objection, so ordered. mr. specter: mr. president, i have sought recognition to comment on the forthcoming

proceedings on the confirmation of judge sotomayor for the supreme court of the united states. judge sotomayor comes to this position but with an extraordinary record. her academic standing at princeton was summa cum laude, a graduate of the yale law school, where she was a member of the board of editors. then in her practice, she was an assistant district attorney in manhattan, a position which gives very extensive experience in many important facets of the law, something i know from my own experience years ago as an assistant district attorney. then she was in private practice on -- with a very prestigious new york law firm. then served on the united states district court.

and more recently on the court of appeals for the second circuit. the hearings will give judge sotomayor an opportunity to respond to a number of issues which have been raised about her background. i think that chairman leahy was correct in moving the hearing date so that the confirmation process could be concluded in time for judge sotomayor, if confirmed, to sit with the court during september when the court will decide what cases it will hear. a great deal of the important work of the supreme court of the united states is decided on what cases they decide not to hear. and perhaps that in some ways is as important as the cases they

do hear. the cases they do decide. that it is during that period of time when the decision is made on a grant of certiorari with four justices deciding what cases to hear where the presence of a new justice could be very, very important. the confirmation hearings at an early stage will give judge sotomayor an opportunity to respond to many questions which are highly publicized. it's a very noteworthy matter when a nominee is being considered for the supreme court, and there is a lot of publicity, and some of it is controversial. as a matter of fairness, the earlier a nominee can have the opportunity to respond to those issues, there is a question been raised about her decision on the

new haven firefighters case. well, the nuances of affirmative action don't lend themselves too well to brief newspaper articles or sound bites on the talk shows. they're made for a supreme court hearing. or her decision on property rights following the kelo decision has been subjected to certain comment. there again, the nuances really require a hearing. her statement about a wise latino woman has been widely commented upon. and there again, she ought to have an opportunity to speak to those issues. there have been some questions raised about her decisions under the second amendment, membership in the elysian grove and a lot of speculation. so let's bring on the hearings

where there will be an opportunity for judge sotomayor to present her views. based on what i have studied and her opinions and an extensive meeting which i had with her, she is a powerful intellect and prospectively she is likely to be able to have good comments. but that's what the confirming process is all about. so let us move forward on it to the july hearing date so that we can consider her nomination and she can have an opportunity to respond to those issues. there have been contrary views about the value of confirmation hearings. there are some who say that they've really outlived their

usefulness, pointing historically to the fact that prior to 1955 or thereabouts there were very few confirmation hearings, only when there were some extraordinary question, and that in recent decades the confirmation hearings have been extensive. having participated in some 11 of these confirmation hearings, it is my judgment that they are very worthwhile from many'nt points of view. it presents an opportunity to have a public focus on the appropriate role of the supreme court. a lot of very major questions about the respective roles on separation of powers between the courts and congress on fact finding and on the record.

important questions on the relative authority of the executive versus the court on the issues of detention and the habeas corpus. important issues on the relative rules of the congress versus the executive as exemplified by the conflict between the foreign intelligence surveillance act and the powers of the president under article 2 of the constitution as commander in chief. there are also hearings where it's quite a public focus on a civics lesson as to what the court does, and public attention is focused on the court. my preference would be, as i've noted on legislation i've introduced which has been passed out of the judiciary committee to have the proceedings of the supreme court televised under certain circumstances.

that has not yet been approved. but i think the day will come when supreme court hearings will be televised. i think they could be televised without having showboating, real insight by the public as to what happens by the supreme court of the united states. just as hearings of the house of representatives and the united states senate are televised. there are a lot of quorum calls but there are debates that go on here for the public to see,. and at least the confirmation hearings does bring the role of the court into focused hearings. and i think to a very, very beneficial effect. we had the hearings on judge bork widely commented upon.

very, very extensive hearings on his writings, his view of original intent. and there was an opportunity for the american peel and the scholars to see what was -- for the american people and the consoli throors see what was involved there. there has grown a myth that in that proceeding the nominee knee was bork, turning his name into a verb. my own view is that that is not so that the decision made in rejecting the confirmation of judge bork turned on the record, turned on what happened in the judiciary committee proceedings, that when you really took a look at original intent, it was way outside of the mainstream of constitutional law, way outside

of the constitutional continuum. if you looked to what congress intended in 1868 when the equal protection clause was passed in the 14th amendment in this chamber, the galleries were segregated. african-americans were on one side and caucasians were on another side. so the intent of the senators certainly couldn't have been that the equal protection meant integration. but after brown v. board of education in 1954, there was no doubt that equal protection did mean integration. the confirmation proceedings of chief justice rehnquist were very informative. chief justice rehnquist had more than 30 votes cast against his nomination in 1986. the issue aroseerose as to the

quadive his answering questions as to the role of the supreme court contrasted with the role of congress. chief justice rehnquist had written an interesting article for "the harvard law record" back in 1958 when he was a young practicing attorney criticizing the senate for the confirmation hearings of justice whittaker, not asking probing questions about due process of law. but only extolling justice whittaker's virtues because he represented both the state of kansas and the state of missouri, living in one state and practicing law in the other. and when chief justice rehnquist was asked questions about the authority of congress to take away the jurisdiction of the supreme court, he answered finally that the congress did not have the authority on first amendment issues. but declined to answer about the fourth amendment, fifth, sixth,

or eighth or to answer a question as to why he would respond on the first amendment but not on the others. and there are some issues which are so firmly established that they are outside of the respected rule that we don't ask nominees to say how they will decide upon cases that might come before them but where you deal wishes like marbury v. madison or brown v. board of education or the authority of the congress to take away jurisdiction of the supreme court, interrogation of marbury v. madison, there are questions which ought to be arch answered. the confirmation hearings provide an opportunity to go into detail about the functioning of the court. a few years ago when the issue

of judicial pay was before the congress, a number of senators were invited to confer with the justices and provided an opportunity for me to see the conference room. i had been a member of the bar of the supreme court, argue add few cases there. but it never seemedz their conference room. and frankly it was quite an eye ownership. is a small room, plain table, modest chairs, very intimate, very austere, and quite -- some insight as to how close the justices are together. and when we talk about diversity, how long it took to get an african-american on the court, thurgood marshall did not go to the court until 1967. justice lewis powell made a comment reportedly that just

having thurgood marshall in the proem made a difference in perspective. really surprising, perhaps scandalous, this it took until 1981 to have a woman on the supreme court. now there are only two. and when i was asked for recommendations for the current vacancy, i recommended four women. to say that a woman's point of view is different and valuable is really, really trite. when i was elected to the senate in 1980, senator kassebaum was the only woman in the chamber. senator hawkins was elected that year. now we have 15-plus and growing. and i think it's been a very great addition and improvement, a liberation here to have more women here. a liberation here to have more women here. and another woman wou

plus there, if judge sotomayor is confirmed. and also the diversity on being hispanic is important. we live in a very diverse society. when you see that small supreme court chamber, you can see the intimacy and you can see the -- almost visualize the intellectual discussions and the powerhouses in that room, and how the really big cases are decided with the court having the last word on life and death, a woman's right to choose, medicinal issues of attempted suicide, the death penalty in capital cases and all of the cutting-edge issues of our society. so the confirmation proceeding of judge sotomayor will give us

an opportunity to inquire into some very important issues on executive versus judicial authority, on the authority of the court versus the congress, and toward that end, i wrote a letter to justice sotomayor -- judge sotomayor dated june 15, and i ask unanimous consent that this letter be included in the record at the conclusion of my statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. specter: as i note in the opening paragraph of my letter to judge sotomayor, our meeting, so-called courtesy call, lasted more than an hour. and at that time i commented to her that i would be writing on other subjects, which i intended to ask her at the meeting and

she responded that she would be glad to have that advance notice. and the issue that i focus on in this letter involves the respective authority of the congress contrasted with the court on the establishment of a record to warrant legislation which congress enacts. and i noted that i had written to dheef scru chief justice roba similar vein back on august the 8th of 2005 in advance of his confirmation hearings. and i take you were in my letter to -- and i take up in my letter to judge sotomayor the same issue i took up with chief justice roberts, and that is the decisions of the supreme court in invalidating congressional enactments, declaring them unconstitutional, because of

what the court says is an insufficient record. and i note the case of united states v. morrison, which involved the legislation to protect women against violence, where the court was denigrating, really disrespectful to congress, where the court said that the congressional findings were rejected because of our -- quote -- "method of reasoning." -- close quote, as if there is some unique quality which comes to the nominee when the time of confirmation to walk across the green between the heergt room -e hearing room and the supreme court chambers. noted in the dissent by -- noted in the