that is all this is. i think americans support that. i think if the chairman fails to act the fear is that we are going to see litigation if we implement the broadbent plan without any regulatory certainty.. that is what he is trying to establish here. >> given that you represent pennsylvania and there is a pending merger between comcast and nbc universal, where the stand on that deal? to support it? do you oppose it? would you support it with conditions and what would you what those to be? >> i think there should be due diligence. i think it is being done as the merger is being looked at. . .

>> and congressman mike doyle, democrat of pennsylvania, thank you for being on "but communicator's." >> my pleasure. >> as this moves through congress and the sec, the communicators will continue to cover it. >> of course, the lottery is a -- is prescribed by law. if demand outpaces supply, you have to do a lottery. >> i think this is the civil rights issue of today and is not just about race. i mean, it is about class. retsof sunday, the lottery

producer on the family she chronicled hoping to attend the harlem success academy and the anti-charter schools sentiment facing that school. >> last month, supreme court justice john paul stevens and supreme court nominee elena kagan talked about the legacy of justice stevens as he retires this summer. the event took place one week before president obama nominated ms. -- justice stevens as his replacement. -- nominated ms. kagan as justice stevens replacement. this is half an hour. [applause] >> what do you say when you introduce a man who has been coming to these events for more than 50 years? [laughter] everything that is interesting has already been said.

likely, not -- everything that is not interesting has been said, too. [laughter] i will be brief. john paul stevens is a man of chicago, born and raised in hyde park. he attended the university of chicago laboratory schools. he attended the 1932 world series, which the cubs lost. [laughter] in fact, no one in this room was alive when the cubs won their last world series. [laughter] john paul stevens attended jakarta -- college in chicago, law school in chicago, practiced in chicago and served for five years, on the senate. even after he was dragged off to washington in 1975, he remained our circuit justice. this year, he became the second justice to reach the age of 90 while in active service. the other was oliver wendell holmes. [applause]

his predecessors in his seat on the supreme court were louis brandeis and william o. douglas. for 16 years, he has been a senior associate justice. you may have read about him during the last few weeks. [laughter] i give you, justice stevens. [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much. fellow judges, friends, members of the seventh circuit breakebrd friends again, i am going to play my normal role tonight and talk to you very briefly while you are waiting to hear the principal speaker, and i want to say that on her behalf, she very friendly offer to let me go last tonight and i pulled rank on her and said no, i'm going to basically do what i have done for many, many years, just have

a few comments that are not very profound. [laughter] it occurs to me just out of the blue that i attended a bar association, maybe 100th anniversary or something like that, 25 or 30 years ago, and i remember the president of the association -- i think we were meeting in kalamazoo. i am not sure. anyway, i remember him saying this is a nas the logical occasional -- nostological occasion. i think this is as well. [laughter] i have two very brief comment. the first is about the court at the liota game of law school -- notre dame law school that i intended to tell you about last

year when we had the dean at the annual meeting. i think it was my second or third year on the court. i attended the mccourt of murder and they gave the best oral arguments that i have ever heard in a moot court. on the piano with me -- on the panel with me was judged cornelian. we have been friends for many years. during the argument the advocates repeatedly addressed her as a "madame justice." and she was not responding to that very warmly. toward the end of, i guess, the third argument, one of the women lawyers address her as "madame

justice" and she result -- responded vigorously, a "why do you call me madam justice? justice is an adequate title. you do not have to describe the sex of the judge in court. the lawyer responded and afterwards i said, you feel very strongly about this "madam justice" business, don't you? and she confirmed that she did and that there should not be a sexist term associated with the term "justice." i went back to open court and in the following conference i told my colleagues about this incident and potter stewart responded by saying, you know, we have to get rid of this "mr. justice" business. because at that time, on all the brass plaques on all the chambers of the justices -- i

think it said, open quote mr. justice blackmun -- "mr. justice blackmun." we took off the mr. and madame and a lot of people feel that she was responsible for that change. i thought i would straighten out the record for you. [applause] my second major historical event that i want to describe -- [laughter] refers to the chicago cubs. [laughter] and as i know has been said many times, i was not back to witness the home run by babe ruth. last year at the sixth circuit conference, i was responding to

one of these sessions where you get questions from the audience. somebody asked me about whether i was really there and i responded, yes, i was, and i remember sitting behind third base and watching dave ruth respond -- baby rutbabe ruth responding to the rising at sidelines and -- razzing at the sidelines and draw attention to the scoreboard. after that session, he said he did not want to embarrass me in front of the whole crowd, but his grandfather had been in the bleachers that day and the home run had landed in the left secured bleachers right to where

his father had been sitting and he saved it and may face -- a family souvenir out of it. he suggested i had been wrong about it going over the center field scoreboard. my response to that is, maybe our member is not as good as we think it is. [laughter] earlier this year, jeffrey toregas of the coating yorker -- of the "new yorker" ask me the same thing and i told him you have to be careful about trusting the memory of senior citizens because maybe they can make a mistake. he wrote that up in the article and indicated that maybe what i had to say was not entirely reliable. [laughter] after i read the article, the thought came to me and the thought was this, dave ruth hit two home runs on that day.

-- babe ruth hit two runs on that -- two home runs on that day. [laughter] [applause] so, i gave one of my law clerks the assignment of finding out what happened. she got papers from the contemporary -- contemporaneously newspaper accounts that made it perfectly clear that it went right out in center field. [laughter] [applause] i made a mistake in assuming that i had not correctly remembered what happened. [laughter] other than congratulating jim and van for their well learned trophies, it is very interesting to hear what our general has to

say. i thank you very much for your attendance and you're welcome. [applause] -- and your welcome. [applause] >> your honor, we knew that you were a cub fan and now that you're retired you have more time to go to a cubs game. [applause] [applause]

>> elena kagan is less of a chicago baxter then justice stevens and was not at the 1932 -- chicago fixture than a justice stevens and was not at the 1932 cubs game, but she, too, has an interesting circuit. she clerked for a court-martial and then began her academic career at the university of chicago, joining its faculty in 1991. i got to know her on strolls where the faculty exchange ideas around the roundtable. she specialized in administrative law. in 1995 she joined the administration as one of president clinton posey policy

wonks. she was set -- president clinton's policy wonks. she was up even further when she went to the university of chicago law school, which was a disaster of -- for trouble because she knew just which faculty members to recruit and what would tempt them east. harvard is so much bigger than chicago that it seemed she would establish jiabao as a wholly owned subsidiary. -- establish chicago as a wholly owned subsidiary. [laughter] fortunately, she went to washington this time as solicitor general. that is a move by can approve having spent five years in that office myself during the 1970's. it is the second-best lawyer's job in the world, right after been deputy solicitor journal -- solicitor general. [laughter] what is the difference?

the deputy solicitor general does 100% of his or her time doing interesting work, while the administrative solicitor general does -- does administrative tax, but is also required to give speeches. here she is doing the speech thing. this audience has been treated to several of her predecessors and elena is surely to provide an interesting spoperspective. i give you elena kagan, the 43rd to administer the solicitor general of the united states. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you, michael and judge easterbrook for your hospitality here. thank you all for your

hospitality here. when judge easterbrook first asked me if i would come and speak at this event i thought, how terrific. i love chicago. i love the seventh circuit. it would be my honor. i thought that he would speak about my job as solicitor general and tell you a little bit about what it is like to have the second-best shot in the united states. but in light of recent events, i thought that would not be the right thing to talk about. the only appropriate subject tonight is justice stevens and his extraordinary career. [applause] and really, alllyou need to know about justice stevens is really -- is what he told you about my exchange with him earlier today when i was coming out here and i looked at the program and i saw

that the program has "remarks by justice stevens" and "address by elena kagan." i thought that does not make any sense at all. [laughter] so, i said that. i communicated that in his chambers and said it again here. he would have none of it. he just insisted that he was just a humble supreme court justice retiring. [laughter] after 35 years. and the solicitor general should give the speech. but we are going to try to turn the tables a little bit and make sure that the focus remains on justice stevens here tonight. justice stevens, i think this is going to embarrass you greatly. i hope it does. that is what we will do. [laughter] if you have read the newspapers this last month or so, justice

stevens has been in the newspapers quite a lot. you may have noticed. you will notice that not only justice stevens announced his resignation, but as judge easterbrook said, that justice stevens turned 90 in april. and he has himself sworn that this is so, that he was born in april, 1920. but i personally do not believe it. [laughter] it is not just that justice stevens looks so darn good. i said to somebody last year when that movie came out, it is justice stephen starring in his own private "benjamin button" movie. [laughter] and is still the case. it is not just between games of tennis and rounds of golf. justice stevens continues to do more work than just about any

other justice. this is true. justice stevens draft all of his own opinions. he reviews thousands of serb petitions by himself. -- circuit petitions by himself i'm willing to say that i have never understood what they do, really. [laughter] but now i know. he give them -- he gives them assignments about home runs. [applause] and it is not just that justice stevens' mind continues to have all of the qualities of a steel trap, which we have heard again tonight in reference to this home run story, but anyone who watches a case at the supreme court -- and it could be a case about the first amendment, or

some arcane principles. anybody who watches a case at the supreme court knows that justice stevens' mind could just cut through a glass. but the real reason for my skepticism about justice stevens' age has nothing to do with any of those things. it is something else entirely. and is in age, a person could be forgiven you know, what he knows he knows and what he knows is enough. at his age, someone could be forgiven for that and instead, justice stevens approaches every single day of his life, and surely, every case on the supreme court docket with the hope and expectation that he will learn something from them. justice stevens said a few years ago that learning on the job is

essential to the process of judgment. and today, no less than he did 35 years ago when he began his supreme court service, justice stevens is curious and engaged. his mind is open and questing, and his essential stance, notwithstanding his off -- awesome talents and intellect, his essential stance is one of genuine modesty and humility. and anyone who has had the privilege of arguing before justice stevens, as i have had this past year, will know what i am talking about. as to both the modesty and the extraordinary intellect. i thought i would give you a bit of a sense tonight of what an advocate sees when she appears

before justice stevens, what justice stevens looks like 3 solicitor general's eyes. justice stevens is really the only justice on the supreme court who ask your permission to ask a question. [laughter] halfway through an argument, sometimes more than halfway through, sometimes when the red light is just going on, comments from justice stevens -- may i ask you a question? or, could you help me on this? or, i have been wondering about just a basic thing. not always, i have to say i was looking over some transcripts of my own from this past year and justice stevens once said to me, how can you say that? [laughter] i thought, well, if you have gotten justice stevens to say, how can you say that you must

have done something pretty terrible. [laughter] but mostly, justice stevens is -- and he jusan extraordinary cy emanates from him. i want to tell you, if you ever argue before the supreme court -- i guess you can't anymore to justice stevens, but be wherwar underline his extraordinary justice and courtesy, danger awaits. because these questions of his will almost invariably cut to the heart of the case and leave no room for deviatioevasion andm for escape. here, i'm going to put one of the most experienced of our

time, carter phillips, who has argued before justice stevens many times. carter phillips says, i think what distinguishes justice stevens from the others justices are these hypothetical. the relief force one to understand how the limits -- they really force one to understand the limits of the case. my favorite was when he asked a lawyer -- and i'm going to tell you exactly what this is, but it is not important that you get exactly. when asked if the united states -- if the total into the airports where the manager, if united move into the midway airport, if o'hare did not fire the employee, was in the terminal that united operated

from. the lawyer stood there for more than 30 seconds say nothing until justice scalia, leaned forward nd told him, the answer your looking for is no. [laughter] you can always count on justice scalia for some good lines like that. [laughter] in my judgment, carter phillips continues, justice stevens always asked the hardest hypothetical and he did it so gently, but the effect was particularly devastating. [laughter] and often, these gentle, unassuming questions point the way toward resolution. i mentioned to before that

justice stevens' very frequently come late in an argument. he bides his time before actively engaging council. -- counsel. and this is, i think, simply because he is the best listener on the court. or said another way, the person who most understands listening's dahlia. but he listens to learn himself, and he listens -- listening's value. he listens to learn himself and he listens to understand his colleagues. when he does step in, he does so with a real understanding of what matters in the case, of what may move his colleagues, and of what approaches might bridge differences and attract a majority. that aspect of justice stevens' questioning might be viewed as

strategic in nature, and indeed, ever since justice stevens announced his resignation we have heard a good deal of how he served as the strategic leader of one part of the court. but this, i think, misunderstands justice stevens' essential nature and quality. if he is influential, and we know that he is extraordinarily so, and if he has build coalitions and forged alliances, and we know that he has even in circumstances where one would not have expected it, it is because his colleagues recognize him as a person of sterling integrity and independence, constant and clear in his convictions, and ever-faithful to his core principles.

it is because his colleagues rightly see him as a truth seeker. and it is because his colleagues know that each and every day he has done the job for 35 years he has sought to learn in it and learn from it. i will close in good supreme- court style with a question and answer. question -- may i ask, could you help me with just a simple point? how fortunate was this country to have had justice stevens' service this last 30 -- these last 35 years? answer -- justice stevens, this country was fortunate beyond all measure. thank you, justice stevens. [applause]

>> the confirmation hearing for supreme court nominee to elena kagan before the senate judiciary committee starts monday. our live coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span radio and c-span.org. we continue our look at related supreme-court programming now, with a discussion on c-span posing alleged -- newly published book, "the supreme court: a c-span book featuring the justices in their own words ." it is based on interviews with current and former justices. this is an hour and 40 minutes.

>> honorable, the chief justice and the supreme -- and the justices of the supreme court of the united states. >> something is going on of the capital and in the white house and we need to understand how important is to our system of government. >> this is the highest court in the land and the framers created it after studying great lot givers in history -- lawgivers in history. >> the government concedes the destruction in these proceedings. >> we do not make a lot to decide who we want to win. we decide who wins and a lot that people have adopted. >> -- under the law that people have adopted. >> he would be surprised at the high level of congeniality. >> there are four a of the nine that want to hear these cases. we will hear it. >> cannot have a decision of the

sport -- >> why is it we have an astonishingly beautiful, imposing an impressive structure? it is to remind us that we have an important function, and to remind the public when it sees the building the importance and centrality of the law. >> it always thrills me, amazes me, and gives me faith in our country ought to know how much people trust the courts. >> i think the danger is that sometimes you come into a building like this and think it is all about you, or that you are important. that is something that i do not think works well with this job.

>> good evening, and welcome. my name is susan swain and i would c-span. on behalf of our 270 colleagues at c-span, dr. james billington, the library of congress, and the staff of the library and arco's this evening, welcome to this time is -- timely discussion of the supreme court of the united states. just about this time last year, a colleague mark toregas, the executive producer of the documentary standing on -- who is here on the back roarow, rown a letter to me asking if c-span could bring cameras inside the halls of the noble court to tell the story that happened just a block away from here. we have previously done so with the white house and the capital. the chief said yes and we began by bringing our cameras,

disturbing the many times in the day and night over the next couple of months. it seemed logical to us to write letters to each of the justices asking if they will participate in the project. justice stephen briar was the first to say yes, offering us a tour of his chambers. to our amazement, one by one, all of the other justices said yes. and soon we found we had the opportunity to interview all nine sitting justices and the two retired justices, the first time in history that all 11 of them had ever appeared on camera for any project. not surprisingly, it was the first interview granted by new justice so vote -- sonia sotomayor and the only interview with justice david souter, who is notoriously camera shy. when the documentary was finished and we have these marvelous transcripts, we knew we had something special that ought to be recorded for the ages. we asked our colleagues at public affairs publishers in

york city who have worked with us in the past if it would be interested in helping us publish a book. this is the brand new book on the supreme court, which came out in a timely way -- last week, just in time for the president's new nomination to the supreme court. and on the noon of its publication, we thought it would be appropriate to talk more about how the supreme court functions. tonight, we are pleased to have with us three of the people who are closely associated with the court, three panelists who were involved in this project. i will tell you about them later. and we're also pleased to have a justice bork himself here to talk to us for a bit. before we get to that, i would like to introduce dr. don van ee, who brought it wonderful archive that we had in the reception area earlier. he is going to tell us about

that. >> good evening, and welcome to the library of congress. i'm a historian with the library of congress. it is particularly fitting that this event be held here because this is the most marvelous place to study in the history of the court. all of the resources, including a manuscript division, include all of the chief justices of the court, which is more than any other repository. we have the papers of the nine members who sat on thes of- bourne scored in that pivotal era of 1953 to 1969. we also have a number of

wonderful items online. and some of the individual pieces that you saw next store may be accessed over the internet, including letters from jefferson and letters from the justices commending the chief justice' on the monumental decision of brown vs. board of education. in the more recent collection, they have opened that of harry blackmun. it was quite an interesting occasion because just -- justice blackmun saved in virtually every piece of paper that he ever collected, including his dance cards and critiques of what the petitioners and respondents were in oral arguments. [laughter] and sometimes greeted them. -- graded them.

[laughter] these papers are accessible to everyone on an equal basis. and of course, partial to the manuscript division, i would like to give a shout out to the wonderful library of congress, which is a market -- marvelous repository and i know from experience -- basically, the bulk of my experience was in the jefferson building. [applause] >> i neglected to mention that this event is being televised live on c-span3 and is streamed live on c-span.org tonight. and in classic c-span style, it would not be a production without having you involved. the panel will be open for your questions and observations about the court and we look forward to the things you are interested in talking about. let me talk about our wonderful

presenter, justice stephen brier. he is the first to say yes because he is interested in helping people be educated about how the court functions. he opened his chambers to us and when you see this clipqjcu thati have for you, you will see that very naturally, justice breyer has spent a long time as a professor because he helps educate people in a personal way about how the court operates. let's take a look. >> we decide just the federal questions, those statutes, books, and what the prosecution of the united states means in cases where people disagree about it. we have a trial. there are appeals. when you finally get to the final appeal, maybe there are 80,000 cases, 100,000 cases in the u.s. that have questions of federal law. what does this word mean? does it mean this or that? what does the word liberty in

the 14th amendment mean? how does it apply to someone who once and assisted suicide? that is a case we had. does he have a constitutional right to it or not? it could be an important case, or the meaning of one of those patented words. no. [laughter] of those thousands, of 80,000 that he ask us to hear those cases, that means about 150 per week. 150 what? 150 request to hear cases. here they are for this week. so, what we do is read through these and we all read all of them i'm going to qualify this in a minute. we all look at all of them. and then we vote. we meet in conference and we vote. if there are four of us that want to hear any of these cases, we will hear it. >> without any further ado, let

brier.roduce justice stephen -- breyer. [applause] >> thank you, that was very good. i mean, you cut out the qualification, which is that there is a pool of 30 clerks in the building and they read all of those and then divide them up and each week 5. then i get a stack of memos like this. i can go back and read them, but i do not usually. it depends on the memo. people know how the court works, i say, in a couple of hours i can reduce it from a stack like this to hear. the reason i can do that is not because i'm such a genius. the reason is because we have a criterion and that is what we want people to know. the criterion is that people are looking not on the cases that we want decided. why would we do a better job than the lower court judge?

they're looking to see whether there is a division in opinion about the meaning of the text by different judges, same text. if there is a difference of opinion, a lot is not uniform and our job is to have uniformed federal law. there are a few other criteria, too, but that is the main one. and i can do that in about a minute. and already, the audience is falling asleep. [laughter] and this is really the problem. the problem is the falling, and you will see why i am so pleased you did this program. not tonight, but the general program. why? because we know because we can read the federalist papers that hamilton was really the having a court, have something like the last word as to what the constitution means. and why? because he thought, i cannot

really think of anyone else that can do it. if we give that kind of power to the president, he will become a tyrant. if we give the park -- power to congress -- well, wait a minute, they will have just passed the law and it would ot doing if it were not popular. and you expect elected politicians to say that the law they just passed was popular -- that was popular is unconstitutional? think again. they are not likely to say it very often. theret 3ñ is only one place lefo go. that is this group of rather obscure, sort of bureaucratic type people called judges. few have heard of them. they do not have much power, not for the person or the sword. -- the purse or the sword. and they probably will not get carried away with this too often. and that is his argument. but what is interesting to me

is no where, once you accept that, does hamilton address the obvious question. if these people are so obscure, if they have never even been heard of, and in particular, if they do not have political power, why will people do what they say? and that is a very important and interesting point. and i find it absolutely fascinating. because the longer you go, the more you will realize that people carry out a decision that is unpopular and could even be really wrong. the first is vital, because one of the jobs of the court, and a main one, is to protect people who are unpopular because the least popular have the same rights as to the constitution. and one of our jobs is to

protect that person unless the public decides that they carry out the right decision. which means if they carry it out when it is right, then they better carry it out when it is wrong. we can do it intellectually and you can do it in your columns, but it is not the principal. do you see dylan? what i see is that -- do you see the dilemma? when i see is that it is not about the institution. it is not about the judges. we are trusties there for a while. but you are part of it, too. the problem with all of us is that if this institution is not accepted by the american public as important to them, well, no one will do what they say and then there will not be the protection that is written into the constitution that the court helps to extend.

we have to be popular as an institution. how can we be popular? we cannot be popular by making popular decisions. i mean, we could, and you should not make the decision the opposite way just because it would be popular. but really, hamilton put us there to put the cap -- power in court to make certain that there would be decisions made when that is what the constitution demands. -- what the constitution demands and it is unpopular. you see the dilemma. you have got to get the public to want to support an institution that in a rowboat -- inevitably will make decisions, and should make decisions, that i do not like. what can we do about that? and by the way, sometimes when

they do not like the decision because they think is wrong, they are right. it is wrong. and sometimes it is not true. sometimes it is right. we can go through history. how we treated the indians -- the indians and when jackson was president and about the difficulties of segregation and desegregation. public gradually coming along. but how, to go back to the question, can we bring them along without just writing things they like? i do not have an answer. it is lovely to ask questions you have no answer to. [laughter] that is why it is so hard for me to ask questions in oral argument. i am trying to ask questions, but they have to be questions i already know the answer to and were written about, so nobody understands the question. note -- [laughter]

the answer has to be in part to tell people what we do. and when i say we, i do not mean just these judges today, and i do not even mean just the judges. that is why i love this film. because it did not just have judges. because it showed more about the institution than that. it showed a the judges, who aren't there temporarily. i will not say that is a -- who are there temporarily. i will not say that is a bad thing. it showed the building, which i think is part of it, not because of its grandeur, but what it symbolizes. it showed the lawyers who understand it well from the client's point of view, and they are there to help those clients. and they showed it from the present point of view, too, and it is the press that has to communicate and it can only communicate by understanding the institution and trying to transmit what we do. all of that is in this film. moreover, it is very

interesting. [laughter] and i say that because remember, remember might minute of explanation -- my minute of expedition. and what i try to do is to explain what a case is a really about. it is hard to do that and keep people awake for more than five minutes of that explanation because they are long and complicated. but they can be very important. but they caution that does not make them less complicated or easier to explain. -- but that does not make them less complicated or easier to explain. there you have why i think what you're doing and what you did is helpful not just to me as a person, but to me as an institution. i say you are there to benefit americans who have to understand it. thanks. [applause]

>> thank you so much. justice breyer was nominated by president clinton and took a seat on the court in 1994. before coming there, he had the interesting observation of seen the court from the other side of the street. he served as counsel to the u.s. senate judiciary committee, giving him an interesting perspective. as i noted, he was a professor at harvard, which we can see from his approach to helping us understand the court. and before that, served from 1980 to 1990 as the chief of the circuit. over the years, in our quest to understand how the supreme court operates, since it is closed to cameras, we have turned again and again to reporters who cover it. i see my old friend, tony moyers, we have been calling on for 20 years to help us

understand. pleased to have you here. i am sure in neglecting others. we thank you for that. we have invited to a vote of folks who participated in our documentary and -- we invited two people aboard is a bit in our documentary we have the dean of the supreme court press corps, which means he has been covering the court for longer than anyone else, 52 years now. that means he has covered one of every four of the 111 justices to serve the court. he worked at the "baltimore sun" before he had his blog, where he regularly report on the decisions of the court. would you join me? joan biskupic is a supreme court reporter for "usa today" and has been covering the court since 1989. we have learned that folks who cover the court stay there for a long time. it is a complex institution and

a small community. their tenure is recalling long once they are there. she is a lawyer and has just finished her second biography of justice is on the court. first was on saturday o'connor, her most recent one, which we are featuring tooight and will have copies for sale later on. and they got -- and a biography of justice antonin scalia. john, would you please join me? and for a nother -- joan, would you please join me? and for another perspective, we have asked marine money to join us tonight -- maureen mahoney to join us tonight. she has won 22 of the cases that she has argued before the court. she is known as recently for presenting the university of michigan and the affirmative action case that she won.

her first case before the court was in 1988 and also brings varying perspectives because she served as a clerk to the justice william rehnquist and served as a time as deputy solicitor general. thanks for being here. as our panelists take their seats, i would like to do this. the book is edited transcripts of the interviews that we have recorded. we have picked a number of them tonight so that you can continue to hear the justices in their own words. first, we're going to start with the big news, which is the new appointment of elena kagan. what is interesting is that the court was on an 11-year stretch with those changes what -- with no changes. since 2005, there are new appointments to the court. each of the justices talk to us about the dynamics on the court and how it changes when a new member joins. let's listen. >> to some extent, it is unsettling.

you quickly get to view the court as the court, as composed of these members, and it becomes hard to think of it as involving anyone else. i suspect it is the way people think of their families. how could it be different -- different? but you do get new arrivals in both of those situations. >> it is a new court. when i was trying jury cases, which is usually 12, if a juror had to be replaced it was just a different dynamic. it was a different jury. this will be the same. this will be a very different court. and is -- it is stressful for us because we so admire our colleagues. we wanted to ever be the same. but i have great admiration for the system. the system works. >> i think is healthy for the court to have members with different backgrounds. i think -- i saw a television

program recently where somebody said there should always be someone i had -- there should always be someone who has served in the armed forces. i think there's always be someone who has practical experience -- there should always be someone who has bartow experience in litigation. -- who has experience in that litigation. >> i am not going to ask questions. i'm going to turn to our of panelists to jump in about how a new member changes the court. >> they are always younger than me. [laughter] which perhaps, is a sad fact because we could use a little more wisdom around there sometimes. [laughter] as we all surely know, wisdom comes with age. [laughter] it is literally true that every new member of the court brings with that person's nomination and confirmation a new court.

justice breyer and others can tell you what it is like on the inside. but it is one of the first things that you begin to notice, how lawyers come before the court and start trying to pick up that new vote. and so early in the tenure of a new justice it would not be surprising at all to see counsel before the court undertake to try to reach out to that person. on this court, however, and on a number of the courts that i have covered, you will always start out by trying to appeal to a anthony kennedy because kennedy is likely to be a swing vote if the court is at all divided. the service, it is deeply divided. but the dynamic of around the courthouse from the perspective of the press room is that there

is always a shake down timeframe when a new justice comes on. i remember harry blackmun telling me about sandra o'connor. he said, that woman came here with an agenda and started throwing her weight iran and from the first day. -- her weight around from the first day. [laughter] i do recall that she spent the arbor of the first term that she was there and did insert yourself -- spend the november of the persian that she was there and did insert herself. it is literally true that the court does change, and we see it with each new justice because we know, at least those that pay fairly close attention to it, that is not necessarily predictable that you can note easily which five will constitute a majority in any

given case. >> it is exciting for us to cover a new justice because it gives us a new court and we 7fk&-háhem in public playing off each other. justice harry blackmun about sandra day o'connor, usually those things do not become evident with the justice's own words. we watch from the bench and see the dynamic opinions. it's one thing that just as prior might have mentioned if he had gone on about what it would be like to be the junior justice for those 11 years before we have the addition of justice roberts and justice alito is that he had to play a certain role on answering the door for the other justices in their private conference, bringing them coffee, taking notes. we watch how they play off each other in public, but it reveals about -- a bit about what has gone on privately. it is going to be unusual to

send the have a second justice so quickly. -- suddenly have a second justice so quickly. we're all just getting used to justice sotomayor, and if things go smoothly as i believe they will for elena kagan, she will come on soon and that will be another court and lost more news for those of us who follow the justices. >> from and advocates perspective, it will change the dynamic of the argument somewhat, but the preparation is the same. if you are preparing for argument and you are trying to figure out every possible question any justice of any name might ask, and it could come from anyone at any time, i think the preparation is largely the same. it will be harder to predict where justice kagan will come out on various cases with justice -- on various cases because justice stevens has this wealth of opinions in virtually every -- every area of the law that you