but an outstanding member and will be the only member of the court that will have experience in the state judicial system, as my colleague explained. 90% of the people in custody in the federal system came out of the state system. it's very important to have somebody on the court who understands the trauma of victims of crime, who

understands the legitimate and real problems to the police enforcing the law, so i think she will good in every field, because she is a worker and will understand the cases but i think it's particularly important to have somebody on the court who understands the state system, the trauma of victims, the problems with the police and prosecutors. >> isn't the second circuit quite commercially oriented? it is a court that deal with social issues as much? >> i don't think so. they have important merchant cases but they have a lot of corporate cases in every field, including the criminal law. >> >> we were told that she has personally authored a good number of decisions regarding constitutional and criminal

issues. >> what is your view of the ruling by political class. >> sorry? >> what is your feeling about her ruling in the connecticut firefighters case? >> there were two other judges on that. she didn't do that on her own. second, that case is pending before the supreme court of the united states, so i don't want to comment on it, but clearly, i have had a lot of cases in my lifetime, and nobody doesn't improve with every case they handle. she has handle add lot of cases. some people have a legitimate criticism, but i emphasize that that is only one case out of thousands she decided. she was on loan in that case. it was a three-judge opinion, and she was not the heed judge. she was a junior judge on that

case. >> thanks, everybody. >> ok. >> also this week, judge sotomayor continued her visits with senators on capitol hill who will be voting on her confirmation to the supreme court. this week, the judge was on crutches. she broke her ankle in a fall at la guard ya airport. the judge visited with senators charles grassley and russ feingold. here is a look. >>. >> i just welcomed judge sotomayor, and i want to see

that being nominated is the ultimate in professional advancement, i would say. >> yes, sir. do you want to talk to the p press? it's ok? >> i think not. >> do you feel ok? >> i feel fine. >> i think we've had enough now. thank you all. over and out. >> i think they want us to shake hands. >> of course! why not. congratulations. >> thank you, guys. >> thank you. >>

>> i had a one-on-one meeting with the judge. it was a very pleasant conversation. since it was a one-on-one meeting, it would be unfair to her for me to say anything about the substance of the meeting, and i don't intend to answer any questions but i want you to know that i enjoyed the 58 minutes that i spent with her. thank you all very much.

>> as senator leahy announced, the confirmation hearings for judge sotomayor begun july 13, and we'll have full coverage of the hearings on the c-span

networks. for more information on judge sotomayor, go to our website c-span.org. you will see more of her visits to capitol hill, reaction to the nomination, an even a look at the official senate questionnaire that she's required to fill out. that's at c-span.org. >> iran's interior ministry is claiming that mahmoud ahmadinejad is heading for a land lied victory but his main challenger says he is the winner and accusing the government of voter fraud. on "washington journal" we talked to a journalist in tehran about the situation.

"the counterpoint to a landslide victory, his opponent is saying it amounts to treason and a statement from his opponent urges supporters to resist a governance of lies and detick tatership. -- dictatorship. the ministry said ahmadinejad had 63.3% of the vote and suvari had 44%, and based on ministry figures, around 75% of the country's 46.2 million eligible voters went to the polls. we are going to get more input from anna klinefield who works for the financial times and is their middle east correspondent.

usually the votes take a long time to count and these came oud speedily by iranian standard ards, raising suspicions. it is against what we have seen on the ground. he does have support among the poor and rural areas so he was expected to put up a good fight but certainly wasn't expected to win this kind of landslide victory when we have seen so much opposition to him over over the last week or so with mujahideen supporters out on the streets every night. there is a lot of disbelief about these numbers. they can't believe that ahmadinejad won by such a huge margin in the first round, so they have been venting their anger today, with released statements saying that the are results are fabricated, that the

election has been staged and mr. musavi is warning that he will fight them and that there is dishonesty. >> if the election does go to mr. ahmadinejad, is there a matter of he recourse as far as his opponent is concerned? can he call for a revote or are there other avenues he can take? >> no, not really. there is no official avenues. the only kind of appeal is to the supreme court leader, ayatollah khomeini, as mr. musavi has already been appealing him to say do not a allow irregularities to be committed in this election, but mr. yike quiek has made it -- mr. ayatollah khomeini has made it clear that he will not overturn the results, so it seems that there is know official recourse.

the only hope that he has is his supporters could also vent their anger about this, so it's a very difficult thing to do in iran with such high security state, and certainly this morning, there were a few protestors, maybe a couple hundred out on the streets in front of the interior ministry. they were dispersed immediately by police, so the hope of a popular uprising in response to this is very minimal. >> we have read news accounts that there is someone who contributed a tweet this morning who said some of the supporters had chashes with the police. would you describe those as clashes or is that going too far? from what i hear, that is correct. i went down to the interior ministry this morning but unfortunately, i was a little late. there is a lot of police an roadblocks around there, but some of my friends here who were down there said they saw

protestors beaten by the police as they were senning them away from the protest. >> what do you make of the turnout that went out, especially among women, and what does that say about the election and the current leader? >> i think the turnout was phenomenal. it was amazing on the streets yesterday. i went out at 8:00 when the polls open. there were long queues already. i went out at 10:00 when the polls were closing and there were still people waiting to vote. iran turnout is usually pretty high but it was exceptional yesterday. people waited for four hours in the sun to cast their vote, an as we heard, the women played an active role in this election. there were a lot of women voting yesterday, but notably, there were a lot of western educated people who don't bother to vote. there is a big section of society that think by voting for this regime they are

legitimizing it, so they usually simply boycott these elections. yesterday i went to some of these places in the north of tehran and there were long lines out there. people were saying they were voting for the first time since the islamic revolution 30 years ago. to me, that suggested that there was a mood of discontent here, that these people had previously thought that it didn't matter who you voted for, that there was always a regime guy, and they were all the same. ahmadinejad taught these people there was a difference between regime guys so there was a lot of people out this voicing their disgruntlement with mr. ahmadinejad. >> if he does win, do you think there could be unrest among the people and could that show itself in future protests or any other kind of demonstrations in the future? >> i think it is going to be very difficult because these people that are mousavi supporters are not the kind of

people that would be radicalized and would prepare to lose in many ways because they already enjoy freedom or push the boundaries. i think where maybe mr. ahmadinejad's supporters are more reticent and would have been inflamed by the opposite results but mr. mousavi's supporters will really not have a lot of action on the streets over the next week or so. it is difficult how they could be a lot of anger in this security situation that they have. i hate to say it but i think this is just going to come to pass, that people will have to swallow the election results, even though they won't like it. >> any suggestion that ahmadinejad will change policy or at least attempt to improve the economic situation over there because of the turnout and result of this election? >> i think it will be business as usual. he has been very defiant in responding to