and decisions have on real people. for me, i would welcome a justice who would raise questions like justice ginsberg did, some real points like what was lilly supposed to do to file her complaint on time? ask male employees what their pay was? . impacts of slashing the damages that the jury had awarded to the 32,000 fishermen whose livelihoods were tragic little impacted by the oil spill in 1989. while i do not know what you have -- what you would have done in these cases your practical experience leads me to believe you may have at least considered such things. now, even with the variety of legal experiences that you have had, questions have been raised as to whether it is appr

>> more than 1/3 of supreme court justices throughout history did not have judiciary experience. in acknowledgment of your real- world experience, justice scalia said recently that he was happy to see this latest is not a federal judge and not a judge at all. i think your practical experience will be helpful should you be confirmed to the supreme court and i look for to asking you more about that. as a former prosecutor, i am interested in your approach to criminal law. when i was the head of county attorney, i saw firsthand the impact on the lives of real people. firsthand how the law can impact the lives of real people. of course, criminal justice cases that reach the supreme court involved complicated tradeoffs between competing values, safety, privacy and

liberty. i'd like to know moral about how you expect to evaluate these issues. i often get concerned that pragmatic experiences are missing in judicial decision making such as when i looked at last year's supreme court decision in the ma len dez dias case where a majority broadly interpreted the confrontation claus to include crime lab workers creating unnecessary requirements for prosecutors. i want to ask you about that. as i consider your nomination, i also want to reflect on how far we've come. senator feingold mentioned the obstacles that sandra day o'connor and justice ginsburg faced when they were coming up through the legal ranks. and i know you're well aware of the strides that women have made in a 2005 speech quoting justice ginsburg. you described a 1911 student resolution at the university of pennsylvania law school. this resolution would having introduced a 25 cent per week

penalty on all students without mustaches. the women who came became before you to be considered by this committee help blaze the trail. although your record stands on its own, are you also to borrow a line from isaac newton, standing on the shoulders of giants. in the course of more than two centuries, 111 justices have served on the is supreme court. only three have been women. if you are confirmed, ulgd be the fourth and for the first time in its history, three women would take their places on the bench when arguments are heard in the fall. last year at confirmation hearing for justice sotomayor, i said i was looking for three things in a supreme court justice. good judgment, humility, and the ability to apply the law without fear of favor. i'd like to add one dshl consideration to the three standards i mentioned last year. i'd like to see a supreme court justice who is able to go into %-e back room where the justices meet and where no ordinary

citizens are present and bring some real world perspective to the room. i'd like to see someone who wouldn't expect the victim in an employment discrimination case to go rivaling through her male coworkers' desks to see what their pay stubs say. i'd like to see someone who wouldn't expect prosecutors to bring a crime lab analyst to every trial even when the lab's findings aren't disputed. this will be my focus at the hearing. i am hopeful your background and experiences to use the words of teddy roosevelt, the experiences of someone who has actually been in the arena, will help you be that person. i am hopeful that you will use your great skills and abilities to bring thank common sense perspective to the court. and remember, that the cases that you hear involve real people with real problems looking for real remedies. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, senator klobuchar. senator kaufman.

>> thank you. welcome solicitor general kagan. welcome also to your family and friends. and i want to congratulate you on your nomination. we are now beginning the end of an extraordinarily important process. short of voting to go to war, a senator's constitution is obligation to advise and consent on supreme court nominees is probably his or her most important responsibility. supreme justices be ford liar. once the senate confirms a nominee, she is likely to affect the law and the lives of americans much longer than the senator who's confirmed her. as senators, i believe we have an obligation not to the base our decision on empty political slogans or on charges of guilt by association or on any litmus test. instead, we should focus on your record and your answers to our questions. which will allow to us determine whether you have the qualities necessary to serve all americans and the rule of law on our nation's highest court. over the years, as chief of

staff to then senator biden, teaching at the duke law school and as a senator myself, i've thought a lot about the qualities i believe a supreme court nominee should have. a first rate intellect, significant experience, unquestioned integrity, absolute commitment to the rule of law, unwavering dedication to being fair and open minded and the built to appreciate the impact of court decisions on the lives of ordinary people. last year, when justice souter announced his retirement and again when justice stevens announced his retirement this april, i suggested that the court would benefit from a broader range of experience among its members. my concern was not just the relative lack of women or racial or ethnic minorities on federal courts although that deficit remains glaring. i was noting the fact that the current justices all share very similar professional backgrounds. every one of them served as a

federal circuit court judge before being appointed to the supreme court. not one of them has ever run for political office like sandra day o'connor, earl warren, hugo black. general change, i am genuinely heartened by what you would bring to the court based on your experience working in all three branches of government and the skills you developed running a complex institution like the harvard law school and yes, the prospect that your being the fourth woman to serve on the nation's highest court. some pundits and some senators have suggested your lack of judicial experience is somehow a liability. could i not disagree more. while prior judicial experience can be valuable, the court should have a broader range of perspectives than just to be gleaned from the appellate branch. general kagan, you bring valuable nonjudicial experience and a freshness and perspective that is lacking on the current court. as has been said over and over again but i think it's worth repeating. in the history of the supreme

court, more than one-third of the justices have had no prior judicial experience before being nominated and the nominee's lack of judicial experience has certainly been no barrier to success woodrow wilson nominated lewis bran highs in 1916, many objected on the ground that he had never served on the bench. over his 23-year career, justice brandheis proved to be one of the greatest members. his opinions is exemplify judicial restraint more than 70 years after his retirement. felix frankfurter, william douglas, robert jackson, byron white, loss powell, harland fish stone, earl warren and william rehnquist all became justices without ever being previously judges and they certainly led to distinguished careers on the supreme court. as justice frankfurter, someone who knows wrote just to experience in 1957 and i quote,

can one is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the function of the supreme court is zero. ." we've all now had the opportunity to review your extensive record as a lawyer, policy adviser and administrator throughout your career. you have consistently demonstrated the all too rare combination of first rate intellect and intensely pragmatic approach to identifying and solving problems. last summer, during then judge sotomayor's confirmation hearings, i focused on the current court's handling of business cases as a number of folks have talked about today. i am convinced by education, experience, and inclin nation that the integrity of our capital markets, u.s. capital markets along with our democratic traditions is what makes america great. too often, however, today's supreme court seems to disregard

law and congressional policy choices in order to promote business interests at the expense of the people's interests. with its preempting state consumer protection loss medtronic striking down punitive damage awards in exxon, restricting access of the courts or overturning 96 years of pro consumer anti-trust law and legion. this court gives me the impression that in business cases the working majority is business oriented to a fault. the exxon case demonstrates how this pro business orientation can affect the lives of ordinary people. in that case, four of the eight justice who's participated voted to bar all punitive damages in maritime cases against employers like exxon for their employees' reckless behavior. justice alito did not participate in the case so the court split 4-4 on this point. but had he participated, and voted with the conservatives on the court, then today, individuals harmed by oil spills

like "exxon valdez" would be subject to a flat ban on punitive damages in maritime actions. as we consider the current disaster in the gulf, the prospect is worth contemplating. as has been said several times but again worth repeating, the court's decision last fall in citizens united case which several of my colleagues mentioned is the latest example of the court's pro corporate bent. the majority opinion in that case should put the nail in the coffin of the claims that judicial activism is a sin committed by judges of only one political ideology. what makes the citizens united decision tishlgly troubling is that it is at odds with what some of the court's most recently confirmed members said during their confirmation hearings. we heard a great deal about their deep respect for existing resident. now, however, the respect seems to varnish whenever it interferes with the desired pro business outcome.

as i've said before, charges of judicial activism are often unhelpful. empty epithets divorced from a real assessment of judicial temperament. but that doesn't mean the term judicial activism is necessarily meaningless. if we can't to take the term seriously it might be fair to defer to the elected branches of government. it might mean disregard of long-standing precedent. it might mean deciding cases based on personal policy preferences rather than law or it might mean manipulating a case to get at issues not squarely presented by the parties. now, by any of these definitions the decision in citizens united was a highly activist decision. first the court summarily overturned years of settled precedent and law that had limited the influence of corporate electioneering. sethd, the court took it upon itself to order that the case be reargued on broad constitutional

grounds which neither party in the case had asked it to do. and in effect, an the justices wrote their own question of the case in order to obtain the desired result. i share the fear expressed by justice stevens in his dissent that the court's focus on results on results, rather than law in this and other cases will do damage to the court as an institution. general kagan, i plan to spend the bulk of my time asking you about the court's business cases based on my concern about its apparent bias. one of the aspirations of the american judicial system is that it render justice equally to ordinary citizens and to the most powerful. we need justices on the supreme court who not only understand that aspiration but are also committed to making it a reality. for americans to have faith in the rule of law, we need one justice system in this country, not two. very soon, those of us up here

will be done talking, thank goodness and you will have a chance to testify and then to answer our questions. i look forward to your testimony. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. just before we go to senator franken, just so understand what the schedule is, solicitor general and others, once senator franken finishes, we're going to just stay here and it's going to take about a minute to rearrange the table, two senators who are going to introduce you will. and then you get a chance to speak. senator franken. >> thank you mr. chairman and as the chairman just pointed out, general kagan, i'm last. and that's because i'm most junior. but senator byrd was always kind to me. even though he was a giant of this institution and i was moved

that he always came in when we needed him. even during the deep snows of late december. i would have to serve till i'm 118 years old to serve as long as senator byrd. i very much doubt that will happen. and or that i will have a legacy as permanent as his. i would also like to extend my condolences to justice ginsburg and her family and she's in our thoughts and prayers. every senator who has spoken before me has sworn to support and defend the constitution of the united states, and so have i. there are a few things that we do that are more important to fulfilling that oath than making sure that the justices of the supreme court are brilliant,

humane, and just in individuals. but these hearings are also a learning experience for the people in minnesota and for every american. before i joined the united states senate, i watched every televised confirmation hearing. not the whole thing, of course, but at least part. i think part of my job is to continue that learning experience for the american people. now, last year, i used my time during these hearings to highlight what i think is one of the most serious threats to our constitution and to the rights it guarantees to the american people. the activism of the roberts court. i noted that for years, conservatives running for the senate have made it almost an article of faith that they won't vote for activist judge who's make law from the bench.

and when asked to name a model justice, they would often cite justice thomas who i noted has voted to overturn more federal laws than justice stevens and justice breyer combined. in recent campaign cycles, you would also heart name of justice roberts. well, i think we've established very convincingly, we did during the sotomayor hearing that there is such a thing as judicial activism. there is such a thing as legislating from the bench. and it is practiced repeatedly by the roberts court and it has cut in only one direction, in favor of powerful corporate interests abagainst the rights of individual americans. in the next few days, i want to

continue this conversation because i think things have only gotten worse. and so i want to say one thing to the people in minnesota who are watching on tv or listening. with few exceptions, whether -- and i'm echoing senator cardin here, whether you're a worker, a pensioner, a small business owner, a woman, a voter, or a person who drinks water, your rights are harder to defend today than they were five years ago. my state has been victim to the third largest ponzi scheme in history, and yet, in 2008 in a case called stone ridge, the roberts court made it harder for investors to get their money back from people who defrauded them. the twin cities have more older workers per capita than almost any other city in the nation,

and yet, in 2009, in the case called gross, the roberts court made it easier for corporations to fire older americans and get away with it. minnesota has more wetlands than all but three states, and yet in a case called rapanos, the court cut countless streams and wet loins out of the clean water act even though they had been covered for up to 30 years. minnesota banned all corporate spending in state and local elections in 1988, and yet any january in citizens united, the roberts court nullified our state laws and turned ba feral allowing corporations to spend as much money as they want whenever they want in our elections and not just federal

elections. duluth elections, ba midge jill elections, minnesota elections. there is a pattern here. each of these decisions was one with five votes. and in each of these decisions that, bare majority used its power to help big business. there's another pattern here. in each of those decisions in every one, justice john paul stevens led the dissent. now, justice stevens is noo fir brand liberal. he was appointed to the seventh circuit by richard nixon. he was elevated to the supreme court by gerald ford. by all accounts, he was considered a moderate. and yet, he didn't hesitate to tell corporations that they aren't a part of we the people by whom and for whom our constitution was established.

and he didn't flinch when he told the president that he executives is bound to comply with the rule of law. general kagan, you've got big, big shoes to fill. but before i turn it over to you, i want to talk a bit more about one of the decisions i mentioned. i want to talk more about citizens united. now, you've heard a lot about this decision already today. but il want to come at it from a slightly different angle. there is no doubt that the roberts court's disregard for a century of federal law, the decades of supreme court's own rulings is wrong and shocking. it's torn a gaping hole in our election laws. of course, i'm worried about how rizs united is going to change our elections. but i'm more worried about how you this decision is going to affect our communities and our

ability to run those communities without a permission slip from big business. let me give you two examples of what i'm talking about. in the early 1960s, car companies knew that they could avoid a large number of it fatalities by installing seat belts in every vehicle but they didn't want to. they said safety doesn't sell. but congress didn't listen to the car companies. and so in 1966, congress passed a law requiring that all passenger cars have seat belts. since then, the fa taltd rate from car accidents has dropped by 71%. here's another story. around the same time that we passed the seat belt law, people started to realize that will leaded gasoline that cars ran on was poisoning our air. but oil companies didn't want to take the lead out of gasoline. because altering their refineries was going to be in

the words of the "wall street journal" a multi billion dollar make. but in 1970, congress passed the clean air act anyway and thanks in part to that law by 1995, the percentage of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had dropped by 84%. along with the clean water act of 1972, the clean air act of 1970, and the motor vehicle act are three pillars of the modern consumer safety and environmental laws. and here's something else they have in common. they were all passed around 60 days before an election. do you think those laws would have stood a chance of standard oil and gm could have spent millions of dollars advertising against vulnerable congressmen? by name in the last months before their elections? don't. so here is my point. general kagan, citizens united isn't just about election law. it isn't just about campaign

finance law. it's about seat belts. it's about clean air and clean water. it's about energy policy and the rights of workers and investors. it's about health care. it's about our ability to you pass laws that protect it the american people even if it hurts the corporate bottom line. as justice stevens said, it's about our needd to prevent corporations from undermining self-government. but i think you know that. general kag condition, you have shown remarkable skill as a lawyer for our government. i like that. i want to see that legal skill in action and i want to see if you might continue the work of justice stevens. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator franken. i appreciate your statement. i ask the staff if we could set up the table. i noticed the chairman kerry and senator browner are here.

and everybody just stay where are you. i appreciate both the -- both senators being here. i know everybody's had to rearrange their own schedule. and we've been locked in this room, but i'm told there's been a number of thunderstorms in the area. senator brown, i think you were flying back to massachusetts. that could 0 not have been very much fun. the first witness is senator john kerry.

he's a senior united states senator from massachusetts. he's chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. i've had the privilege of serving with him ever since he came to the senate, and he's a decorated vietnam veteran from his ground breaking work on the iran-contra scandal to his leadership and global efforts to combat aids. senator kerry has distinguished himself as one of our nation's most respected voices on national security and international affairs and chairs the prestigious foreign relations committee. so senator kerry, chairman kerry, we're pleased to have you before our committee today. please go ahead, sir. >> thank you very much, chairman leahy, for those kind words of introduction. ranking member sessions and to all my colleagues on the important judiciary committee at this important moment. members of the committee, mr. chairman, 16 years ago, i had the privilege to introduce

stephen breyer to this committee. and with the loss today of senator byrd, i'm particularly reminded of senator kennedy sitting beside me that day. as you all know, better than anybody, senator kennedy served on this committee for 46 years. and i know the pride he would feel seeing elena kagan nominated for the supreme court of the united states. when ted introduced then judge breyer, he quoted oliver wendell holmes that every calling is great when greatly pursued. those words applied to stephen breyerrand i can share with you my complete and total confidence that they apply equally to solicitor general elena kagan. massachusetts is proud, mr. chairman, of enain lane nan kagan's accomplishments. and we believe through these hearings as each of you get to

know her as we do, we willer and broad bipartisan support just as she did when she was nominated as solicitor general. by now, every one of us has heard many times repeated and you know well the high points of her record. a trail blazing pace culminating in her selection as the first woman to serve as the dean of harvard law school and the first woman to serve as solicitor general. fur confirmed, she will make history once again. in an america where women comprise more than half the population, she will join justices ginsburg and sotomayor and for the first time in our history, a full third of the united states supreme court will be women. but there is much more that distinguishes elena. her life has really been characterized by her passion for public service. and her awareness what he it means to be a good public citizen. a close friend from her days

clerking for justice marshal remembers elena interviewing at a big law firm in new york, meeting with a young partner who with no family to support was pulling in close to $1 million a year. so elena asked him, what do you do with all that money? and he replied? i buy art. elena just shook her head in the conviction that there really were better ways to expand her life's work and she will continued to pursue efforts to more directly impact the lives of those around her. her skills and intellect very quickly came to the attention of the clinton white house. which is when i first got to know her. i had been asked by the chairman of the commerce committee, senator hollings, our old friend, to help break through a stalemate on a bipartisan tobacco bill. it was a difficult issue for both caucuses. elena became the administration's point person. and when we started out no, one

gave us any hope of being close to or getting close toes passage. but elaine nap camped out in the vice presideent's office off th senate floor, shuttling back and forth to the white house. she worked day and night equally with both sides of the aisle working every angle thinking through every single approach. and on the eve of the commerce committee's markup, things appeared to be falling apart. something we're all too familiar with here. but elena simply wasn't going to let that happen. that was an unacceptable outcome. she got together with the republican senators and staff and she listened carefully and she helped all of us to meet the last-minute objections. it was classic elena. she saw a path forward when most people saw nothing but deadlock and it led to a 19-1 vote to pass the bill out of committee. a mark bipartisanship consensus

building that few believed was possible. that's what i believe elena kagan will bring to the court. she was tough. and tenacious in argument when necessary. but she also knew when it was necessary to strike a compromise. she had a knack for knowing how to win people over, an ability to make people see the wisdom of an argument. i remember lots of late nights and a very quiet capitol building walking off the senate floor to meet with my staff and elena. and invariably, elena would be the one to have a new idea, a fresh approach. it was a tutorial in consensus building from someone for whom it was pure instinct and won her the respect of republicans and democrats alike. no doubt, her hands-on experience working the governance process is actually in this day and age and in then moment of the court probably an

enormous asset. frankly, i think it's a critical component of what makes her a terrific choice. someone who really understands how laws are created. and the real world effects of their implementation. it's a reminder of why some of the greatest justices in our history were not judges before they sat on the court. and among those are names like frankfurter and brandheis. i might add she brought the same pragmatic knack for consensus building building to her stewardship at harvard law school. there she found what was affectionately acknowledged, i emphasize affectionately as a decision functional and divided campus and she transformed it again into a cohesstive institution, winning praise every students and fact across the ideological spectrum. elizabeth warren, her colleague at harvard and chair of the

congressional panel currently overseeing our economic relief efforts says simply, she changed morale around here. charles freed, the former solicitor general under president reagan and renowned conservative constitutional expert says of her prospects as a justice on the supreme court, "i think elena would be terrific. because frankly, the court is stuck. the great thing about elena is there's a freshness about her that promises some possibility of getting away from the formulas that are wheeled out today on both sides. il have no reservations about her whatsoever. john manning, the first hire under kagan's deanship, a conservative and an expert on tech tewellism and separation of powers says, i think one of the things you see in kagan as dean was that she tried to hire folks with different approaches to law and different ideological

perspectives. she was equally as strong in her praise for scalia as she was in her praise for breyer. she celebrated both. it's a good predictor of how she'll be as a judge. she would be fair and impartial. the sort of judge who would carefully consider briefing an argument in every case. the sort of judge i would want if i didn't know which side of the case i was arguing. and so in clothes, my cloegs, i'm glad that in these next days you're going to get a chance to know elena as so many of us have in massachusetts, the way she thinks. her approach to the law, and extremely capable public servant well grounded in the constitution and i assure you deeply committed to the values that we all share as americans. thank you. i always remember what he justice potter stewart said about what makes a first-rate judge. he said, "the mark of a good judge is a judge whose opinion

you can read and have no idea if the judge was a man or a woman, republican or democrat, a christian or jew, you just know he or she was a good judge pp." i believe that elena kagan will meet that standard and i have every confidence that she will be an outstanding justice of the supreme court in every sense of the word. so thank you, mr. chairman, for the privilege of introducing this superb nominee. >> thank you very much. also we have senator scott brown laek this had january to fill the seat of one of this body's most beloved members, senator ted kennedy who was actually the longest serving of either party on the senate judiciary of comit committee in the history of the senate. senator browns serves on the senate armed services, the committee on veterans affairs and the homeland security and governmental affairs committee.

prior to his election to the u.s. senate, he served in the massachusetts state senate where he advocated for children's and victims' rights and worked to promote environmental and good government initiatives. he's a 30-year member of the massachusetts army national guard. is that correcting? he was awarded the army commendation metal for meritorious service and homeland security. following the terrorist attacks in september 11th, 2001. and i know from my conversation i had with you the end of last week that you had to move a number of things around tore get here this afternoon. and i want you to nope the committee appreciates that and please go aheaa, senator brown. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the thanks is to you for accommodating senator kerry and i and adjusting your schedules. it means a lot to sit next to senator kerry and make the presentation to you anton ranking member sessions and the members of the committee. and i'm pleased to join you in upholding a long-standing

tradition of introducing elena kagan of massachusetts to the committee. first though i'd like to express my heartfelt condolences senator byrd and his family for the loss that they've suffered during this difficult time. although i only served briefly with senator byrd, i was well aware of his deep and long-standing commitment to the senate and what it stood for. and he represented the people west virginia with great class and dignity. and i also am add saddened to heart the passing of the husband of justice ruth bader ginsburg and i offer my condolences to justice ginsburg and her family. and i wish to congratulate miss kagan on her nomination. it is an honor to introduce her today. i had the pleasure of meeting her last month and found her to be an impressive and pleasant individual. %%indicated then and i look forward tore attending this committee's hearings to learn more about her record, her

philosophy, and her qualifications. as an attorney myself, i recognize an impressive legal resume when i see one, and there's no doubt that miss kagan has gone far since graduating from harvard law school magna cum laude in 1986 and following her law school days in cambridge, she clerked for appellate court judge and u.s. supreme court justice thurgood marshall and entered the private legal practice at the prestigious washington, d.c. law firm. before joining the faculty of the university chicago school where sheer anded tenure in 1995. from '95 to '99, she served with the clinton administration first as an associate white house counsel and then in positions with the domestic policy counsel. in 1999, she returned to massachusetts to join the fact of harvard law school. where she would become later dean in charles hamilton houston

professor of law. while at harvard, her article "presidential administration" was named the year's top scholar little article by the american bar association section on administrate i be law ann regulatory practice. she was nominatenated on 2009 to be solicitor general. i'm proud our nation's woman deep solicitor general has such deep roots in massachusetts. if confirmed, she would be the first in the history of our court. as solicitor general, she frequently represents the united states before the supreme court and she's argued several high profile cases before the court and was recently victoriorious in the holder versus humanitarian law project case which held that congress's prohibition of material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations is constitutional. she's undown thely a brilliant woman whom has served her country in a variety of capacities and has made significant contributions to massachusetts and i certainly thank her for that.

and this committee, as you know, mr. chairman, and members of the committee is, about to embark on one of the most serious duties that the senate is constitutionally tacked with, something that i am honored to play a small part in. vetting the qualifications, temperament and philosophy of a lifetime appointment. something that is very, very serious and very important. and i look forward tore miss kagan's responses to the committee's questions and i know that i have some of my own and am quite sure my colleagues here today do, as well. our constitutional duty of advice and consent is imperative and should not be taken lightly. and i plan not to take it lightly, as well. in closing, i look forward to a thorough and fair examination of miss kagan's record of miss kagan's record, and i want to thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member sessions for adjusting your schedules to allow senator kerry and i to come before you. thank you.

>> thank you very much, and you're the one -- i thank you both for being here, and i appreciate that and then the staff will re-set the table. if we can invite miss kagan back to the table. i would note that we come now to really the beginning what is for all senators one of the most important and most cherished part of our duties, the advice and consent. i stated at the beginning of this hearing there's only one person who could nominate someone to the supreme court and that person will affect 300 million americans, but only 100 of us get to vote.

that process will begin now. solicitor general, police please stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give in this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> thank you. please be seated. solicitor general kagan, i know you have an opening statement and now the floor is yours. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, senator sessions and members of the committee. i would like to thank senators kerry and brown for those generous introductions. i also want to thank the president again for nominating me to this position. i'm honored and humbled by his confidence. . let me also thank all the members of the committee as well

as many other senators for meeting with me in these last several weeks. i've discovered that they call these courtesy visits for a reason. each of you has been unfailingly gracious and considerate. i know that we gather here on a day of sorrow for all of you, for this body and for our nation with the passing of senator byrd. i did not know him personally as all of you did, but i certainly knew of his great love for this institution, his faithful service to the people of his state and his abiding reverence for our constitution, a copy of which he carried with him every day. a moving reminder to each of us who serves in government of the ideals we must seek to fulfill. all of you and all of senator bird's family and friends are in

my thoughts and prayers at this time. i would like to begin by thanking my family, friends and students who are here with me today. i thank them for all the support they've given me during this process and throughout my life. it's really wonderful to have so many of them behind me. i said when the president nominated me that the two people missing were my parents, and i feel that deeply again today. my father was as generous and public spirited a person as i've ever known, and my mother sets a standard for determination, courage and commitment to learning. my parents lived the american dream. they grew up in immigrant

communities. my mother didn't speak a word of english until she went to school, but she became a legendary teacher and my father, a valued lawyer, and they taught me and my two brothers, both high school teachers, that this is the greatest of all countries because of the freedoms and opportunities it offers its people. i know that they would have felt that today, and i pray that they would have been proud of what they did in raising me and my brothe brothers. to be nominated to the supreme court is an honor of a lifetime. i'm only sorry that if confirmed i won't have the privilege of serving there with justice john pauu stephens. his integrity, humility and independence, his deep devotion to the court and his profound commitment to the rule of law,

all these qualities are models for everyone who wears or hopes to wear a judge's robe. if given this honor, i hope i will approach each case with his trademark care and consideration. that means listening to each party with a mind as open as his to learning and persuasion and striving as conscientiously as he has to render impartial justice. i owe a debt of gratitude to two other living justices. sandra day o'connor and ruth bader ginsburg paved the way for me and so many other women in my generation. their pioneering lives have created boundless possibilities for women in the law. i thank them for their inspiration, and also for the personal kindnesses they have

shown me and my heart goes out to justice ginsburg and her family today. everyone who ever met marty ginsburg was enriched by his incredible warmth and humor and generosity, and i'm deeply saddened by his passing. mr. chairman, in law school i had the good fortune to lead has a kind of motto spoken each year at graduation. we tell the new graduates that they are ready to enter a profession devoted to those wise restraints that make us free. that phrase has always captured for me the way law and the rule of law mattered. what the rule of law does is nothing less than to secure for each of us what our constitution calls the blessings of liberty,

those rights and freedoms, that promise of equality that have defined this nation since its founding and what the supreme court does is to safeguard the rule of law through a commitment tooeven handedness, principle and restraint. my first real exposure to the court came almost a quarter century ago when i began my clerkship with justice thurgood marshall. justice marshall reveered the court and for a simple reason. in his life, in his great struggle for racial justice, the supreme court stood as a part of government that was most open to every american and that most often fulfilled our constitution's promise of treating all persons with equal

respect, equal care and equal attention. the idea is engraved on the very face of the supreme court's building. equal justice under law. it means that everyone who comes before the court, regardless of wealth or power or station receives the same process and the same protections. what this commands of justice is even handedness and impartiality. what it promises is nothing less than a fair shake for every american. i've seen that promise up close during my tenure as solicitor general. in that job, i served as our government's chief lawyer before the supreme court arguing cases on issues ranging from campaign

finance to criminal law to national security, and i do mean argue. in no other place i know is the strength of a person's position so tested and the quality of a person's analysis so deeply probed. no matter who the lawyer or who the client, the court relentlessly hones in on the merits of every claim in its support of law and precedent, and because this is so, i always come away from my arguments at the court with a renewed appreciation of the commitment of each justice for reason and principle. a commitment that defines what it means to live in a nation under law. for these reasons the supreme court is a wondrous institution. the time i spent in the other

branches of government remind me that it must also be a modest one, properly deferential to the decisions of the american people and their elected representat e representativ representatives. what i most took away is simple admiration for the democratic process. that process is often messy and frustrating, but the people of this country have great wisdom and their representatives work hard to protect their interests. the supreme court, of course, has the responsiblility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals, but the court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the american people. i am grateful, i am grateful

beyond measure for the time i spent in public service, but the joy of my life has been to teach thousands of students about the law and to have had the sense to realize that they had much to teach me. i've let a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system, and what i've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. i've learned that we make progress by listening to each other across every apparent, political or ideological divide. i've learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every american and every issue with an open mind. and i've learned the value of a habit justice stephens wrote about of understanding before

disagreeing. i will make no pledges this week other than this one that if confirmed i will remember and abide by all these lessons. i will listen hard to every party before the court and to each of my colleagues. i will work hard, and i will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly with commitment to principle and in accordance with law. that is what i owe to the legacy i share with so many americans. my grandparents came to this country in search of a freer and better life for themselves and their families. they wanted to escape bigotry

and oppression, to worship as they pleased and work as hard as they were able. they found in this country and they passed on to their children and their children's children the blessings of liberty. those lessons are rooted in this country's constitution and its historic commitment to the rule of law. i know that to sit on our nation's highest court is to be a trustee of that inheritance, and if i have the honor to be confirmed, i will do all i can to help preserve it it for future generations. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, members of the committee. thank you, solicitor general kagan, and i thank all the members on both sides of the aisle who stayed and have been so attentive.

we will come back here at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. we are recessed. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> the confirmation hearings of supreme court elena kagan continue this morning with opening questions from the senate judiciary committee. that is on c-span 3 at 9:00 eastern.

you can find more information on the nomination to the supreme court on line at cspan.org /kagan. you can find real-time updates with explanations of legal terms, most of the documents, and schedule information. >> learn more about the nation's highest court from those who served on the bench. reed cspan's latest book, "the supreme court." it provides unique insight about the court now available in hardcover and also as an ebook. >> in a few moments, your phone calls and today's headlines live on "washington journal." the house will be in session for general speeches at 9:30. they will hav