[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] host: the political focus in washington this week is on sonia sotomayor has her confirmation hearings begin at 10:00 a.m. you will be ample to watch on c- span, c-span.org, and c-span radio. we would like to hear from you on her confirmation hearings. you can see the numbers on your screen. republicans, 202-737-0001. democrats, 202-737-0002. independents, 202-628-0205. please allow 30 days between your calls and you can send us a tweet.

a couple of articles about sonia sotomayor's hearings. this is "the washington times" this morning. that is on their front page. on the inside of "the wall street journal" this morning is this article.

that is from inside "the wall street journal" this morning. and this is in the politico. "it is just the kind of told the republican party needs." now we want to hear from you and what you like to hear from the hearings. steven, a democrat in dallas, you are first this morning. caller: m on the air?

hello? host: and this is from "in new york times" this morning. this goes through the schedule.

host: let's go to houston, independent. what do you think?

caller: i hope she holds the administration accountable for crimes against humanity. we have the torture memo that the secret interrogation and so forth. host: do you think the senate will bring that up today? caller: i don't know if it will bring that up today, but if she is confirmed, i hope she has a strong backbone for holding them accountable. and also, some of those attorneys that got fired. i hope she has accountability and will bring some of these guys to court. host: eric, republican, charlotte, n.c.. caller: if i was on the judiciary committee, the one thing i would ask justice sonia sotomayor is whether or not she

thinks she was selected because she is the most qualified, or whether or not she is benefiting from affirmative action in her life. and she alluded to, she has been affirmative action policies in the past. i do nothing there is any doubt she will be confirmed. i do not think there is a need for the republicans to grant this. host: thank you. recently, c-span talked with michael o'neill, the former judicial committee staff director. we talked about how nominees prepare for the hearings and how the committee prepares. >> what is the staff looking for? >> you are looking for a couple of different things. the obvious thing in today's world, it is a for supreme court nomination of where you have access to the internet. and that is widely used as something to research people.

we are looking for a couple of different things. you are looking to add fullness to the person's record, they can understand them both as a lawyer and as a human being. a lot of that information comes out from newspaper reports. the media is very important. articles have been written. that gives you a full picture of the nominee. and people who are looking for unsavory things about the nominee, as a lawyer preparing a nominee, you want to know what those things. if you are someone predisposed to not liking the nominee, you want to be able to use that information. >> during these strategy sessions, do you work with the majority staff in your case about the way the democrats will be questioning? >> absolutely. based upon past questions of supreme court nominees and pass questions of court of appeals

nominee is, we tried to ask what all the members would be interested in. senator kennedy, for example, on the civil rights. that is one of the areas he will really want to question about. another senator has always been interested in federalism. we also know, based on what our current supreme court cases are, one of the constitutional law issues that members will be interested in. for senator specter, we went through all the major constitutional law topics today and created a series of briefing memos for him about what the current state of the lot is. what was going on with racial

preferences? what was going on with executive branch relations? war powers? during the bush presidency, there were questions raised about the power of the executive branch. what are the limits of article two an article 40. we tried to digest all those things in the memoranda. host: from diamond head, mississippi, an independent. what do you think about the hearings? caller: i thought it would make a difference, but after watching bill moyers yesterday, i do not think there is any difference at all. america, you better wake up. host: baltimore, democrat. caller: i would like to make a comment on judge sonia sotomayor. i am reading ""usa today" and it

says a new era in judicial policies. just like when america voted for president obama. he is bringing in a new era of national leadership for this country. and i just hope the republicans can make up. -- wake up and become part of this nation's change. it is going to happen and we need it. much of the rest of the world that agrees with president obama policies for this country. we all need to get on the wagon and go with president obama's instead of fighting him like the republicans are doing. host: westminster, vt. caller: i'm interested in this. i have been the victim of

affirmative action. i'm a white male. i did not get a job when i was more qualified. i called the civil liberties union. they said they could not tell me because of affirmative action. this country cries discrimination all the time. it does not matter what race. but we promote it by having affirmative action. if we want to stop all this racial bigotry in this country, drop the issue. it will go away. host: "the washington post" story this morning -- "it will help determine whether the charges from her critics persist about her ability to apply the law fairly without a bias toward any group.

host: the next call comes from carlisle, ohio, charles, a democrat. caller: i am very interested in this. i have always been a liberal democrat. i am very much concerned about illegal immigration and what it

is doing to our health care system and everything. i am very concerned. the article you just read out of the newspaper kind of went like i feel, but i have no prejudice against these people. i just think the ones that come here should come legally. the big influx that we had to the last time we granted amnesty, we had a big influx, and it will happen again. it is destroying everything we stand for. host: we are interested to hear what you think about judge sonia sotomayor. what you've heard so far about her, what you would like to hear today at the hearings.

they will be beginning at 10:00 a.m. this morning. in "the new york times" on the op-ed page, "questions for judge sotomayor." they have asked people to send in questions. here are some of them.

host: dallas, independent. caller: this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. i deal with racism every day. host: quincy, massachusetts. caller: i have one question for judge sonia sotomayor. i think she is very capable from what i've read. all i want to know, will she based her opinions strictly on the constitution? empathy is great. having a soft hard for people with a problem, that is okay. i think we have to adhere strictly to the constitution to maintain ourselves as a country. that is all i ask. host: senator leahy was on "face

the nation" yesterday. here's what he had to say. >> i suspect she will be confirmed. i would hope it does not turn into a partisan fight for the good of the courts and for the good of the supreme court. chief justice roberts is not somebody i would have recommended as a nominee, but i voted for him when he was nominated by president bush because i felt that the chief justice of the united states should not be on a party-line vote. there is a profile today on judge sonia sotomayor. it said she was inspired by the idea of neutrality. she said she would not play for the hispanic team, the democratic team, the republican team, but for the constitution team. host: boca raton, fla., a republican. caller: i would ask her about

empathy. there's no place with entity in terms of interpreting the law. that is not what you do. that should be totally divorced from the situation. i would ask her about the word better. when she was talking about, because of her rich experiences -- well, everybody has rich experiences. how dare she tried to play up her humble upbringing. a lot of folks making it with even worse humble upbringing is. then she mentioned that she could do a better job. she said that repeatedly, not just one time. they tried to pass that off and say that the woman only said that one time. no, she said it lost when she talked before groups. you can do a lot more when you

get on the supreme court when you're there for life then you can on some appellate court or some other court. another thing, a lot of these people who call in, they call in repeatedly. they are not independents and they are not republicans. they are democrats. for instance, the black man who called earlier when he said he wanted her to go after bush and cheney and all that. that's not the role of the supreme court. they don't even know what they're talking about. they do not understand it. as far as partisan fights ago, nobody was more a hater when they went after even justice

alito and clarence thomas. host: michael chertoff, the former homeland security secretary under president bush, also has a question for judge sonia sotomayor in "the new york times " this morning. host: phyllis in nashville. caller: to pretend that the lot is neutral and somehow the the law is not based on somebody's

empathy or biased toward one group or another is to ignore the history of laws on which negative decisions have been wielded against minorities, starting with the dread scott decision. i support judge sonia sotomayor. i think that the body of her work that i've heard about in the case that she is neutral concerning the law as anyone. i hope people will get away from the mass amnesia and that it will stop pretending that the history of injustice toward minorities in this country is not pertinent. certainly the experience of the judge's such as the types that

brought about the dread scott decision -- no one, and certainly not judge sonia sotomayor should back away from the fact that experience and empathy, and as much as judges are not robots, that does not pertain in decision making. host: i want to show you this chart in "the wall street journal" this morning. it is all the supreme court nominees since 1975, beginning with john paul stevens through sonia sotomayor. over here, it has both the committee vote and the full senate vote listings. you can see that some of the more controversial ones include william rehnquist in 1986, a 65-33. clarence thomas, 52-48.

and then john roberts, 782-22. 58-22 for judge justice alito. that is all in "the wall street journal" this morning. wisconsin, independent. caller: i'm interested with all the partisan bickering we have going on this morning and we have not even heard the hearings get. she has not even been asked a question yet. it seems really over the top. i have a question about your guest on friday. she made a racomment about tryig to release terrorists into the streets of america. i think somebody has got to challenge that when that stuff

comes out on your airwaves. that is crazy. i hope the judge gets a fair hearing and answers a questions and then i will make up my mind. host: at c-span.org, we have a whole area devoted to judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation hearings. there is a list of majority and minority witnesses. they include michael bloomberg and when the chavis -- linda chavez. long island, joe, independent. gcaller: i would like to apologize for the earlier caller. can a nation preserve its sovereignty?

then she know the difference between legal and illegal immigration? unfortunately, the people asking them to not seem to know the difference. host: would you like to see judge sonia sotomayor confirmed? caller: from what i've seen, she seems qualified. my mind is open. i'm willing to look. host: in "though wall street journal -- "the wall street journal."

host: oklahoma city, ken, republican. what do you think about the confirmation hearings? caller: very interesting. when judges come up through the ranks in different districts, do they base decisions on long- range goals to be in the supreme court? if they aspire to be a justice on the supreme court, do they make decisions that will make

them look more comfortable to the confirmation? host: and from "the new york times" here is a professor of law at the university of wisconsin's question. host: the next up is wilson in michigan, republican. caller: i would like to ask the judge when the she truly believes that life begins in the womb. then i would like to ask for a follow up question depending on her answer. that would be, if you are a

catholic, do you believe that life does begin at conception? host: thank you. senator sessions, the ranking member on the judiciary committee, was on "face the nation" yesterday. >> i am flabbergasted by the depth and consistency of her philosophical critique of the ideal of an impartial justice. i think that is a real expression of hers. it does not show up as much on the lower court, where you are supervised by your circuit and the supreme court. it can show up much more on the supreme court. she has advocated international law and criticized to the aclu in april of this year, justice scalia and justice thomas for expressing concern about judges citing foreign law, and praises

justice ruth painter ginsburg for doing so. she indicates an advocacy position. host: i want to show you a twet. et. host: the next call comes from david hawkins with cq weekly. what is: on encumbers besides the sonia sotomayor hearings? caller: it is a busy time in congress. it is a reminder that the critics say congress cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. they are doing some important steps. it's mostly about appropriations bills. these are the 12 bills every year that keep the government running. the house will be debating two of them.

the senate, even as the sonia sotomayor hearings are going on, will be debating the budget bill. host: how much political energy dozen supreme court justice confirmation hearing take from congress? caller: an enormous amount. obviously, it is only half of the congress. it is only in the senate that considers her nomination. many citizens do not remember that constitutional fine point. they petition the house members to get involved. house members have some work to do. some of them answer on point and say how they would have voted. on the senate side, it is huge. it does not happen very often. the last time it happened was how many years ago? three years ago, four years ago, and before that, not since

the 1990's. happens at an infrequent pace. as the tweet just said, is an enormous political exercise, if nothing else. host: mr. hawkings, there's a room for this morning that health care might not make it through before the august recess. caller: i think that's a good story to write. i do not think that is very much of a surprise. it slowed to a snail's pace in the last week. clearly, the president and the democrats have not found they magic formula that can not only get all of the democrats on board, but can attract some republicans. the informal game plan has been that the period of this summer

would be the time when the democrats and the president worked hardest to come up with a plan that can get republican votes. if that did not work, they would come back in the fall. it looks increasingly likely -- i'm sure your listeners know all about reconciliation. they can do it with all democratic votes. host: what will you be watching for this week? >> one little thing is that there's an election. there is a congressional election in california. it is almost certainly to go democratic. it is always fun to watch to see if there's unusual voting patterns even in the democratic district. it is also unusual. the surnames of those candidates are the same, chu.

that will be fun to watch. i will be glued to the confirmation hearings like everyone else. it will be interested to see what such witnesses have to say about sonia sotomayor. such as the former new york mets pitcher. host: we will continue to take your calls on judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation hearings. democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. please allow 30 days between your calls. you can also send us a tweet @c- spanwj. caller: i was really leaning in her favor until you read that

article and she is more likely to send a male defendant to jail than her male counterpart judges. that kind of scares me that she would want to do that kind of thing and emphasize how tough she is. the 10 stearns about how many affirmative-action votes she made -- maybe she does not realize that clarence thomas had affirmative action points, but then became a justice and became against the system. also, george bush had affirmative action plans because of the donations his father made to kiyale. he also got points for being a cheerleader when john kerry was a quarterback of the football team. host: california. caller: i want to apologize for that guy in texas who said those

horrible things. your pen stomping was eloquent in reaction. i share your emotions. that was totally offensive. i know you cannot stop those kind of things getting onto the topic at hand with justice sonia sotomayor. i think the thing that's most troubling to me as an independent -- but i am a conservative -- is the international law concept. this has been argued for some years. in most of it, i learned through c-span. that is really in trouble some concept. we're based on the constitution. and a strict constitutionalist is how i would define myself and

that is, i think we should proceed. going forward, the legislative theatrics -- she is going to be approved. the votes are going to happen. the republicans and my fellow conservatives will have the chance to articulate their objections, but it is already a done deal. what is the point? i understand the process. i appreciate the process. it is theatrics and it is already a done deal. we cannot stop it. i would like to, for those points that america is trendy now toward european and socialism, an international

judicial look. i think that is truly a threat to our democracy. thank you. host: james macgregor burns has a question from "the new york times." host: we recently talked to a couple of sonia sotomayor's former law clerks. here's what they have to say about her. >> as soon as she was nominated, a lot of commentary started happening in the media by different groups. what is one criticism that you felt was unfair? guest: i thought the whole of rorer about the ricci decision. the case of the white

firefighters in connecticut. the judge set on that on the second circuit, and hearing an appeal from a lower court judge. i thought the whole issue -- rush limbaugh was throwing out the words racism and reverse discrimination and things like that. i thought that was truly absurd. guest: i think the initial jeffrey rosen article before the nomination, for the most part, it was a whisper campaign that she is not that smart, or she is a bully -- it is completely untrue. it takes a huge group of people to rabat. it was intended to keep her from being nominated. guest: one thing that has seemed really unjust is questions about

judge sonia sotomayor's temperament. we all talked about the way that she prepares for oral arguments. she is very searching from the bench. she asked difficult questions and she is very high standards. she feels like she really needs to know the answer to. i have never seen her boule in any way. -- have never seen her bully. i have seen her colleagues really respond to that. host: "the washington times" this morning has an editorial. "currently imprisoned murderers and rapists have a constitutional right to vote on

racial discrimination." and this is a quote from senator sessions --

host: chris, republican, naples, fla. caller: thank you, c-span. i think judge sonia sotomayor should not be put into the supreme court. i think she is too liberal. i think she is an elitist. i was appalled by justice ginsburg's comment about roe v wade. basically, i think that this an

endorsement of eugenics. it is basically the racist statement. she's referring to white babies, a gentile babies. she may think of them as comment. i think she is entrenched. i think we should nominate more conservatives to the supreme court and overturn roe v wade. in a new republican because i was independent before end of this tired of being disenfranchised and left out of the primaries. i have moved forward. host: north carolina, independent. judge sonia sotomayor's hearings are due to begin. caller: i think she's a terrible pick. she is obviously a liberal

radical, pretty much like our president, who is considered the most liberal in congress when he was there. what really disturbs me about judge sonia sotomayor is the statement she made when she was on the second court of appeals -- she came right out and said we set policy. we do not care about the constitution. we just care about congress. we set the policy. that is not at all what the judges are supposed to be doing. even worse than that, the cases that went to the supreme court, from what i understand, 10 of her cases that made it to the supreme court -- she lost nine of them tarriance the writings on their briefs basically said that judge sonia sotomayor does not understand the constitution. and she rules against the

constitution. this is what we are getting. we are getting a liberal radical who was quick to throw everything out the window. and make decisions on her own. kind of in the line of justice ginsburg. host: tweet has come in. dartmouth, mass., ron on our republicans line. caller: i think a lot of people are forgetting we have a very liberal government now. and we have a very big immigration problem. people are working, but they're also using the section eight.

i do not know when people are going to wake up to all of this. what does a working person do? i do not know. host: new mexico, a democrat. caller: i think we have got to recall a statement made by a leading justice. i believe the statement was something to the effect the constitution of the united states is what the supreme court says it is. i think if we look at the performance of the supreme court, and especially the conservative constitutionalist, we can reach the conclusion that their position represents a cultural lag in a constitutional sense, meaning that they really

have not been with the times. and their positions, for the most part, have supported the economic institutions that have led us into this crisis, this financial crisis, etc.. i think that the nation will wake up to the fact that we have got to keep up with the times. that statement -- maybe one of the ccallers can tell us. the constitution of the united states is what the supreme court says it is. thank you host: here is the front page of "though wall street journal" this morning.

host: that is the front page of "the wall street journal" this morning. new york, independent, what do you think about the hearings? caller: i think the committee that vets per is a joke. the whole reason is, if you give any indication they you are not

in compliance with the constitution, that should be an automatic rejection. it seems like it does not matter what they say or what they do. they are confirmed anyway. i think this is wrong. our constitution is at stake. i think our rights are also. thank you. host: on the front page of "role call" this morning.

host: that is on the front page of "roll call." chicago, a democrat. caller: how were you doing this morning? one thing -- it is a silly time around when we have judicial appointees. once again, republicans and conservatives make this silly argument. the reality is this. the majority of the appointed judges that we have in our court system are put there by republican presidents. this overwhelming number of them. we have had republican presidents for 30 years or so. these justices are republicans.

this is argument that we get from them. now you see the inconsistency with these conservative views. you just have a caller from new mexico who was somewhat trying to illustrate -- are court are overwhelmingly conservative. i would just like to make an example of what he was pointing out was this. we have for generations, our court supports racial discrimination. if a judge during that period says this is not right. their argument is, this judge said discrimination was wrong so he must be out of step. this is a ridiculous position to take. what they want is basically just

to stacked our core system and have their way. host: i think it is only justice ginsburg and justice breyer where president clinton appointees and the rest were appointees going back to john paul stevens. and then judge sonia sotomayor would be the third democratic presidential confirmee. caller: yes, that is true. not just that the supreme court, but the appellate court, the federal district court. all of our upper level courts have been appointed by republican presidents. we do not have this out of control liberal court system. thank you. host: the president called judge sonia sotomayor on the phone to wish her good luck. you might have seen that

picture in your own local paper or on the news this morning. i have it here. now it is lost. it turns out that judge sonia sotomayor met with 89 senators. winfield, alabama. caller: good morning. the thing that worries me is that i hear people calling in all the time about we need progress without progressive justices. progress is made through the people, through the elected leaders. you can pass progressive laws and you can advance that way. if you cannot get the laws of held by the supreme court, there's always the amendment process. these people that want nine people to make decisions for the millions of people in this

country, then why don't we just do away with the senate and the congress and just pay nine people? we could save a lot of money if the supreme court justices told us what we could and could not do. i am talking from the point of view from a person that has been discriminated against terribly. you do not know what it's like until they tell you flat out, you will not be offered a spot because of your color. host: again, the hearings begin at 10:00 a.m. this morning. senator schumer and senator gillibrand will introduce judge sonia sotomayor at that time. senator schumer was on "meet the press" yesterday. i believe she will be approved. there's a good chance she will get as many if not more votes as judge robert scott.

people need her. and impressed democrats and republicans, not just with your story, but she is smart and also practical. she is down to earth and she makes a great impression. the very impression she has made on 89 senator, she will make to millions of people. she will be approved by a large margin. host: on the first day of the hearing, which is today, each member of the committee will deliver an opening statement. host: the hearings pick up again tomorrow between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.

host: flint, mich., david. caller: good morning, c-span. i am a very happy for the latinos in the country because they finally have a representative that can speak their part. i am happy that the president chose her. i think we need a mixture on the court. i think it will help our country and help get an understanding of other people's views. i know getting our president elected, it made me feel so much more prouder to be an american. i know how they must feel. i think it is very good. i think it represents more women on the court. i think the woman should have a part in it. i just wish we had -- as a black

man, i feel like we do not have any representation on the court with clarence thomas because he does not really represent us. you represents conservatives. i'm happy for the latinos. i think it's nice. i think it will bring balance and make our country more open. host: another story in the news from "politico." here's a picture of senator harry reid and his son. harry reid's startling local ratings are a matter of considerable concerns, but you have as a reason to worry as his own son, whom i have to share the ballot with him. he is a two-term clark county commissioner and former state democratic party chairman. he is expected to formally announce his campaign for governor in the weeks ahead.

host: tennessee, mike on the republican line. caller: i do not think there is any doubt she will be confirmed. i do not think she would be a good choice. i don't think she will follow the constitution and the bill of rights. that is what is all about. i think it is a political pick. i do not think there's any doubt about that. it is along the lines of race.

i think obama picked her for future latino votes. i think that's what it comes down to. host: illinois, independent. caller: am i on the air? host: not anymore. new orleans, republican. caller: we just went -- everybody said the conservatives stacked the deck. now this time that we have some kind of representation on the court where we cannot have these types of arguments. host: thank you. we will continue to talk about this topic in just a few minutes with joan biskupic of "usa today."

on the c-span web site, you can find all of the information about judge sonia sotomayor at c-span.org. we have a supreme court page. we also have a poll that we did last week on the supreme court that you may find of interest. just talking about the supreme court and how much people know about it. the results of that poll are also on the supreme court paged at c-span.org. coming up next is joan biskupic of "usa today." we talked with jamie brown, who worked in the bush administration about how the white house prepare supreme court nominees for confirmation hearings. >> it is a terrible term to explain and a very critical part of the process. even though the nominees we had and judge sonia sotomayor are clearly smart, capable lawyers.

the stakes for these hearings are so high that it is critical that you have a thorough preparation. your goal for the process is to go through a period of refreshening the nominee of all of their opinions that could be controversial. give them an opportunity to be educated on that. and then you set up a series of what are called murder boards that replicate the hearing. u.s. the type of questions that you would expect that -- they would that -- you ask the type of questions that you would expect that would be asked. the goal is that you want the questions that you ask to be harder than anything that your nominee is going to face when they are in front of the hot lights and c-span.

it is one of the most high- profile job interviews that you have in the american government. . host: we want to welcome joan biskupic, a supreme court reporter for "usa today." walk us through the proceedings

today. when will we finally hear from judge sotomayor? guest: the first day tends to be very ceremonial comore spectacled and substance. disch -- she will come in at 10:00 and so will the committee in the heart office building on the senate side. she will have with her her mother, brother, and twin sons, some other friends with their, some white house people with heart. she will then sit before the committee. what will happen first is just a lot of talk from the 19 senators. they will each have 10 minutes to make an opening statement, beginning with the chairman, patrick leahy, who has been with this process many times. he will start it off and then we will go to the senior republican, jeff sessions from alabama. we have 19 members. we will get all the way down to the end of the democrats and the end of the republicans. we will see for the first time,

our newest senator, al franken, whose election was just secured by the courts there. he is also on the committee. you will first hear from them and then an opening statement from judge sotomayor. that will come roughly 1:34 2:00 p.m. and then after she gives her statement, they are done for today. today is quite ceremonial. it is the opening. we will get cues from senators and from the nominee herself. tomorrow, the real nitty gritty begins. host: you point out in your story today this essentially represents the start of a new era of judicial confirmations. how so? guest: this is the first democratic nominee -- we do not know if she will be confirmed. she feels like she's glad to be confirmed, but this could go off track. it is the first democratic nominee in 15 years we also

have a president who is in his first year of his term. he is likely to have more nominations. right now, we have a democrat- dominated senate. everyone is laying out new models for where they will be, picking up on old places at the same time. each of these confirmation hearings is unique in itself, but it also has the larger context of where we have been before and where we might go host: there is a lot of focus on senator jeff sessions. guest: herb kohl of wisconsin -- his committee tends to be very interested in business matters. he is a very successful businessman from milwaukee. he does not usually have a very dominating presence at these hearings, but it goes to show how much turnover we have had over the years, that he is in

that position. to democrats that have long been part of nomination hearings who will not be here today are senator joe biden who is now the vice president, who used to be in the center chair and would have been the ranking democrat won the republicans controlled, and also senator kennedy. he is log a part of confirmation hearings dating back to the 1960's. her call comes up with these -- herb kohl is a little bit more moderate. then you have senator chuck schumer, from her home state of new york. then u.s. senator durbin from illinois. i think you are going to say each of the senators expressed some of their own interest, but will constantly have a return to the age-old issue of confirmation hearings, race, abortion, religion. host: seated next to al franken

will be the former republican senator from pennsylvania, arlen specter. guest: that will be interesting. senator specter used to be able to speak quite early in these hearings. he will now be very much at the end of the line. as we all know, he switched to the democratic party a few months ago. on this committee of 19 people, there are 12 democrats, including senator specter. there are seven republicans. they go in alternating seniority. host: we want to talk about the sources of the hearings, but will she be coming in with a cast? will she be on crutches? guest: she still has a very injured leg. she fractured her ankle when she tripped at laguardia airport last month coming from new york to washington, d.c. for some of her courtesy calls. she is actually in some pain and

discomfort. as i understand it, she is going to try. or elevated -- her leg elevated part of the time. she is an honor -- she is on crutches, but i do not know she will walk in on those. i think she still needs substantial help. i think she is still in some discomfort. people who have gone through these hearings and become justices have talked about how grueling it can be just sitting there at this table while the senators get up and down, go on breaks to go vote on the floor, get a snack, or have a bathroom break. the nominee is just sitting there hour after hour in quite an intense fashion, always with a camera on him or her. i think she will have additional discomfort just because of this injury. host: if she needs a break -- guest: they might work that out ahead of time. the work that out because they do not want the nominee to be in

discomfort, especially in our situation when she is already injured that she has to deal with. host: there could be some republicans that will announce later today that they will support sonia sotomayor. among those who are mentioned include mel martinez of florida and susan collins of maine. guest: they have already been speaking quite favorably of four, but i think that mel martinez being hispanic and very much inclined toward the nominee for all sorts of reasons of both ethnicity and her sheer qualifications, she would be the supreme court's first let tina justice, but she also comes to this with 70 years of federal bench experience, which is quite extensive for a nominee. host: the president calling sonia sotomayor yesterday. also from "the washington, d.c.

examiner,"democrats put in an easy nominee. guest: i think she is poised to be confirmed. that is for sure. i think it will take a lot to derail her at this point. you never know what will happen. i think that there is still a lot to say. people do not need to go on vacation yet. we will get a little bit of cue from republicans when they talk in their opening statements. there will be enough give-and- take tomorrow to make it exciting. i think it would be a huge story if suddenly she became derailed. host: christine is on the phone joining us from kalamazoo, mich. on the democrats' line. caller: bid morning to you. i cannot believe my ears this morning. the republicans that are calling and do not remember when the

chief justice was being questioned and samuel alito that nobody was giving them the bullying treatment or the unitary president. we have that unitary president, bush. he got to have whatever he wanted, including sneaking things and, making signing statements, doing secret things against us as citizens. they were behind him. they believe in it and stated it. i cannot believe they are giving her the kind of trouble -- they seem to have a short memory about who took away whose rights, who did what to defend our rights. i am disgusted to think that the republicans who claim to be the true american citizens, that

they have a right to take away everyone's rights. host: thank you for the call. joan biskupic? guest: that is the kind of sentiment that you will find from many democrats on the committee. it is not just about a single nominee. it is about larger policies and larger ideas of where the law should be. it is the prerogative of any member of the committee to complain however they want it whenever direction. i think that certainly, both sides have engaged in plenty of partisanship 30 years. the idea of executive power or issues of race or issues of abortion, these play out in a very large way at these hearings, in respect of a where the nominee is bent. host: "the wall street journal" looks at the length of time which a nominee has been announced through the confirmation hearings. you could look at how short it

was when john paul stevens was nominated by president ford. it was lengthy for william rehnquist, antonin scalia, robert bork, anthony kennedy, all the way through samuel alito. guest: even though justice john paul stevens was confirmed in 1975, which would have been two years after roe v. wade, it was not as big of a deal at that point. we did not have the moral majority. we did not have the strong right-to-life movement at that time. so, what happened then in the 1980's, not only did you have ronald reagan come into office in 1981, feeling that he had a mandate for change on the bench, but you had all the divisiveness over abortion. you had a lot more attention over issues of race. what happened was that the nominees themselves got caught

up in some of these larger issues and that some of them were people who were lightning rods themselves. so, i have actually talked to justice stevens about what it was like going through that back in 1975. he said that it was very tense. he did have an easy time compared to what the nominees have today. it partially reflects the polarization of politics in america and to some of the issues that have played out in the courts. host: next call is from michigan. good morning. caller: i just had a couple of questions. if you could answer them for me, it would really help. when they talk about her education, they say that she came out from the bottom and work her way up. i was wondering if her education was paid for -- i know here a lot of the young kids who are hispanic and are minorities,

their total college education is paid for. it is kind of a benefit. my other question was, is this the first hispanic that has been put through this confirmation or was there another one? guest: this is the first hispanic nominee. it could potentially be the first hispanic appointee to the supreme court. host: at one point, president bush and did consider attorney- general alberto gonzales. guest: he was never nominated, for example,. myers -- harriet myers. on the education, she did win a scholarship to princeton and worked her way through yellow school. the caller is right. in the '60s and '70s, there will be scholarship money for people

in need. this nominee grew up in the south bronx housing project. her father died when she was 9 years old. her mother worked a couple of jobs as a nurse. so, she was financed by the schools that she went to. she also worked on the sides. host: if she is confirmed, it will be 5-4 catholics on the supreme court. guest: it is 5 now. we have chief justice john roberts, antonin scalia, anthony kennedy, samuel alito, and clarence thomas. there are all on the court right now. she would actually be the sixth catholic. given that there used to be such a cap -- an anti-catholic bias

in america over history, we would have such a majority on the court. having looked at this in a serious way, in part because of my research on justice scalia, all of these catholics do not have the same philosophy. i do have to mention that we have had a handful of catholics before these five. william brennan, who was quite liberal, was a catholic also. often, catholicism will be associated with more conservative members, but through history, it has not been that way. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. my question is for joan. i'm calling on the independent line, but i am leaning more toward democratic. my question for you is --

host: i have never used empathy to administer election law. she would not qualify to be an election judge. guest: what she is taking off on is the statement that president obama had used prior to nominating judge sotomayor, that he was looking for someone with empathy. that has been quite a controversial word. some of your viewers will hear that word uttered several times by republicans as these hearings unfold because it suggests to some people, to critics especially, that president was looking for someone who might not merely interpret the law based on what is in cases in what is in the facts of a dispute, but might bring personal sentiment to the matter. what the president has said and what the president who support

him have said is that empathy in terms of being able to put one's self into the shoes of another, even though he or she has not been through those experiences, someone would not be detached, someone would not be in different to the matter at hand. i think it is one of those code words that we have had through the years like liberal activist, that tend to be used by people who are critical of people who might be deemed a liberal activist or empathetic, but certainly does not mean anything -- it does not mean the same thing to all people. host: the confirmation hearings dominated the sunday shows this weekend. did you hear any surprising statements? guest: i certainly did not watch everything. it was all over the tube yesterday. one thing that i heard is that senator chuck schumer of new york, a democrat, said that he

thought she would be approved by a wide margin. our last two democratic appointees, ruth bader ginsburg, and stephen bryar, were approved by a very wide margins. i am not sure that she will get into the '90s. it might not be because of her, frankly. when chief justice john roberts was confirmed in 2005, it was 78 to 22. there might be some republicans who feel that maybe she should not have a better margin than he does. i'm not sure. sometimes these things will pick up where the last one left off. i am not sure if it will be partisanship. there could be more than 20 people who feel that she should not be on the court. it is hard to know at this point. i'm curious to know what she will end up with. host: when her nomination was put forth, there was a lot of

emphasis on senator barack obama voting against john roberts and samuel alito. guest: the president was one of the nay votes. senator patrick leahy, the current chairman of the committee, voted for john roberts. you are right. that is why i think there might be some republicans who feel they have to vote against judge sotomayor, according to what came before or what they see in her record. host: antonin scalia received 98 to 0. guest: there were two people who would have voted for antonin scalia if they had been there. he actually invoked that. he has mentioned it in various

occasions that he was approved unanimously and he rightly notes that he probably would have been approved unanimously again. justice kennedy, as some of your viewers will remember, came after the ferry to malta was robert bork hearings. so, that was one where it might have been much more divisive, but i think by then, everyone was worn out. not only was it robert bork was defeated -- this was the fall of 1987 and ronald reagan had nominated doug ginsburg, but his name with we're -- -- but his name was withdrawn. anthony kennedy was approved unanimously. host: this e-mail from a viewer from princeton, new jersey. why should we believe anything a nominee says during confirmation? roberts swore up and down that he would follows what law, but

over and over again, he has done the opposite. guest: that his adherence to precedent. i have to say, it can sometimes be in the eye of the beholder. i think the person who sent in the email has a very good point. probably, chief justice roberts would say that he was adhering to precedent as he saw it. i think some people come to these wondering just how truthful a nominee is going to be and then when an appointee has a record after getting off the court, it does show some of the holes in the testimony. host: next call is from virginia on our line for democrats. caller: the republicans have had a field day with her "wise latina" statement. what we -- what she was saying was, in terms of minorities, she would have a better insight into it. if this statement was not true,

we would not need nine justices. we would have won just as big as life experience would not matter. host: ok. guest: i want to address that. we will hear that invoke several times. what judge sotomayor has said is that given the experiences of way wise latina woman, she might be able to decide cases better than a white male. what she has said in explaining herself on that is that she was talking in a more inspiration all white to her hispanic audience, saying that diversity is a very positive thing and we all bring different experiences to the bench. she has tried to emphasize that she would not actually decide cases based on that. her 17-year record reveals that she was nearly looking at the facts of the law is the issue.

do i have time to mention that? she was also taking a page from something that justice sandra day o'connor and ruth bader ginsburg have often invoked in their speeches about, does a woman decide cases differently than a man? basically what they have said is something echoed by a minnesota state supreme court justice who said at the end of the day, a wise man and a wise woman come to the same place. that is what justices ginsburg and o'connor have said in the past. what judge sotomayor was saying was that maybe they do not always decide cases the same. was senators will be concerned about, especially republicans, is, does this show a mind-set of favoring one particular segment of society over the other? she has said in her visit was centers that it is not what she

is all about. she was speaking in a more inspiration away, but the viewer was good to bring it up because again, people will hear that a lot, especially tomorrow when the question and answering begins. host: a judge and justice should be impartial, not in different. guest: that is what i was getting at. that is what the democratic senators and the president have said when they tried to defend that word empathy, saying that empathy is not the opposite of being fair and impartial. it is the opposite of being indifferent, in their minds. host: this hearing is about race, religion, and roe. guest: i gave our readers a fourth one, the rich taste. it was decided by the supreme court this term.

as many of your viewers would know, the case out of new haven conn. involved a group of white firefighters that challenged a policy in new haven that allowed the results of promotional tests for firefighters to be discarded what happened was, the city of new haven had done a written and oral test to show who should be promoted in that he knew -- in the new haven fire department. they realized that the results were very disproportionate. whites overwhelmingly scored well. they started to have some second thoughts about whether the test was fair. they also worry that racial minorities might sue the city because the results disproportionately hurt the blacks and hispanics. federal civil-rights law protects people based on race in two ways. one is, if there is a disparate impact against them, it's a

seemingly neutral test or some other job practice and up hurting either racial minorities or women, that can be illegal. at the same time, you cannot have a discriminatory impact on somebody. the city felt like it was between these two parts of federal civil-rights law. one had to do with a disparate impact from the seemingly neutral test, as new haven had done, and outright discrimination. what happened was, the city said, we are fearing that we are going to have lawsuits based on the disparate impact of this test against racial minorities. we are going to scrap all of the results. we are not going to give the of promotions based on how well these what firefighters did. many white firefighters suit saying that this is not fair. just because we outscored the

blacks and hispanics does not mean that these tests should be discarded. they should say -- they said, you are guilty of disparate treatment to a us based on our race. they won at the supreme court level in a decision that was written by justice anthony kennedy, who tends to be the swing vote on issues of race. he said that the city turned a blind eye to the validity of these tests and it in -- it did not have the evidence to say that it was vulnerable to lawsuits for minorities. host: our guest has been joan biskupic from "usa today." andjoe is on the phone from illinois. good morning. caller: this is my first time calling on c-span. he were the only newschannel eyewash. you do a very good job.

i just wanted to say that i would have one question of judge sotomayor. that would be about her articulation of empathy. guest: that is a good question. i wonder if someone will ask for that. maybe one of the republicans will ask her. frankly, the president is not going to be sitting there to answer why he used those words when the hearings unfold. she will be there, not just representing herself, but in a large white, representing what president obama might want in all of his court nominees. host: former president george h. w. bush and used that word to describe justice thomas. guest: democrats will use a lot from the past. they will probably mention that samuel alito referred to his own

personal experiences when he was testifying in said that he reminded people that he came from a first-generation immigrant family and that affects him. so, i think it will probably bring it up. we will have ghosts of nominations past. host: wise latina schtici was used many times. guest: a lot of these people who do public speeches will use things over and over again. the tweeter is right to say that she has not used it just once. i think there is no way she will not be able to address that. host: good morning. caller: the question i want to ask your guest is, it is obviously a racial statement, but i do not know if the racial statement is necessarily a bad thing.

as a white person, i believe a white person would make a better president than a black person. as soon as i say that, i am deemed racist. is it some -- if some political officials said that the reason a connecticut firefighters issue, the reason the white people did better than the minorities is quite honestly, the white people are smarter. they would call them a terrible they did and everything. the door has to swing both ways. what we have done is we have drifted away to one side. if you speak up about your race as a white person, you are deemed a racist. race is an important issue and you can be proud of it, but not be demonized. i think that has to go both ways. guest: i'm glad the caller is me a chance to revisit the new haven firefighter case. i want to remind people of what

judge sotomayor and her panel from the second circuit did on that, which plays into the issues that the caller raises. when the second circuit panel heard this claim from the white firefighters, they said that the city was right to do what it did and the city was right to defend itself from lawsuits from the other side. essentially, they handled it in a terse way that said, we believe with what the lower court said here and essentially just endorsed what the city had done and also what the local court said, going against the white firefighters. her actions leading up to the supreme court hearing of this case will very much be center stage. it raises questions of whether -- of where she falls on a very large dispute that we have

constantly struggled with for a very long time, especially since the 1960's and 1970's when affirmative action programs came into play, the idea of reverse discrimination and her beliefs on government policies that take into account issues of race. the curris supreme court has tried to curtail those policies and say it is time to move on and not take account of individual race, whether to bring diversity to schools or to remedy past by aziz. that will very much be on center stage. host: opening statements today in a round of questioning that will begin tomorrow. the second round will be 20 minutes for each senator. guest: today, you will just get a lot of signals of where the senators might want to go. you will see her for the first time really showing herself to a national television audience, both in national television audience, an online video audience, and bloggers.

we will get to see what she is all about. then she will really have to defend certain things and explain herself more beginning tuesday. host: joan biskupic, thank you for joining us today. the state of u.s. intelligence operations is the topic of our next conversation with shane harris, the intelligence reporter with "national journal ."

>> live car ridge of the confirmation hearing for judge sotomayor begins this week on c- span 3, c-span radio, and on the web. we will replay the proceedings week nynnights. tour the home of the nation's highest court, the supreme court on c-span. >> how is c-span funded? >> private donations? >> public support. >> consumer funded, i guess. >> of the were funded? i do not know. >> private contributions? >> policies been funded? 30 years ago, america's cable companies greeted c-span as a public service -- created c-span as a public service. host: we want to welcome shane harris of "national journal."

all lot of news about the cia. mize president dick cheney. one of the points you make in an earlier article is that there have been a dozen oversight committees, special panels looking into u.s. intelligence operations and the conclusion is often the same. take care of congress first. explain that guest: there have been at a dozen of these special bipartisan commissions and panels that have tried to assess, what are the important things that need to be fixed in order to reform intelligence. they come to the same conclusion about congress providing oversight of intelligence operations. the conclusion is that it is dysfunctional. really what members of congress need to do is sort of reassess what their role is in overseeing the executive branch and the conduct and formulation of intelligence policy, whether that be how they conduct investigations, how they proceed

with hearings, etc. and that they have not taken this responsibility on as seriously as some experts would like and that more recently, oversight has evolved along partisan lines and has become a venue for traditional types of partisan attacks. for a lot of time, intelligence wanted to be a special domain war policy -- where politics did not enter. host: one of the examples of is from the cia director of the reagan administration and a utah senator. guest: this was back in the 1980's when the reagan administration was involved in a number of different covert operations in latin america, particularly nicaragua. this was part of a broader campaign of the reagan

administration to essentially a starched the spread of communism in latin america. when it came to light that the cia had conducted this operation, the intelligence committees in the senate were shocked to find out that they had not heard about it they brought the cia director of the time and essentially said, why is this something that we're only learning of now? this is practically tantamount to war. why are we hearing about this for the first time? his response was, i did tell you about this. i briefed you several months ago. it had essentially been missed by most of the members. essentially, during the hearing when all this was coming out,

one of the members was essentially so incensed at the grilling that members were giving the cia director that he rattled off many expletives about the character of his colleagues and they should essentially back of the cia. it almost came to blows. it was that tense between these members over what their job was supposed to be overseeing this agency. host: what did vice president cheney know and what do you think he withheld? guest: what we know now is that the cia director in late june went to the intelligence oversight committee and said that there is a secret cia program that has been going on for the past seven or eight years, you have not known about

it, and vice president cheney specifically directed that the cia not tell you about it. what we know is that this is in some way connected to a presidential finding issued by george bush in 2001 that authorized the cia to target and kill certain members of al qaeda and apparently this program is some sort of subset of that. what we do know is that dick cheney, for reasons that we cannot be too sure, whether it was so controversial or secretive, said that this is something congress should not know about. one reason why i think this is so interesting is that there are all kinds of programs and operations that the agency is considering at any time, specifically also when they are directing as part of a presidential finding. in 2001, president bush gives a broad order that the cia is

authorized to hunt, killed, captured members of al qaeda. all sorts of discussions start to happen underneath the umbrella of that directive. at what point does the cia decide that this idea has reached a threshold where we should notify congress or we should keep internal because it is something that we are cashing out in a brainstorming session? the fact that of vice president personally intervened tells you that it was probably that was something more and was something that was rather significant and he felt it needed to be kept from the oversight committees. host: senator john kyl and senator dick durbin weighing in on this story. >> the allegation of the vice president ordering it to be kept secret. do you think that should be investigated? >> the president and the vice- president are the people who ultimately have the responsibility.

>> to order it to be kept secret? >> what if it is a top-secret program? let's not jump to conclusions, is what i'm saying. >> let me just tell you. we know that vice-president cheney played an unusual role with president bush in the early days of his administration that seemed to change over time. it is inappropriate for the vice president or the president to be ordering that a program be kept secret and not disclose at the highest levels of congressional leadership. we have to have a check and balance in our system. to give to the president unbridled power and authority goes way beyond what our constitution has in mind. host: we have seen this unfold before. guest: up until now, president obama has been reluctant to open up any kind of investigation into previous intelligence practices. the primary reason is that he

does not want to be seen as scoring political points on his predecessor. he knows that he could be setting a precedent for future administrations. how's it going to be for him if there republican takes over in the next term or four years after that and wants to launch an investigation into things that obama did. you are potentially criminalizing policy. he was to avoid that. at the same time, it is undeniable that this recent revelation has a new wrinkle. to up until now, the controversial programs about intelligence have been known. we have electronic surveillance, detention of terror suspects, interrogation -- there has not really been another skeleton to fall out of the closet until now. we do not know what this program is. it is apparently something new that is not related to the previous programs. all those other programs -- they knew about them, either limited numbers or in some fashion.

i do not see how he can go forward easily, saying that there should be no investigation into how it came to pass and the vice-president ordered a program be kept secret from the intelligence committee, when it appears that it fell within the domain of programs that should have been briefed. host: our next caller from los angeles on our republican i. caller: you can see have dick cheney has been involved with neo conservatives. of course these neocons have not only had torture views from there is really friends -- seymour hersh has written articles about this. guest: i think that what the caller is getting at is there is this tremendous anxiety that is still hanging over from the bush administration over what role, precisely, did the vice

president play in the conduct of intelligence and national security? historically, it is quite extraordinarily for the end of vice-president to be involved in those decisions. there is still a lingering question about what precisely was the role of the vice president. that is something that people are not really going to give up. politically, it is expedient for democrats to pursue it. from a historic perspective, it is fascinating in that people still want answers to that. for someone who writes about intelligence, i am fascinated by the role that he played and how extraordinary that really was. i think what the caller is getting at is that there are still all of these unanswered questions. host: if you want to read the works of art as, you can log

onto our website. a link available for c-span. caller: i'm calling about whether dick cheney -- did it have anything to do with nancy pelosi, what they were hiding from the senate and everything? another question, what ever happened to obama being half white? guest: to the first part of your question and to remind viewers of what you were talking about, speaker policy said in a press conference that she had not been told by the cia that they were using waterboarding as an interrogation technique. she said that the cia at lies to

congress all the time. this sparked quite a controversy over the past few weeks. it appears that the issue about dick cheney is not connected to the interrogation program that she was speaking about these two events are connected in the following way. when nancy pelosi said that the cia lies to congress all the time, the republicans countered by saying, about what? prove it. now the cia director comes forward and provides more evidence that the cia apparently was lying, or it does not telling the full truth about various intelligence programs. this essentially is an arrow in the quiver of the democrats in this ongoing partisan feud that began with interrogation and has spread through the program of undetermined origin and purpose. host: doesn't this put into policy in a bad position for refusing to allow a vote on impeachment investigations?

she too was responsible. crystal is on the phone for our independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i wanted to ask, do you really think that the cia is always trustworthy? guest: the cia has not always been truck -- has not always been trustworthy. certainly, i think it is probably the norm that the agency discloses his actions to congress. it is in fact the case that the agency has kept secrets very very programs. i do not think it comes as a surprise to anybody who is familiar with the relationship

that the agency has with congress, which is really marked by a lot of gamesmanship. it is the job of congress to try to find out what the agencies are doing. it is the job of the agencies to not tell them too much and to try to keep their operations as independent as they can. i'm not saying that the cia is a rogue outfit. there have been instances where it has displayed that kind of behavior, but to say if there is -- to say that there is full oversight is not currie -- is not the case. oversight today is marked more by partisanship than real investigation. host: we talked about former vice president dick cheney who also served in the ford administration. it was his feeling that pendulum needed to swing back, giving the executive branch more authority. you have lee hamilton saying that the pendulum needs to go

back to congress. guest: this is a constant tension when it comes to oversight. the intelligence committees that we have now in the senate and house are relatively recent creations. they were set up in the mid- 1970s in response to undeniable abuses of authority by the intelligence committee says. what has been set up is a constant tension between the executive that has the prerogative to conduct foreign affairs and national security operations and a body of lawmakers that has been given the legal authority to check those processes. not to try to brock -- not to try to block them, but congress does not give permission to the executive branch to conduct its affairs, provides that real check in the system of government. it is the nature of the system of checks and balances to create tension like this. i think what you saee, that is part of the system.

we're at a point now where it is not precisely clear where the pendulum is going. it has clearly been on the side of the executive. it is not at all clear to me that president obama is siding with those in his party in congress who would like to bring more control back to congress. he has already said that he plans to veto any bill that would include a provision currently being debated that would expand the number of members who get briefed on covert operations. it is not surprising he would want to limit the number of people who were briefed on those operations. it is surprising in the sense that he is not siding with his party. host: good morning. caller: when it comes to nancy pelosi and the vice-president, my point of view is that the democrats are using the vice president cheney as a means to cover-up when nancy pelosi said. the second part of my question is, attorney-general eric holder wants to come out with an

investigation. what is the statute of limitations? it has been seven years. what is the statute of limitations on that? guest: it is a good question. i'm not sure what the statute of limitations would be. the attorney general said that he would open an investigation into any officials or contractors that might be involved in practicing interrogation techniques beyond what was authorized by the justice department at that time. he has said that they are not point to prosecute anybody who was operating under the written assurances from the justice department of what fell within the balance for and telling -- for interrogation. to what degree of the issue of the potential cover-up of the intelligence program give a political cover opportunity for the democrats -- i think that is

right. this latest data point in the narrative is part of this ongoing partisan war between republicans and democrats on the intelligence committee. it gives the democrats a terrific opportunity to come back and say, we were lied to by the bush administration. i do not think what you're going to see is what arguably, you would want to see, which would be that the republicans and democrats would get together and say, it appears that the vice president of the united states may have kept information from us. why don't we put our heads together and figure out what happens? you are seeing more of the same partisan bickering. host: if you are joining us on c-span radio, for shane harris is joining us. our next call is dave from detroit. good morning. caller: good morning.

[unintelligible] host: i think the essence might have been the tensions between his agency and the executive branch, if i can decipher between the drop out in his cell phone call. guest: there is obviously tensions within the executive branch itself. presidents tend to use the intelligence community in a way as a tool. it is their intelligence service. that is not always been the case. host: there has also been a well-known rivalry between jane harman and nancy pelosi. guest: they famously do not get along. jane harman wanted the position

on the house intelligence committee. it is true that there are term limits on those german shares. within the party itself, these issues tend to become a distraction from oversight. it has been the case where feuding between republicans and democrats over the past 10 years, specifically, has kept them from the real business of oversight. i think conflicts within the party itself, especially among powerful members of the party, only exacerbate that. host: dianne feinstein talked about this on fox news sunday. >> i think this is a problem, obviously. a lot is very clear i understand the need of the day, which was when america was in shock, when we had been in a

head in a way we had never contemplated, where we had massive loss of life. there was a major effort to be able to respond. i think you weaken your case when you go outside of a lot. i think that if the intelligence committees had been briefed, they could have watched the programs, they could have passed for regular reports on the program. they could have made judgments about the program. that was not the case because we were kept in the dark. that is something that should never happen again. host: this is from the front page of "the wall street journal." this has renewed the fight between the agency and congressional democrats. guest: i think that is right. i think she said it correctly. it weakens the case for the cia when they operate outside of the

law. i do not think that is a controversial statement. any time the agency chooses to go forward with an operation and not inform congress, often times it comes back to bite them. i think that will be the case here. it was not unexpected that leon panetta went immediately to the house committee when he found out about this. it has been reported, he shut it down. when the agency continues to keep things seekers, they do not stay secret for very long. host: let me bring it back to what you wrote this past saturday and montego that was, members of congress trying to lecture the cia intelligence community about what they need to do. this pattern continues. guest: for a long time, the intelligence community's saw themselves as a panel of political weis elders.

for a while, that worked. essentially, they saw themselves as the council of wise men and women. they felt that they had a legitimate role in helping to shape the policy and the conduct of intelligence. not so much to design what the outcomes were going to be, but to make sure that dicke imported to american laws and american values, broadly speaking. the committees were created in the 1970's and response to review -- in response to abuses. the committees were set up to ensure that something like that that violated constitutional values did not happen again. the members took that charge

very seriously for a while and saw that as a special responsibility. over time, that sense has diminished and been replaced more by a feeling that their position on those committees is to fulfill a political function or a partisan function, like it is in other committees. for a long time, intelligence has been something special. it has become less so over time. host: denise on the phone from florida. good morning to you. caller: my question has to do with possible republican control over the cia. nixon used cia for watergate. we know that george bush sr. was a former cia agent. many republicans criticized president clinton for not doing enough to fight al qaeda.

the 911 commission report documented that when clinton wanted to bomb more tourist sites, the cia director told that it was not doable when it came to attack -- to attacking iraq, george tenanet gave the green light for that. is the cia under republican control? guest: i do not think so. there have been questions about tilting to one side or the other. i think the more appropriately to look at it is that the cia is an institution. it is a washington institution that has gone to great lengths to preserve itself and defend its interests. that is not unusual in a bureaucracy. sometimes, it seems like the optics are more geared towards

politics. the cia works for the president and the cia director reports directly to the president. . caller: first of all, cheney never thought he was in the executive branch, so anything he does this not surprise me. as far as i'm concerned, i have bad feelings for the cia. thanks to cia, cocaine alive in our neighborhoods at cheap prices and started a downfall.

what kind of controls on the cia? who really has the authority to stop the cia when they decide they want to do something that is not authorized? host: thank you. guest: the answer to that -- outside the president, the people who have the authority of the intelligence committees. no one else other than the intelligence committees, excepting the president and members of the branch, have access to cia programs, operations, policies, community policies, and it really is their job to start to be that buffer. to what you are speaking to in terms of -- the popular anxiety about the cia and the role it played over the years and all time -- types of domestic and international operations both real and imagined, get to the anxiety of who is in charge of the agency. again, it comes down to responsibility of the oversight committee sent out in the mid- 1970s when they were created.

they have the tools to do that oversight. historically they have not done a robust job. host: we began talking about the 12 different commissions over the next 10 years -- last 10 years. will there be a 13th? guest: momentum is building now about the recent revelation about the still undisclosed program, building toward some sort of investigation of bush. intelligent -- intelligence policies and practices. whatever the mandate the commission starts with, it will broaden and did much better. i would also look for any future confirmation hearings of intelligence commission -- officials as another opportunity for congress to essentially be examined the past and years of history. i don't think it is going away. chances are there will be some condition and whatever the mandate, you could be assured that will go beyond this. " scott thank you for being with us. president obama is in washington after his trip to

russia, g eight, and a visit to ghansa. and among the items happening in the senate will be the health committee, the markup of its health-care bill. and the senate also taking up defense authorization bill, which is designed to live what the pentagon will spend its tax dollars on. that is the subject of our conversation with winslow wheeler as " washington journal" continues. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this morning at 11:00 a.m. eastern time, tennessee senator lamar alexander, chairman of the senate republican conference, will talk about his plan to construct 100 new nuclear power plants in the next 20 years as

an alternative to cap-and-trade, while addressing energy needs and climate change. he is speaking at the national press club and we will have that live on c-span3. >> live coverage of the confirmation hearing for supreme court justice nominee sonia sotomayor continues this week on c-span3, c-span radio and on the web at c-span.org. we will replay weeknights on c- span2. coming this fall, tour the home of america's highest court, the supreme court, on c-span. >> how is c-span funded? >> taxpayer dollars. >> private donations? >> public support. >> consumer funded, i guess? >> in view were funded at? >> private contributions? >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a

public service, a private business initiative. no government mandate, no government money. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome winslow wheeler, project director for the center for defense and the mission and author of this book. guest: @ thank you taryn much. host: at the defense authorization bill, how much the pentagon will be spending and where. guest: it is a huge bill. reports to be $679 billion, about $1 billion off the president's request. in truth, this is not the money bill. the appropriations bill will be the money bill. this authorizes the money, but all it means is advice. the big stuff in this bill is policy, determinations, decision by a narrow vote in the committee to continue with more of 22 production. buried in the bill is almost

hopelessly cosmetic revision on financial management. the bill itself is 750 pages. it is about 1 inch in half to 2 inches thick. >> the taxpayers for common sense estimating $9 billion and what they classified as pork, but what one may call pork, they may call jobs in a congressional district. >> that is one of the reasons why they put pork in the bill, because they think it creates jobs. when i -- when i worked with the senator from new mexico we looked at gio looking at how many jobs pork spending generated for new mexico. the answer was pretty interesting. the numbers were tiny, except for the military bases, and in one case the money passed through the headquarters in albuquerque to be spent in texas. in other cases, the production lines employed hundreds -- we

were told employ hundreds, it employed more like 20 people. you have to be careful what these claims that many factors through around that f-22 was built in those states so you have to support us, senator. host: you say our military forces have become high cost dinosaurs that were inefficient, lethal against magic it has broken free of their constitutional controls to the point they essentially have become a presidential military. guest: correct. that is, i believe, from the first chapter, written by a retired marine corps lieutenant colonel. the authors and that authority are retired military officers, former pentagon officials and a couple of people like myself who worked on capitol hill, for example. i will put it this way, since world war ii, we are at a post- world war ii high in terms of

spending with a dollars and adjusted for inflation. our military forces are the smallest they have ever been in that period in terms of combat brigades, a navy combat ships and submarines, air force tactical aircraft. major parts of our equipment inventory is on average older than has ever been in that period, sometimes than it has ever been in history. we're sending troops into combat in iraq and afghanistan with, in some cases, significantly less training than we had, for example, the hollow years of the 1970's when abutting be up when jimmy carter for its allegedly being weak on defense. we have a real problem on our hands. and so far we're doing absolutely nothing about it. host: one of your recommendations from different military officers, former officers, is first and foremost, we must abandon a business as

usual procurement process hopefully centered on an aircraft's specifically comprised force strategic martin -- bombardment. caller: away from business as usual? guest: except for us being compromised for strategic bombardment, the f-22 is a classic example. the sticker price is $350 million per airplane. host: built where? guest: lockheed martin says 44 states, the major assembly is in georgia and texas and washington. the engines are ohio -- excuse me, conn. -- conn. there are bits and pieces all over the place. we really need a competent assessment from g a l, for example, to get a real count -- gao.

host: what surprised you, researching and editing? guest: nothing's changed. we have been on this path for a long time. more money results in smaller, older, less ready forces. this is something that is independent of democrats and republicans. i suppose the thing that really surprised me the most is the failure of parties that could be doing oversight over this and alerting the public, not been particularly aware. i mean, it has been a simple data on the sides of the budget and the size of the forces, but it was news to people about the shrinkage of forces as ever increasing cost a couple of years ago. that shouldn't be the case. people should be complaining about that on capitol hill all

the time, and they are not. host: our conversation is with winslow wheeler. our phone lines are open. you also e-mail us at journal@c- span.org or send a tweet @ twitter. as you know, there are a lot of former military officers at this town -- in this town and former members of congress that are making sure these contracts are part of the congressional budget process. guest: absolutely. busy people. host cut is that why nothing has changed? guest: that is part when i worked in capitol hill, the boeing representative was frequently in my office keeping it up to date on things. they have good access all over capitol hill. but that is not a hub of it. the hub is there is a culture on capitol hill these days where you don't want to do any serious oversight because that might get you into trouble. it might get into trouble if you

give the military witness in the hearing diehard time, people will start the labeling you as anti-defense. if you don't of c. grimsley -- obsequiously -- no press release of how much you help that minor plant in maine, you don't put out a press release every time you voted their way, you are somehow hurting yourself politically. i worked for four different members of congress. on three of them, they decided to oppose pork in their states and they came to their political benefit. they got a reputation for being bought full, independent, rather than somebody toting. host: james here in washington, d.c. good morning. caller: i am calling to first of

all ask -- for you to comment on the quote read earlier about congressional control of war powers. i think george washington said that the reason why congress has control over war powers is that it will prevent any war from the wage without long deliberation. to paraphrase. the other thing is that if you could talk more about business setting defense policy. in brigadier-general wrote a book called "where it is a racket," that talks about sending saddles to europe in world war ii 1 -- i, and there was not enough calvary. another one was whether or not you think that this funding of foreign militaries represents a hidden expenditure in the defense budget.

host: i will stop your. a lot to follow-up on. guest: i think the war powers issue was with the previous guest, but i would simply say, i worked for one of the primary authors of the war powers act and was a research assistant, and i got exposed to a lot of the constitutional arguments on the act and it is pretty clear in the constitution who controls the authority to make war, and it is the congress, not the president. the chief executive, commander in chief powers come into play when congress has made that decision. that is not the conventional wisdom -- people try to save the war powers act is unconstitutional because it deprives the presence and in the constitution did not give him. on some of the other issues, i have done a lot of work on the

junk congress adds to defense bills. host: junk? guest: it is junk, because we don't know what it is. there is 450 or so it earmarks as taxpayers for common sense found in this senate defense bill, cost about $9 billion. the vast majority of those things are five, -- are items that have not been research. we did not even know the real cost. we get the advocates of you. we do not have a real assessment. we don't have an independent assessment of what the assessment is, what can do, can become and what is needed. i don't want some congressman's

view on what he thinks is earmarked will do. i want oversight over it. and the armed services committees and appropriations committees refused to do it. if we went through a process where each of these earmarked were properly assessed, there would be a lot of improvement in the bills because it is ridiculous to assume that everything they defense department puts in its budget is the final word on good ideas. >> one example you pointed to, when president bush released what was probably his final defense budget, he points out it was $518 billion, and the defense department said it was $515 billion. a difference of almost $3 billion in a budget released the same day. guest: it depends. the department of defense press release had been no " -- lower number.

office of management and budget press release have a higher number. the difference is, in that case, for example, includes both annual appropriations and what you call mandatory or entitlement appropriations. $3 billion extra mostly for personnel kinds of programs, mandatory spending, the defense department doesn't include that in their press release. this year it is about $6 billion. it is just one of the ways that the press in this country gets the department of defense press release and goes with it. they don't double check to see what they're real numbers might be. it is real simple to download the ball and be materials -- they are little more complex -- download the omb materials.

it is a little more complex. it is not just the absence of oversight and capitol hill, they don't know how to do oversight these days. host: san antonio, republican line. good morning. caller: how are you guys today? i was wondering -- i come from a military family, three generations. what i was wondering is, why do the governments send -- like, for the national guard, reserves, send them to the camp here in san antonio instead of sending these young and -- young men and women to the border to help with the fight against illegal drugs and, of course, illegal immigration. guest: i can't answer the question. i don't know the specifics. it depends on what the unit's mission is. one of the kinds of problems we have on capitol though.

they go over these things once lightly and don't peel the onion. when i worked for the senator, i got a hard lesson from him. he, after a hearing, lectured me saying, don't you ever have meet again is a question that you don't know the answer to -- have me again have a question that you don't know the answer to. oversight is not an opportunity to give speeches and ask questions staff right out and you read out from your memo. oversight is a process that is the essential to our constitutional system where congress find out what the heck is going on and what is wrong with the f 35 engine that marines model hasn't flown for a long time and what is holding up the test. we don't hear anything about

that. there is a hearing at the house oversight government and reform committee where they were doing some oversight, and one of the outcomes about a month ago was that there seems to be for the missing aircraft from the marine corps v-22 osprey inventory. look at the senate armed services committee bill, not a word. nothing. it bounced off them like water off of a duck's back. these are serious issues. and it should be oversight 101 to find out where is the complete marine corps inventory on the 140 or so v-22's taxpayers paid for. host: our guest is a veteran of capitol hill and he has worked for senator pete the minute she, republican of new mexico, democratic senator david pryor of arkansas and republican

senator nancy kassebaum from kansas. richard is on the phone from lancaster county, pennsylvania. good morning. democrats line. caller: good morning, winslow. you hit a lot of nails on the head already, and i hope somebody is taking it down like senator byrd of west virginia. i would like to make this brief comment, please, on the work -- he is done over the decades along with yourself. guest: i would polite and say i would like to answer a different question. talking about senator byrd, when donald rumsfeld have his hearings to be secretary of defense back in january 2001, senator byrd horrified him with the fact that the defense

department was unable to track how it spends its own money. it wasn't just that the pentagon would flunk an audit, it was that the pentagon can't be audited. you flunk an audit when you track the money and find it has been misspent. when you can't be audited, you don't know what happened to the money did rumsfeld was horrified. the rally chileans of dollars of transactions -- literally trillions of dollars of transactions cannot be tracked. clinton had the same problem, they didn't solve it, either. we have a new bill in this senate armed services committee national force -- authorization act point, and it's prophetic. -- act, and it is pathetic. it sets a goal of year 2017 to have the defense department be able to comply with an audit.

this is required to be immediately the case in the chief financial officers act of 1990. the clinton administration got that waived. the provision in the bill this week is sold -- is so packed that that has a second provision that says the defense department, if you don't think you can get to this goal, waived it, send us a report and tell us what you think the goal should be. host: our guest, winslow wheeler, offers this book. this tweet -- what about the super hornet for the navy carriers? guest: of there are two big chunks of pork in this bill, seven additional at 22's for $1.7 billion and nine additional f 18's, they say will cause $506

billion. on the f-22, secretary of defense dick says it there is a single in the bill he would recommend a veto and obama should veto it. he is dead right about that. f-22 is a classic case of why the air force is smaller, older, unless ready to fight an ever increasing cost. it will be interesting to see in it senator levin and mccain, if they said -- as they said they would, should fight this. they should be able to fight it. but the outcome is very unclear to me. you saw on the vote in the committee, 13-11 voc, including four democrats, for example -- senator kennedy, which has a prk interest in the f-22, but

with it. demonstrates that the ties of pork are far stronger even than partisan political ties. so, if gates and obama want to win on this fight, they need to get to work. tax be chambliss, senator from georgia where is the -- where the f-22 has final production, solicited statements from airforce and national guard generals saying that we need more f-22's. secretary gates really hasn't responded to that. it is doing tremendous damage on capitol hill. losing votes probably by the day. we are going to see how would spends out. host: another tweet, what about our corporate contractors and their accountability? what do you think about corporations now having their own army, navy, etcetera? guest: the law has been written about this. there are several books about

this -- a lot has been written about this. we have enlarged from a huge contractor presence in iraq and afghanistan, both for logistic'' and security. it is the new way that our executive brands -- branch and congress decided to conduct military operations abroad. if you are concerned about it, that is just the kind of thing that people should be doing oversight on at capitol hill, but not much of going on. host: mark the joins us from richmond, texas. caller: mr. r wheeler, thank you so much. good morning. host: good morning, martha. sorry. audit, i am very concerned that there is no deliberation in the process -- caller: i am very concerned that there is no deliberation in the process. when you see them spend close to

$1 trillion and a deliberate for less than eight hours on it, it is just scary. and the things you are saying i believe and i applaud you for coming forward and talking about this and, the dead sea. guest: of the senate after the morning prayer will take up this bill. 750 pages -- it is a big bill. they will be considering this bill for most of this week, maybe even a couple of weeks. but turn onto c-span2 at random points on the day and almost guarantee what you will be seen is one of two things. members of the senate reading

off staff-prepared statement about the bill. that will be the lesser amount of time. the greater amount of time will be warm calls. in other words, wordsqu -- quroum calls. they are killing time and literally nothing is going on. you will see a tv picture of the well of the senate. you will see pete -- people milling around. there will be no debate. even when they are talking, there will be no debate. when i started working at the senate in the 1970's, it was pretty much describes will for a senator to come to the chamber and deliver a prepared speech. the impression they were making on colleagues as i really don't know what i'm talking about, so i will have my staff write it out and i will read it to you. there's very few statements you

see in the senate these days where you see it -- probing mind ad hoc discuss the issue. you see a lot of prepared stuff. host: we appreciate in advance the play-by-play of what will happen on c-span2 as the senate takes up the bill. ronald is on the phone from supple, virginia. democrats line. caller: of this is a very interesting topic you decided to cover this morning. as a 20-year veteran of the navy, over the course of my career, i saw a lot of incidences of what you would call exorbitant spending when it comes to military spending. host: do you want to give one example based on your own

personal experience? caller: well, just in the supply system -- because i dealt with it -- a lot of items that the military procuress, the prices are marked up, compared to, say, what you can get in a civilian facility. host: thanks for the call. guest: true then, true now. there was a classic hearing in the 1980's when they have the $496 hammer and a very, almost -- host: was of the toilet seat part of that, too? guest: heflin, you look like a caricature of a senator, and he talked about the accounting for the cost of the hammer. and they went through inspection

and oversight and all of this stuff. then, down below, in the navy printout was about $2 -- that was the hammer. and he pointed out, there is the hammer. he went through all of the insanity that ran up that cost. now, take that hammer, and it is -- it's insane cost to the taxpayer. as a ernie fitzgerald, a whistle-blower for decades and air force used to say, imagines a spare parts flying in close formation in the air, and you have a modern fighter aircraft. and when you care so little about the cost from all of a sudden you get an airplane like the f-22 with the sticker price is $350 million, and there are lots of ways to compress the air

-- the airplane, but that is completely outrageous price to play for one fighter aircraft. host: a couple of e-mails -- mr. wheeler, what is the effect of think tanks and forming -- on forming military policy? guest: a little bit of self- promotion, the center for defense information where i work refuses to accept money from the government or defense manufacturers. we get money from individuals and foundations. i never had a phone call from the center for defense information's saying you shouldn't have said that. it should be public information, where these think tanks get all their money. some are notorious for accepting contributions, funding from either the government were defense manufacturers -- or defense manufacturers. it would be useful to have that

information in the public. host: winslow wheeler from the center for defense information, and the web addresses cdi.org. come back again. coming up at the top of the hour, here on c-span, we should point out that the house is a sessions of coverage will move to it -- may move to c-span3 the the course of the day, but coverage of the hearings of sonia sotomayor. this is inside room 216 at the heart office building as family and friends begin to gather for the proceedings to get underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. today will be sent to be opening statements from the chair of the committee, senator patrick leahy from vermont, ranking republican is jeff sessions from alabama and all of the committee members, followed by judge sotomayor, who will the liver opening remarks. tomorrow will begin the first round of questioning, 30 minutes for each senator, followed by another round, 20 minutes for

each senator. we will watch of the room. named after former senator hart from michigan. this is the newest of the three senate office buildings on capitol hill on the senate side of the capital. reminder, live coverage also on c-span radio and streamed all day on c-span.org with prime- time coverage in the evening. we will watch the scene, including judge sotomayor's mother in the room and other family members for the proceedings getting underway at the top of the hour.

and all 20 members of the senate judiciary committee will make opening statements after judge sonia sotomayor is introduced by her home state senators, senators charles schumer and gillibrand. here is a mother on the screen waiting for the confirmation hearing to begin in 25 minutes. we want to hear from you. 13 members of the senate judiciary committee are democrats and seven are republicans.

the hearings will conclude with judge sotomayor's opening statement. no questioning today. it should conclude about 1:30 p.m. to 2:00. we should be able to watch a lot of the hearing live today on c- span. but, if the house comes in and the hearing is still going on, you can go to c-span.org. if you go right to the top of the page, there is a box containing judge sotomayor's picture. just to the right of that, it says confirmation hearing on c- span. there is a little camera icon. if you click on that. you will be in the control room and you will be able to follow the proceedings on camera, but you will also be able to pick which shot you would like to watch. you could look to the right and you can watch the head on shot of the judges -- judge,

committee members, and you can pick which shot you want to watch. and right there at front and center of the page you can pick any shot you one. we want to hear from you. donna in atlanta, republican. what kind of questions would you like to see asked today askeddon? caller: why did she vote against the decision -- let me get this straight. she ruled against the firefighters, and i am trying to figure out why it she would have done that other than she had a president -- prejudice against non-hispanics. host: as of thursday, a lot of witnesses will be testifying at the hearing, and there are about 30 witnesses and the republicans have 14 of those slots. and one of the people testifying

is one of the white firefighters, i think frank ricci himself, who will be testifying against her. kansas city, kansas. patrick, a democrat. good morning. caller: i just wanted to make a brief statement. i read sotomayor's entire speech when she made that statement about her being a wise and intelligent female making a decision. if you read the entire speech that she gave, most people would come to the conclusion that it was a joke that was geared toward one of her colleagues. that is what i wanted to say. host: olney, maryland. caller: i am a latino, immigrant. i am proud we are going to have the first hispanic on the supreme court. this is a big step for this country as a whole. i hope the republicans really

think about what they are going to do in this hearing, because if they tried to put this woman down in any meaningful way, we hispanics " would respond in the next election. so they have to be very careful. this idea of someone's background not making a difference in the decision making process -- i don't know what they are thinking. that is all i have to say. host: our next call comes from jim in boston on the democrats' line. go ahead. caller: i would ask her, as a member of la raza, a group called the race, where she supported, as a member, and the united states sovereignty and taking over the united states from latin america, which sees support as what a push toward globalization, a push toward a global currency system, which i do not support, which would end all freedom, and pushed toward a population reduction as well?

does she support population reduction, eugenics, killing off all elderly people want to reach a certain age? bush -- host: what does she support those things? of a cut because la raza, their agenda is disintegration of borders, a push toward globalization, toward the north american union which is a union of the american continent, similar to the european union where they will combine -- american income asian union, and european union into one global government system where they will have a new global currency which most president and most leaders and most countries now are supporting, a new global currency system which is really fascism. socialism, fascism, nazism, and that is the agenda of these

political people who are being put into power. host: thank you. gop looks for at least 20 no votes. an article in "the wall street journal." many republicans say they viewed 23 no votes as a benchmark, because that would be one more than chief justice john roberts received in 2005 and would reflect a significant protest vote. the judiciary committee begins hearings today, of course. all seven republicans on the 20- member judiciary committee are men and some in the party are wary of appearing to gang of on judge sotomayor, if, who confirmed, would be the third female justice and the court's history. dean in san antonio. independent. caller: i was curious why we are going through this process. it seems to be predetermined, although most of the people that i understand -- as i understand it, most of the people don't want this lady seated. but when does the government

listen to the people? thank you. host: bryn mawr, pa., john on the republican line. caller: i am wondering why is it the people are criticizing judge sotomayor for being activist in his new haven firefighter case went to my in fact, she was following the established precedent of the supreme court in deciding the way she did and it was the supreme court that overruled not only judge sotomayor but itself in a recent appeal of the new haven fire carter's case. -- firefighters case. that misinformation is why so many are against him -- her. this is not a subject of the whim of how a few people feel on any particular day. basically the same people -- 70% thought al qaeda was assisted by iraq in september 11. thank you. host: i want to tell you again, if you go to c-span.org, you can

be your own director. go right to the c-span control room. you will see judge sonia sotomayor's picture, and there is a little camera icon and you can click on that and you can go right into the control room and be able to see exactly which shops -- shots c-span is taking. you can watch whichever ones you would like. you can go right on the head on shot, you can look of the committee members, and you can click on the right to would ever shot you would watch. the hearing is due to begin in 15 minutes. the house is coming in at 12:30 p.m., so we will get about two and a half hours on c-span before we switch it to c-span3 and on line, as always. westchester county, new york. john, democrat. caller: good morning.

i am going to echo the last caller, i happen to agree that judge sotomayor was withholding -- of holding the legal aspect of affirmative action in a dispassionate manner and it seems like the court was acting passionately and not upholding the legal aspect of affirmative action. she just acted this passionate. so i think this is not a good issue to bring up the unless they want to say the supreme court should make law. host: although "the washington times" editorialized against judge sotomayor, calling her a radical judge. this is the front page of "the washington times" this morning. sotomayor faces easy route to confirmation. cheryl in illinois on the independent line. what would you like to hear asked today? caller: i am not sure i would like anything in particular asked. in reference to the fire fighters, we are close to st.

louis and we have a situation around 3 or four years ago with the testing was thrown out for the police department because no minority past. so i'm actually glad when to the supreme court, and other body else should be, because now it is something that every state has a precedence for to stop reverse discrimination. i really fail to understand how anybody could see a downside to ruling. host: california. edwina, democrat. caller: i think it is one more step in the wrong direction. i don't believe she should be voted in. i think it is a sham. with 12 against seven. and i'm a democrat, but i am a moderate democrat and i am against this vote. host: the witnesses include one of the white firefighters who will be on the minority side. mayor bloomberg will testify in

new york for the majority. the next call comes from richard, a republican, middletown, new york. caller: good morning. this whole thing would sotomayor. i know she was on the board of directors of la raza, for the -- >> model, for those inside the race, everything, for those outside the race, nothing. and there is a lot of information what these new order -- with the plans for america. like the first caller was talking about, combining begin and it states with the north american union. this is treasonous. the sovereignty of the united states. david rockefeller -- wrote in his book, that some might say i want to create a one world religions social -- host: richard. tie that into the supreme court. how does she fit into that?

caller: she is on their border directors of la raza, and a book about the deadly obsession with guns, and david rockefeller said the american people would need a major crisis like this suppose flu created in a laboratory by merck. you have to look at a lot of information -- alex jones document -- documents a lot of stuff with their own words, like rockefellers and those that say i'm trying to make a one world government -- host: indiana, independent- minded judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin in about 10 minutes. are you with us? caller: i would like to bell on her feelings about a woman's right to choose -- delve in on her feelings. i know she is catholic and latin america and i just would like to

find out her views. i would hate to change -- see it changed to back 40 years ago when i was a kid. host: west virginia. michael, democrat. caller: i want to remind republican viewers when president bush was in office, they got their nominee and is now time for the democrats to get theirs. it is part of the consequences. if republicans want their nominees, they have to win the presidential election. otherwise, too bad. host: former chairman peak of the senate judiciary committee, arlen specter, will be on the podium but sitting on the democrats' side now. he will be second to last when it comes to seniority. host: elk grove, eleanor. caller: i would ask concerning her statement about a latino woman being able to make better

decisions than that of a white male. i know the democrats have defended that, saying she really meant diversity. but if that was the case, why did her statement conclude she would make a better decision than a white male, black male, and white woman, since there is a black man and a white woman on the supreme court. is it only fashionable to discriminate against white males and not against other minorities? host: in "the new york times" on the op ed page, questions for sotomayor, where several officials said many questions that they would like to see asked today at a hearing, or this week. this is from former attorney general robert gonzales -- given your public remarks about the importance of judges showing compassion, do you believe there is a difference between doing justice and applying the law? thomas in north carolina, independent. caller: how are you doing? i wanted to call.

as an independent, i am really excited to have judge sotomayor on the supreme court. i think she is the exact right kind of justice we need. we need diversity on the court. these people who have been calling in about la raza don't have an idea what they are talking about. host: diane, a democrat. caller: good morning. on judge sotomayor, i spoke on television or radio about 30 days ago and i said before the supreme court ruling that the ruling should be overturned and reversed for new haven connecticut firefighters, that my statement today is that she was appointed by bush i and appointed by president clinton. this woman, who worked in the

district attorney's office in new york, i saw the interview on c-span with the head of district attorney who interviewed her before she was ever appointed as district attorney and he said that she has the greatest charismatic way about her to have insight into witnesses and victims. she is somebody who has come all the way from her bottom -- from the bottom. her family was poor, she were to wake up. she is entitled to her place and i know she will be confirmed. and i ask for a blessing for her today. host: again, opening statements. she will be introduced by senator charles schumer and gil librand from each member will make an opening statement and then judge sotomayor will make a statement. tomorrow, the questioning began. each senator get 30 minutes for questioning and then on wednesday, more questioning from the senators and then the

witnesses are also. they've come republican in atlanta. what would you like to see asked today -- they in, from atlanta -- dave, from atlanta. caller: i am a moderate republican. i think republicans have to be really careful. we don't have the votes to block sotomayor without any meaningful opposition. we have to be careful because if we appear to be mean or unfair and are questioning, we might lose the hispanic latino communities for a long, long time as a group. that is my comments. host: in "the wall street journal" today is a very interesting chart showing how the committee and the senate have voted on nominees sent to john paul stevens in 1975. you can go down the list and see all the nominees and whether they are withdrawn. the only one who lost was judge

robert bork and the closest vote was clarence thomas in the 1991. the most recent vote was just as i leto, the vote was 58-42 -- justice samuel alito, the vote was 58-42. orrin hatch is in the room. former ranking member of the committee. san antonio, catherine, independent. caller: good morning. i came here 30 years ago and i'm also -- i am from columbia. but i think that above being spanish, i have learned to be an american. i would be very proud to have a spanish person on the supreme court, but i want to make sure that it is the right person who is going to uphold the constitution and will be a bullet marks on our american culture we spanish half to stopping spanish and become american and do what is better for our country. our freedom is based on our constitution and our constitution has to be upheld by anyone who goes up to that high ranking. host: desantis former chairs --

sorry, two republican members of the senate committee. grassley is one of the few, if one of the only non-lawyers who sits on the judiciary committee. paul, democrat. caller: i am calling regards to sotomayor's nomination. i don't think she should be nominated because she said the other day that the second amendment should be strictly for the federal government and not the state. i thought of the an annoyance to the constitution and the constitution is for the entire u.s. is the i thought all of the amendments to the constitution and the constitution itself is for the united states. she is anti-gun and anti second and then it and i think to do everything she could to take guns away from the good, law- abiding americans. all i have to say. host: in just a minute we will

stop and watch over room. first, lost vegas, republican. you are on -- las vegas. guest: conservative, a regional constructionist, believer in the constitution as it should be interpreted, i have great presentations when she openly said that, nudge, nudge, we don't legislate from the bench and laughs about it is a complete betrayal of office that she holds. going above what legislatures send before them and a takeover. the judiciary has been out of control for far too long and think this woman would only add to that. host: sonia sotomayor is not in the hearing room with the chairman and ranking member, senator patrick leahy and sessions.

@

>> everybody a chance to get in place here. what we are going to do, we will have opening statements from members, and, of course, as we all know, the confirmation hearing for the nomination of judge sonia sotomayor to be a justice for the united states

supreme court. judge sotomayor, welcome to the senate judiciary committee. you have been before us twice before when president george h. w. bush nominated you as district judge and of course we nominated you -- and president clinton nominated you as a court of appeals judge. before we begin the opening statements of the senators, i know you have family member here. i did not know if your microphone is on are not, but would you please introduce the members of your family? >> if i introduce everybody who is family-like, we would be here all morning. >> you know what i am going to do. because some days this will be in the archives, this transcript. introduce whomever you would like, then we will hold the transcript open for you to add any other names that you want. [laughter] >>