that impacted immigration. immigration is routinely, constitutionally a matter for the federal government. you have to stop and think that if it is federal government, it would say that the states could do something. you need to be really clear about that. clearly, you could tell from your question that it was not that clear. i would say one thing about ground forces richards -- about gramm verses richards. it was construed to permit state legislature to adopt laws. that is the whole essence of the whole immigration peace. we do not want new york to decide its own immigration and

have arizona decide its own immigration. the minute a state does something regarding immigration, its sense of red flags. you do not get to the equal protection argument -- its sense of red flags. -- it sends off red flags. i think that we still have an issue, even if it is delegated. there is a lot of case law on that. i would affirm on that basis. >> i will make it unanimous. also, in the brevity of the holding, i do want to add special thanks to everyone and everyone here there are just two additional things that i would want to say. i think that my colleagues have a very well reflected the

grounds for the affirmation that i would vote for. the first thing that i would want to add is that i am proud to say that we did this in the state of new york of we did hold this unconstitutional as a state statute which is under the personal responsibility and reconciliation act of 1996. we found that the state statute denied benefits for aliens unconstitutional. the state statute was directly in the teeth of gramm. then allow the states to adopt laws on the subject of citizenship requirements for federally supported welfare

programs. the other said that the statute must be a value-added. we hold that this violated the protection clause of the united states. do you applaud that decision? >> [applause] [laughter] you should know that we have a dual constitutional system. every state has a state constitution. the highest court of the state is the last word under the state constitution. they also field federal constitutional issues when they are brought to us. they can be viewed by the united states supreme court and maybe

we went wrong. but we did resolve the issue. i think it is consistent with what the court has held today. >> i believe that case involved legal permanent residents which is a slight variation karen >> it is not forswear in any way. -- which is a slight variation. >> is not a forswear any way. -- it is not a foursquare in any way. if you do not mind, i want to repeat the words of peter. i visited peter this morning and

i saw that this so encapsulated the problem. americans are unique in their vision of a dynamic, idea driven identity. the fact that it is demonstrated in national self criticism. what other nation has a constitution that lace up the machinery of government and takes on the quality of a sacred test. this brings with the quality of an accusation as if they were calling attention of the impossible. indeed, where else can the on- -- the "un" prefix be used?

that was the feeling that i had about the problem today. it is not america. it is an american. that is all that i have to say. thank you. [applause] >> i guess but we could take some questions if you like. >> man asked if either counsel wants to say something? >> -- may i ask either counsel wants to say something? >> good idea. do you want to chime in? >> i agree with the decision of the court. the thing that i found disturbing as an advocate was something that some of you alluded to which was the leaders of other issues that were there. -- the leaders of other issues that were there. -- of the layers -- of the

layers the late -- the layers of other issues that were there. i was also grappling with this area. i eat due to see the tension in the doctrine, which is the enormously -- i do see the tension in the doctrine. this applies to matters. the evolution has different strands going different ways did you do have this very strong

doctrine and did you have this concern for the politically marginal and disenfranchised alien. i really like your point about public health. it puts this on the back burner the immigrants are the people who are excluded from priority and they do benefit from a well administered system of vaccination because they are a fire wall against disease. if you trust that the government had a good system of doing it, not everybody would get it. it just does not make sense. i think it is irrational to say that the student that is coming in foreign authorized, legally sanctioned semester in the u.s. will i get the vaccine.

this lady was fleeing prosecution. >> to what extent will the opinion beyond the narrow ground? it is inappropriate to discuss why it is a difficult constitutional issue that has the kind of problems that all of us say it is on one side or another, so that we've really, as a court, opened the discussion -- so that we really, as a court, open the discussion. i would think that a good opinion in a case like this would use questions without

deciding. >> i am going to assign the opinion to you. >> can we hear from mr. starr? >> only to draw from the problem. may it please the court, too. it is wonderful for an audience that may not seek a court in action. -- seek a court in action. -- see a court in action. my general point is the backdrop of the problem. this was elegantly put together

by mr. pace. with the death toll rising, congress's public approval rating plummeted. mr. matter some -- mr. madison and others saw this deliberately body -- this deliberative body. state legislators and struck them on how to vote. -- state legislators instructed them on how to vote. congress needs to do its job. [applause] >> i think we could take a few minutes for some questions. >> i think that today's court,

the way that we see rationing of health care, let's say that if a human being needs health care, the middle class gets bought pounds. another way of seeing what rationing health care is is to see the needs of the poor people. we give them customized health care in the rich people have different needs and we give

them special health care for them. i think that today's case took rationing out. >> were you on leave journalists signed? >> no, on the people side. >> so are we. so are we. >> any other questions? >> are you a journalist? >> as the case unfolded, we've used this up a little. we have thousands of immigrants. is it plausible that we have a limited supply, so we really have an emergency of trying to

control the spread. first of all, what would congress' power be to pass a discriminatory law regarding citizens? at what point does congress delegate this? >> you get into the equal protection aspect and the beat -- and the different treatments. you look at the category. you look at the strict scrutiny when it is a protected class. alienage is a protected class. he won a protected class is there, government has to have a compelling state interest in order to differentiate or

discriminate. it might be that congress can do something and say that we need to this incentivize -- dis- incentivize them to come. in that situation, you might find that there is a compelling statement. i do not know if anyone wants to add to that. >> think about the situation where you have the two pregnant women in line and there is only one vaccine during ultimately, it comes down to that. -- one vaccine. ultimately, it comes down to that. the american program woman says

that she once that vaccine and there is only one of those left. does the court protection doctrine prevent arizona from saying that we want to use the citizenship of the second woman to get her that vaccine? i am reluctant to read equal protection that broadly. i think that if congress wrote a specific statute that said that it is a tiebreaker in that situation where you only have one vaccine, the state can decide to prefer the american citizen over the non citizen. >> why? >> the one thing that i can say with certainty is that we would have a divided court. >> can i address this question? >> yes. >> it seems to me that the supreme court has given

congress authority over matters like this. my guess is that the supreme court would uphold legislation that disadvantaged aliens. i do not know of the the other way to say it. >> there is a body of law that uses scarce resources and this may be analogous to that. there are only so many resources to go around and there is a preferential treatment of residents of a state where there is only so much to go around. at best -- this may fit into that category. >> there has to be a reason. there has to be a rationale as to why we would say that we prefer the citizen.

arizona did not say citizens of arizona, they said citizens of the united states. what rationale makes them want to say citizens of the united states have this in vs. aliens. in one case, there were talking about education. the supreme court said that they did not want to deny the aliens the right to education. we do not want to have this minority that is not educated and cannot move up in the economic food chain. that is counter-productive. it seems to me that the supreme court would want everybody to be healthy and they want all of these pregnant women to be saved. we do not want discourage on our system -- to discourage -- the scourge on our system. they should be the ones to get it before the health care worker.

i cannot come up with a rational reason to say that aliens in a public health issue like this should fare worse than normal citizens. >> this is a very tough issue. let me just begin by saying that i am not the most balanced person about it. i am a refugee. i am an immigrant. i was sworn in as a judge on the 55th anniversary of the day that i landed because i wanted to say that all the american gave to me maybe a patriot and a very deep sense. if america had not taken me in, there is a very substantial chance that i would have been killed.

of the attitude, at any given time, in a democracy, and then the representatives of the people is that this is a zero sum game and we really cannot open it up to others. the scarcity is there, and we must protect it. to look at from a 300 year point of view, is that it is becoming of immigrants and it is being treating of emigrants that has generation after generation brought forth leaders in this country. how do you deal with this conflict? how do you deal with it? can courts really step in and say what the people want at any given time cannot be done, even

though they tell you that there's a shortage that is what he was saying. on the other hand, simply to sit back and let the reactions in an emergency is also not want to do it. it is exactly in this kind of area that courts can exercise their second look doctrine, they're teaching doctrines, their dialogue doctrines, talking to representatives of the people and saying "is it really necessary in? do you really minutes?"-- do you really need it -- mean it?" but that is an excellent example.

>> to a question that was asked that i do not think all of hearing was the status of the the the this. is there a citizenship in potential or some other issue that may address the issue? if this woman were eight months pregnant, would that make a difference? >> i was particularly angry at a decision of two judges on my court that i admire. in a case that involved medical

rights and so on, where the argument was that the child that was about to be going would be a citizen, they were so determined because they were so strongly in favor of abortion rights that they ruled that there was no right at all which seemed to completely misunderstand what ever might be said in favor or against roe vs. wade. it really did not say that a fetus was not a person at all. it seemed to be a mistake. it focused on the fact that there is something that has rights. >> what we have a discussion of

roe vs. wade? -- why don't we have a discussion of roe vs. wade? [laughter] >> as you can see, this has been a tremendous amount of fun for all of us. we really enjoy ourselves. i think that the ultimate pronouncement is that peter jennings will have been very pleased. that is an extremely high standard. thank you all, so much. [laughter] [applause] >> you can see this program again or any other "america and the courts" program as c-

span.org. join us next week for "america and the courts" here on c-span. >> this is c-span, public affairs programming. up next, the head of the national and dormant -- the national endowment for the arts. and then, supreme court justice brieyer, and then the annual radio and tv correspondents dinner. >> now, the former head for the national endowment for the humanities discusses the importance of understanding culture and the arts.

this conversation is moderated by the former head of the national endowment for the arts. this lasts about one hour. >> good afternoon. welcome to the aspen institute. it is my pleasure to welcome you to one of our cultural round tables. i would like to thank michelle smith of the robert h. smith family foundation for helping to make this series possible. it is my pleasure to do another of what we think of as a particular aspin kind of experience -- aspen kind of experience. i am delighted to have my friend, jim leach, the ninth

chairman for the national endowment for the humanities. i still think of him as congressman leach. he was one of the most supportive members of either house of congress in terms of the arts and humanities i know that i could not have been happier and i suspect that most of you share that emotion when it was announced that he had been appointed the ninth chairman of the neh. chairman leach has a unique background. i think he is the only chairman in history, in this case, it 15 term congressman, he was educated at princeton, johns hopkins, and the school of

economics. his background, from the beginning, was an international background. at hopkins, he did a master's degree in soviet politics and he went on in congress to found and co-chair the congressional humanities' caucus, and ultimately chaired the asia- pacific subcommittee. he then fled congress temporarily two years ago and taught at princeton and harvard before he was sucked back into the federal government to serve as the chair of the neh. his most interesting distinction is not his congressional service, his eight on reader agrees, but i think he must be the only neh chair in history to be honored in the international

wrestling hall of fame. it is certainly good training for congress. welcome to the aspen institute. >> i am honored to be i think that has been -- i am honored to be here. there are a lot of things that we could talk about. what i wanted to actually ask you -- it goes back to what i said in my introduction. you have an absolutely unique and invaluable training for a cultural chairman, which is that you were a member of congress. you understand the congressional process. that is something that is really fundamental to the success of the cultural agencies