>> our guest on washington journal is eugene stererle. the former commerce secretary frank lavin joins us. then a series on election politics continues. we will speak with speaktracey look at some political ads. washington journal takes your calls and e-mail/every morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. . .

they don't have time for political games. they shouldn't have to wait any longer. in fact, just this morning, a story showed that small businesses have put hiring and expanding on hold while waiting for the senate to act on this bill. simply put, holding this bill hostage is directly detrimental to our economic growth. so i ask senate republicans to drop the blockade. i know we are entering election season, but the people who sent us here expect us to work together to get things done and improve this economy. no single step is a silver bullet that will reverse the damage done by the bubble and bust cycles that caused our economy into this slide. it's going to take a full scale

effort, a full scale attack to help build a firmer foundation that makes our nation stronger for the long haul. this benefits our small businesses owners and our economy right away. that is why it has to get done. if we rise to the politics of the moment, i am absolutely confident that we will meet them. i've got confidence in the american economy. and most importantly, i've got confidence in the american people. we just have to start working together to get this done. thank you very much.

>> president obama was address the nation tomorrow night about the withdrawal of combat troops from iraq. we will have live coverage from the oval office at 8:00 eastern p.m. following the president's remarks, we'll take your phone calls. >> now, remarks from republican virginia governor bob mcdonald and dick morris. this event from the americans for pro's sparet foundation is about 90 minutes. >> i want to welcome you to the americans for prosperity fourth annual defend the dream summit.

all of you from all walks of united by a desire, a desire to protect our freedoms by turning our great nation in a different direction. and that's exactly what we are going to do. [cheers and applause] you know, maybe it's just a coincidence. i don't know. i will let you decide. but president obama heard you guys were coming to washington today. [laughter] he heard that a few hundred thousand of his closest friends were coming to see a guy named glen beck tomorrow. [cheers and applause] again, i'm sure it's a coincidence, but the president decided it was time for another vacation. it was time to get out of washington. so congratulations, you're already making a difference for our nation. [cheers and applause] well, for the last two years

we've seen this president and this congress under nancy pelosi and harry reid. they have ignored us while pursuing a radical, big government, big-spending, washington bureaucrats know best agenda. and we've seen what they have done. they have piled on debt. they have run of record deficits. they have passed job-killing, freedom crushing legislation like this health care takeover. they had their say. they have ignored us and you, and they have had their say. guess what? in about 64 days the american people get their say, don't they? you bet they do. [cheers and applause] >> and i will tell you, this is not a partisan statement because it applies to politicians in both parties who voted for big government, big spending and more of the same. i don't often quote donald trump, but every once in a while the donald gets it right. i am not going to try and do an

impression of him, but i thinker going to look at these politicians and say you're fired. and what a record this congress has. i want to take just a moment, because it's important for us to be reminded of what this congress has done on the policies. forget the personalities, on the policies. first, the first thing they did, remember back in january of 2009? i know it is painful but take a trip down memory lane. remember the first big bill? call it out. the stimulus bill, an 862 billion dollar boondoggle. affs a political payoff of the highest order. we launched events across the country. you spoke out. in many ways that was the match that lit the tea party revolt.

the very first thing that came out of this congress. that stimulus bill is going to cost every american family almost $10,000. just that stimulus bill. it wasted money on pet projects across the country. it piled up more debt. it jacked up government to make it even bigger. and here's tragic part. while those politicians played political pay-out games, we lost 2.7 million private sector jobs. that is families that are hurting. that is people who deserve better from their politicians and not getting it. and speaking of this, and sometimes the vice president is merely a comical figure. it is embarrassing and also comical to hear uncle gentlemen talk sometimes. this vice president actually said to "time" magazine this weekend. and i want us to understand how out of touch the left is.

with 2.7 million job losses during their failed stimulus bill, with all of the waste, fraud and abuse which is now being exposed to the public, some of those in our tv ads, and i hope you have seen the ads calling the guys on the stimulus bad. after all that, vice president speaking on his stimulus bill said this to "time" magazine. now this is where the fun starts. that is how out of touch he is. unemployment claims are on the rise. you saw the numbers. 500,000. unemployment is staying high. people are hurting. and these guys with their political payoffs and big spending bills are talking about this is where the fun starts. mr. vice president, with all due respect, i think the fun is going to start this november, and it is going to go well beyond november as well. [cheers and applause]

at americans for prosperity, we are proud to be hosting the spending revolt bus tour that is rolling across our nation. our mission is really simple. let's make sure that americans know how their prosperity, their jobs, their way of life are threatened by this out of control government spending in washington, d.c. earlier this week i traveled with our bus across the great state of wisconsin. any people from wisconsin here tonight? [cheers and applause] >> i have teenagers. i know it is crisis management 101. but i've got teenagers, and we have 16-year-old twins. we were in hudson, wisconsin, at a great event the other night. i called one of my twins up whose name is hudson, and i said we were just in hudson, wisconsin, and with some self absorption that comes with teenagers, he said, "huh, about time someone named a town after

me." i had a guy walk up to me, a dairy farmer. he said, "you know, literally, half of my time is spent trying to figure out how to comply with these regulations, with this new bureaucratic red tape piled on me. i have 75 cows that i have to milk every day. they don't go on vacation." that is a family farmer burning half of his time, not earning a living. he is trying to keep up with the government out of washington in madison, wisconsin. that is not the way it is supposed to be. he said in december the death tax comes back. i have a family farm. i am not a rich guy. he wasn't some rich guy they want to make fun of and attack. it is going to go back up to 55% for me at the end of this

year. he turned to his son who was about 12 or 13 years old. i want to give the farm to him. we have earned the right to do that. i can't do that at 55%. that is what is at stake, folks. it is not about politics or personalities. it's about real americans paying a price for the agenda coming from the left. and we are not just going to stop it. we are going to roll it back and take it our way. that is what this is about. [cheers and applause] you know, we've got another effort that we are calling november is coming. i like the sound of that. and we just want to make sure that as citizens think about this november and beyond, that they send a message to their elected efficiency. here it is. and this is very clear from our november is coming effort. if you as a politician continue voting yes to more spending, yes to more government, yes to more job-killing regulations,

yes to more taxes, then the citizens are saying you do that, you vote yes to that agenda, we are going to vote no to you in november. that is simply what november is coming is about. [applause] and that is what it is about. and i just want to tell you this. there is a lot of talk from the left. at a.p.f. you heard the president come out and attack us. stay tuned at dinner for that. we are going to have some fun with that. stay tuned. i will hold my tongue until tonight. then we will loosen up a little bit at the tribute to reagan dinner. when he comes out and does that -- i want to be clear. i mentioned this earlier, but it is worth reeting. there should be no misunderstanding here. the efforts for the americans for prosperity and this movement, i think i speak for you. it is not about any one election or political party. it's about freedom.

it's about a new direction and our economic freedom. that is what this effort is about. [cheers and applause] and no matter who wins in november in the senate, the house, the state legislature, the governors, all that stuff in november -- and listen, folks should get out and vote, and we are working to educate the people as well. but let's make sure that we, without any hesitation on january 1 of 2011, are there. and let's make sure we hold whoever wins accountable from day one. president reagan liked to say trust but verify. i say forget trust. let's just verify every cotton-picking thing. what do you think about that? let's just verify everything. when it comes to politicians, i'm not in a very trusting mood these days, very much so. and one last thing. when we say verification and

holding accountable, here is what we mean at americans for prosperity. we are not going to tinker jecks january -- we are not going to demand votes on the health care takeover or making it bet. it is impossible. we are going to demand and hold these guys accountable for a full repeal of the obama-pelosi health care. [cheers and applause] a repeal of it, you bet. [cheers and applause] and if that fails, we are then going to turn around and go that's fine. we are going to demand votes on breaking out chunks of this. it creates over a hundred new federal agencies, bureaucracies and things. we are going to demand funding

votes on every single part of that legislation. [cheers and applause] then we are going to say this. no more bailouts for anyone or any group, period. no more bailouts. [cheers and applause] it was embarrassing to see the congress, the house of representatives come back from their much-earned august recess. they have worked so hard. they really needed that. i am sure they were exhausted from their multiple linebackers. it was embarrassing and frustrating to see them come back to spend another $26 billion, this time for a bailout of their public employee union friends in some of their states. we are going to say next year we are holding you accountable, no matter who is in power, no more bailouts. the left is attacking us

attacking you. i have quoted two interesting people, one was donald trump and ronald reagan. one was by ghandi. i think it says about where we are as a movement. ghandi was fighting his own freedom fight against the british rule of his country of india, and he said this about their effort. first they ignore you. then they ridicule you. then they attack you. and then you win. [cheers and applause] does that pattern sound familiar to you? does it sound familiar? [cheers and applause] first they ignored us. it was like we were the invisible man and woman at the cocktail party. people could bump into us, and

they wouldn't even say hello. we did rallies, events, bus tours and tea parties. nothing happening. i don't see anything. i don't see that. then that didn't work. you kept getting stronger. the movement kept getting larger and bigger. then the ridiculing game. corporate fund groups, astroturf. they are not real. the ridicule began. but you didn't quit to you? we don't quit when we face a challenge. we fight. this movement kept getting bigger, and that is when the attacks began in earnest, right? >> yes. >> all of this, the vicious biggetted attacks, and the racial attacks, and the personal attacks and saying things that really have no place in the civil discourse that is our american representative democracy. we have paid a price for this, but we are persevering, and we

are getting stronger. now if we keep fighting, we win. it is as simple as that. we will win. we are winning. [applause] so take heart. and i know you are. and i want to thank you for coming here to washington, d.c. i want to thank you for taking the stand you are taking. i know you have traveled long roads, long flights from across the country. i talked to a guy from oregon. i saw a bus load of north carolina people getting off the bus. where are they? right over here. i saw them getting off. this little lady from arkansas. i know there are some arkansas folks here -- her. she showed me your i am a.f.p. that was great. we are going to take back washington for the next two

days and our country. thank you guys very much! ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome fox news commentator dick more is. ♪ >> thank you. i love you. you know, some people think i work for a certain tv station.

[laughter] the fact of the matter is i feel like i work for radio free europe. [laughter] trying to get that message out. moskow, there are certain ground rules that we have to observe here. so i'm going to go through a new of the terms i am going to use in the speech, and i am going to let you silently figure out who i'm talking about. i will refer to the big spenders in washington. i will refer to the head of the big spenders in washington. and i will refer to his female enforcer. [laughter] and then i will refer to those who oppose big spending in washington. and i want you to figure out who i mean, because i can't get any more specific than that. first i just want to tell you a

true story that really typifies where we are at as a country right now. when winston churchill was prime minister of britain and won the war, he lost the election right after that, was thrown out of that. the socialist labor party leader became the prime minister. and atley walked into the men's room in the commons, and churchill was at a urinal. he moved three down. he said shy winston? and churchill said no, not bashful at all. whenever you see anything that is big and impressive, you nationalize it. [laughter]

a guy can't be too careful. now, we have had the recession. the recession is over. it is the cure to the recession that we are now experiencing. we've survived the disease, but we are succumbing to the cure. when barack -- i'm sorry. [laughter] when the leader of the big spenders in washington says that he's going to solve our economic problems by increasing spending, increasing borrowing, increasing the debt and increasing the deficit, it reminds me of the middle ages

when they used to say to a patient you have evil spirits inside you, and we have to let those evil spirits out, so we are going to remove half your blood. when they got sicker, they said there are still more evil spirits in there, we have to take more blood. then when he died, they would say see, i told you he had evil spirits in there all along. so when barack obama -- did i say that name? when barack obama says to america have a great recovery, have a wonderful recovery. i hope that you turn things around. but don't spend any money. don't buy anything. don't buy a flat screen tv or a car. don't get a house. because i am going to come next year with taxing increases that will curl your hair. you're going to find your taxes

rising up to 40%. then on top of that i am going to impose a 4% america tax that is going to be on top of the capital gains tax. i am going to raise the capital gains tax and the inheritance tax, a millionaire surcharge. i am going to eliminate the max number on social security taxes so your whole income gets taxed. sometimes with a stimulus package in chicago, getting fattened up for the slaughter because of what he is planning to take back in tax increases. i remember when we sat with president clinton in the oval offices, we talked about balancing the budget to solve our problems. he would have a pad of paper on

his lap, and he would write a federal budget with all the spending cuts. he had a photographic memory. that photographic memory only related to his public life. in his private life he was a borderline am niece yack. [laughter] i remember once i was on the phone with betsy wright, his chief of staff. he said my roommate went in to see president clinton. he said these things are ridiculous. i don't act like that. i don't know half of these women. the roommate came back to betsy, and she said i think he forgot that we slept together. but those spending cuts that

bill clinton, newt gingrich and trent lott imposed, had very little to do wit balancing the budget. they were going to balance the budget by 2005. we balanced the budget in 18 months by cutting taxes. when we cut that capital gains tax, the revenues came in so rapidly, we had to revise our projections each week, and we balanced the budgets by 1998. and now obama is raising the capital gains tax. that is going to retard recovery and make it impossible for the economy to recover. it will make it impossible to bring anything into balance. you depress the economy, you stop economic growth. you increase entitlements, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and medicaid, and welfare, and the increases in entitlements

overed shadows any cut in spending that you might prescribe. so obama says have a nice recovery but don't spend any money. and if you are in the medical industry, don't create any new jobs there because i am going to come down on you like a ton of bricks with new regulations when i take over the health care industry. and if you're in the manufacturing sector, 9% of our economy, don't you create any new jobs either, because i'm going to hit you with a dramatic cap and trade legislation that is going to so raise the cost of production, you're going to be forced to go overseas. so you don't want to create any jobs while you are waiting for that shoe to drop on youred head. and if you in the energy industry, don't you create any new jobs because i am going to try to put cole -- coal out of

business, i am going to tax crude oil. i am going to do everything i can to retard domestic fossil fuel production. and if you are in banking industry, don't make any loans to create jobs. because if you fail to have your loans repaid and engage in risky ventures like creating jobs, or creating the new apple computer. if you fund them and they don't pay it all back, the financial regulation bill gives me the right to take over your bank, fire you, fire your board, fire your management, wipe out the shareholders' equity, which is where your pension is, and sell off units of your bank. so don't you make any risky loans. but other than that, folks, have a nice recovery. so it is the cure that we are suffering from. [applause]

and what obama does is he and the big spenders in washington use the economic crisis as an excuse to increase government spending. they use the uninsured as an excuse to take over health care. they use climate change as an excuse to regulate the manufacturing industry. they use the financial difficulties on wall street as an excuse to take over the banking industry. they use the failure of g.m. as an excuse to take over the auto movie -- automotive industry. it is the means, the medicine they are applying. that is what he wants to do. now, i believe that the forces that apose big spending are going to win majorities in both houses of congress in this election. [cheers and applause]

>> who oppose big spending are going to take the senate seat? delaware, indiana and north dakota. and they are going to throw out that big spender in arkansas. [cheers and applause] and they are going to throw out that big spender in colorado. [cheers and applause] and they are going to throw out that big spender from nevada. [cheers and applause] i hope you guys liked my angle. they are going to throw out the big spender from california and from washington. [cheers and applause]

and the big spender in wisconsin, he has been looking for a safe district, but he can't find one outside of caracas and havana. we are going to beat him, too. and we are going to win those open seats in illinois and pennsylvania. and we are not going to stop there. the big spenders from oregon and new york, and connecticut, who think they are safe, i've got a message for you. november is coming. [cheers and applause] and i believe 60 or 80 big spenders in washington are going to be sending change of address forms to the postseason -- post office. and when i say november is coming, i feel like john the

baptist. but i've got to tell you something. it is too dam late to repent. [applause] [applause] now, when we who oppose big spending take back congress, both houses, we are going to face two fundamental challenges , and that is your real work. that's when your real work starts. we have got to make sure that the people we elect saying they won't spend more money and saying they won't raise our taxes keep their word. [applause] as i look out on the tables here, i see a bunch of bottles of water. don't drink the water here. makes you do weird things. [laughter]

just stay with that bottled water. and the first thing is going to be that the states are going to come begging to washington for a bailout, and we are going to say no. we are going to say hell, no. you made this problem, you created it, you go solve it for yourself. and then these big-spending states will find that they are running out of money, and the bond community will not lend them any more money because they know that they can't get paid back. and what is going to happen then is like greece coming to the i.m.s. they will come to washington and say guarantee our debt. but this time we are going to say something a little different. we are going to say to them,

"we will create a procedure to declare bankruptcy at the state level, but you will only be able to get the protection of bankruptcy if you agree to annul, aggregate, forfeit and eliminate your contractual obligations to the municipal and state employee unions." [cheers and applause] goodbye, n.e.a., goodbye seiu, goodbye d.c. 37, hello sovereignty of the states and of the people. [cheers and applause] and that will be our warm up act.

the next big fight is going to come after that when everybody in the universe says we have to bring down the deficit. ronald reagan ran a deficit so he could force liberals to stop spending money. barack obama runs a deficit so he can force conservatives to vote for higher taxes. are we going to do that? no! and hell, no! and we've got to make sure that we elect congressmen and senators who can stand up to that pressure and say no. for when the bond market says you gotta, and the fed says you gotta, and the noble laurts say you gotta, and the european and china and japan say you gotta, they say no. what is at stake here is not some extra bucks in our

wallets, it is whether we lock in the spending that obama did. he raise the the percentage controlled by the government from 30% to 40%. the only solution is bring the 40% down to the 30%, and not raise the taxes up to the 40%. if you have an elephant in the middle of your living room, you can't do business. but i malign the species. if you have a jackass in the middle of your living room, you can't do business. so, it's going to be same time next year guys and women. same time next year. we are going to be back here, and we are going to be pressuring the people who we helped elect to oppose big spending, and we will be telling them you do not tread on us. [cheers and applause]

now there's going to be a government shut-down, just like in 1995 and 1996. but we are going to win it this time, and i will be fighting on your side. thank you. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome americans for prosperity, north carolina state director, ladies and gentlemen, dallas woodhouse. ♪ >> whoo! how are we doing out there? man y'all are one good-looking crowd. now i know we've got about 2,500 people here, but i have to do one shout-out to about

500 north carolina people that are with me here today. [cheers and applause] and let me say a special thank-you to our good friends from florida, georgia and michigan, and everybody that crammed on buses in the middle of the night from all across this country to join us. if you got on a plane, a train, an automobile or a bus, we are so glad to have you, because we are going to make a difference, aren't we? [applause] >> now i am a lucky guy because i get a chance to speak on behalf of state directors. we have 31 state chapters now, and we have great state directors. the important thing you need to remember is we get up every day, and we are dedicated not only to the principles of limited government and free markets, but we owe our jobs and responsibilities to you.

we work for you. [applause] now, i've got to tell you. you do a lot of things as a state director, you say a lot of things, and sometimes you get it wrong. i am going to tell you about once i got it wrong, and my friends from north carolina need to write it down and tell my wife that i said it. back during the health care debate, we did the bus tours, and we went out and talked, and i gave these speeches, and i really believed it. that this health care bill, that it won't help one sick person, that it wouldn't save one person's life. i was wrong. because we brought people up here. did anybody come with us the day we did the last stand for health care on capitol hill where we came out and made a last stand? well, on that day we had an accident. we had an activist that fell on the capitol steps and cut his eye. we took him down the road to

george washington hospital, where they checked out his eye. turns out his eye was ok, but great hospital, they gave him an mir and a cat scan, and they found a brain mass unrelated to his fall. it was a pretty serious situation. so we took care of him. we got him home to north carolina. he went to his doctor. he is being treated, and he is in good shape. so the real fact is that there is one person out there who is alive today because he happened to come to washington to fight obamacare and happened to slip on the steps. [applause] now, as state directors, we do some crazy things. we load up buses in the middle of the night, and we do these bus tours. you all know about our november coming bus tour? tim talked about our spending revolt bus tour. we have to find places to take

them and bus stops. i am in a park in north carolina, and i think this is a perfect stop, a great place to do this. i step into the biggest nastiest wicket of fire ants you have ever seen. my understanding is if you are from the northeast, you don't know what fire ants on. they are nasty stinging little bugs, they get all on you, and they hurt and itch. i am thinking that fire ants is very much like liberals. [laughter] you see, fire ants bury themselves in the sand. they don't produce anything. they provide nothing worthwhile and simply come out and sting those of us who do. [cheers and applause]

now, i'm an old north carolina boy, but i don't think i am different than a lot of americans. you ain't going to sting me but once. ok? so i'm going to tell you. we are going to do that bus stop in that park. but before we do it, we are going to take a bunch of bags of fire ant poison, and we are going to wipe them out. i have the thing for these people, and i am staring right at them. we are going to do it with you. last year i asked you to help me do something. i asked you to help me sign up friend for americans for prosperity. does anybody remember that from last year? well, that is not going to be good enough this year. i need you to do more. if you go to novemberis-coming.com, we have a project to ream out and talk

to folks about issues. the first way to do that is home call. i need everyone in this room to promise me they will go register 10 people on novemberis-coming.com and get them to the polls. can everybody in here do that for me? [applause] now, on novemberis-coming.com, you can also sign up to go walk neighborhoods, talk to your neighbors and help educate them about the issues. now i need you to promise me. we are here to make a difference. but can you go back home to missouri, california, north carolina, find 10 people to sign up to november--- novemberiscoming.com to hem them walk the polls and talk to

neighbors? and the last thing is i need you to help identify 10 conservatives and get them to the polls on election day. can you do that for me? does everybody promise me to get 10 people to call from home, 10 people to walk neighborhoods and 10 people to the polls on election day. can you do that? i am going to leave you with one final thought, something you have already heard the president say and something you're going to hear a lot of people say sort of on our opposite side going into these elections. they are going to say well, we can't go back. ladies and gentlemen, i am ready to go back. i'm ready to go back to the time when the health care decisions were made by me and my doctor, not by a bureaucrat in washington. [cheers and applause] i am ready to go back to a time when elected officials worked for me, not worked me over.

[cheers and applause] i am ready to go back to the time when i did not have members of congress trying on purpose to raise my gasoline and raise my electricity prices. please take me back. please help me go back. put me on the express train. buy me a direct flight. i don't even have to pass go because i know obama already took the $200. please go back. help me. sign up at novemberiscoming.com so we can go back to a more prosperous future? can do you that? you can put out the liberal fire ants every day from now and november. it's a challenge for every one of us. if we do our job, work hard and talk to our neighbors, we can go back to a more prosperous future where we didn't the right of every individual to

have economic freedom and liberty. god bless you and thank you for being here. >> ladies and gentlemen, the following video is brought to you by our co-sponsor, americans for prosperity. ♪ >> take it away. ♪ ♪

[cheers and applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome americans for pro's sparet foundation board member, art polk. >> thank you. americans for prosperity is the leading grassroots organization in america, and it is the leading organization because of you here in this room here today. your family, friend and fellow citizens back home. we thank you. thank you. [applause] now, americans for prosperity is nonpartisan. it does not and will not

endorse candidates. americans for prosperity does educate the public, the people of this great nation on the public policies that succeed in defending the american dream. it will ensure prosperity for future generations. americans for prosperity believe that limiting constitutional government that respects and relies on your individual freedom are the most accessible and just policies that will ensure that prosperity. now, critics from the left, including the old string mainstream news media disagree. they don't think conservative policies, limited government, they don't think you can govern yourselves. they will say well, conservatives can win elections now and then, but they cannot govern. well, history has shown them wrong. the history of the presidency of ronald reagan has shown them wrong. cheer -- [cheers and applause]

and now, current history in the making by governor bob mcdonald of virginia is showing them wrong. [cheers and applause] you may recall in 2008 candidate barack obama carried the state of virginia by seven percentage points. just one year later, bob mcdonald, a conservative candidate for governor, ran a disciplined campaign and represented lead the republican party for a sweep of all three state offices, receiving 59% of the votes, the most by any candidate for the govenor of virginia. [applause] now you may recall that the "washington post" said that bob mcdonald was too conservative and he could not govern. and indeed, following his inauguration, governor mcdonald was immediately met with an

historic budget shortfall, $1.8 billion left by the prior administration, and an expected deficit of $4.2 billion. that is a major challenge for a state the size of virginia. however, governor mcdonald by holding in line -- the line on discretionary spending be and working with state employees to save your dollars, he was able to turn a $1.8 billion deficit in 2010 into a $400 million surplus. [cheers and applause] virginia is one of the few -- one of the only states that had a surplus this past year, and

gosh how we wish we could have that at the national level. the second shortfall was expected to be $4.2 billion. his predecessor, tim cane, proposed -- guess what? a $2 billion tax increase to deal with that budget deficit. this would have been the largest single tax increase in the history of virginia. governor monthly immediately took tax increases off the table and brought democrat and republican legislators together by balancing the budget and cutting spending and not by raising taxes. [applause] now governor mcdonald's conservative policies and reforms did not stop with budget and taxes. he has been a leading appropriate for education reform, leading the way for opening more charter scoors.

he established reform. he has passed an aggressive economic development pradge to attract new jobs and provide new incentives for investment in via. since february, virginia has added the second highest number of jobs of any state, trailing on texas. adding new jobs. [applause] in august virginia was named the most pro business state in america. [applause] now i must questions i have a major problem with governor mcdonald. i'm from north carolina. [laughter] he is taking jobs away from us. he is showing how to balance the budget, leaving north carolina and its current administration in the dust. what we need is more bob mcdonalds and his conservative

effective policies around the nation. [cheers and applause] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome governor bob mcdonald. ♪ [cheers and applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. what a terrific americans for prosperity welcome. boy, is it great to be back with 2,500 freedom and prosperity loving americans. thank you for coming to washington, d.c. to celebrate. and thank you to art pope, great board member. it sure is good to have a pope on the board of directors. as a practicing catholic, i really appreciate that. [laughter] i also want to thank all the

other leaders that are here from americans for prosperity. it is gate to see friends like david coke, visionary leader of this organization. what a terrific job he has done over the last six years. from a vision in your mind in a new york apartment to 32 state chapters, over 1.2 million people, david that is great work. thanks for your great leadership. [applause] i also want to say it is great to see freda levi, and rich fink, and my friend, tim phillips for his work. every time i see him, he is on fox news with a sign that says no new taxes. glad all the hot air is above you and not in you. i want to thank all of you for being members and leaders in america's premier grassroots limited government, low-tax

organization. i appreciate your effort. it takes that kind of effort in order to make america a better nation. i knew i would see a lot of friends. i was disappointed i wouldn't see my friends keith obama man and rachel maddow. i watched her for 15 minutes the other night. she trashed tim phillips and i, and i had to go back to fox news. couldn't help it. i understand there might be a few vearns virginians here. is that right? >> yes. >> i am so delighted that virginia was one of the first chapters in america. and now having 35,000 members today, over 500 of them are here, coming across the river.

i am proud of what virginians have done. virginia has played a fundamental role for the last 403 years since that cross was planted at cape henry at virginia beach in 1607. we hope we are still playing a privatal role here today about what is important in the united states. think of the visionary leaders, our first president, george washington, who understood the limits of power and rightly turned down another term of president. they wanted to make him king, but he said no, that is just what we fought against. patrick henry understood that freedom was so precious that he would sacrifice his very life. the second governor of virginia, thomas jefferson, who said a wise and frugal government is the object by which we should try to attain and that government should not take from the mouth of labor

the bread that is earned. that is the legacy of virginia. [applause] so, it is probably not surprising to you -- and by the way for you virginians, thanks for hiring me. i have five kids. i really needed that job. i appreciate that. and i hope we have done a couple of things that show you conservatives can win and can govern. [cheers and applause]

>> thank you to all of you for being here. before we begin, i will do the movie reminder. please turn off or silence all of your cell phones. thank you. i would like to double our co- sponsor -- thank are co-sponsor in this -- the colorado campaign for inclusive excellence. we have been working in colorado and nationwide.

i would like to thank the many people who made this possible, especially our associate dean and the event planners. thank you to all of you who made this happen. [applause] if you ever doubt whether strong intellect, hard work, and good, old-fashioned human decency can carry you to the top of the competitive and prestigious professions, you need look no further for inspiration than justice sonia sotomayor. she grew up in the bronx public housing process -- project. she attended high school, then princeton and yale law school's on full scholarships. -- schools on full scholarships.

she excelled in high school debate. for those of you who served on various law reviews -- you have heard my pitch on the benefits of this -- justice sotomayor was an editor on the yale law journal. she served as district attorney in the new york city -- district office. she did commercial litigation in new york, first as an associate, then as a partner. in 1991, president george h. w. bush appointed her to the u.s. district court to the southern district of new york, and then in 1998, president bill clinton elevated her to the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit. in 2009, president barack obama appointed her as associate justice of the u.s. supreme court. a telling insight about the

justice comes from one of her former clerks who came to speak to us yesterday. the clerk pointed out that the justice loves kids of all ages. she sees in them all that is possible and all that is great about us. that is why she is here -- to inspire all of us. please join me in welcoming toast it -- a welcoming justice sotomayor -- in welcoming justice sotomayor. [applause] >so, thank you. let me tell you a little bit about the format. we will begin with questions from five denver-area student leaders at the center microphone. after their questions have been answered, we will open the floor to questions from all students.

to make sure we get a good cross-section of studio audiences, we have divided the floor into blue, green, pink, and yellow. alternate from section -- we will alternate between the sections until the hour is up. our students will make sure each section can get to the microphone. sarah will keep us on track. i will now turn the floor over to our first question. thank you again, justice sotomayor. [applause] >> can i just say thank you to the dene and everyone else who worked on putting this wonderful event together -- dean and everyone else who worked on putting this wonderful event together? and do all of you who are here

-- you touched my heart in a deep and profound way. i thank you for taking the time to share this moment with me. i wish you could stand here in my shoes for a few minutes and look out. it is an absolutely are inspiring feeling he -- awe- inspiring feeling to be standing up here and having you looking up at me. it is a little strange. the whole year for me has been filled with strangeness, but a nice strangeness. each moment has had a measure of magic that i could not repeat that any other moment. thank you for coming today. anyway, let's start with the first question. if you cannot hear me, tell me. i am usually loud enough. my friends do not complain. [laughter] >> good afternoon, justice sotomayor.

my question is, how was life different living from the bronx to princeton university? >> the first week i was in princeton, i spent virtually every night looking for the cricket who was making noise in my room. [laughter] the only cricket i had ever seen was in a cartoon about "jiminy cricket." i knew it had long legs and made bad boys. i took that route apart every single night. -- room apart every single night. on the weekend, one of my friends came to visit me. i told him about the credit. he started to laugh. he told me, it is not in the room. it is on the three outside the window. i had never -- on the tree

outside the window. i had never had a tree outside my window. i felt like i was in an alien land. that is how often described it. it was totally different from anything i had ever experienced. first of all, i do not know if you have seen pictures of princeton. if you have not come and go on the internet and look. it is made up of gothic -- collegiate gothic architecture. it is like it is out of a storybook. there is grass everywhere, trees everywhere, big, beautiful buildings. you almost feel like you're somewhere in europe, walking through four or five centuries ago of history. the people who are there are so different from me. they were from different parts of the country, many from across the world. many of them had experiences

that i had only heard about. they took spring vacations in the bahamas, in europe, and they had read books that i had never even heard of. "ulysses." i have not heard about that when i was in high school. i started to read it and i almost fell asleep. the public is that i was different. i came -- the poll -- the point is that i was different. it took a lot of work to make a life for myself in that environment. did i feel completely apart of princeton when i had left? i had mastered princeton by all traditional criteria. you may know that i graduated pretty high in my class and

received a very prestigious honor their. i had done everything that was expected of a person going to a place like princeton. did i ever feel completely comfortable? do you ever? when you are that different? i am on the supreme court today. i am one of nine extraordinary people. i did not include myself in 993 the other eight are just brilliant. every morning i get up -- in i that nine. that nine. -- i do not include myself in that nine. that nine. the other eight are just brilliant. every morning i get up and know that i can just keep meeting every challenge. eventually, i will become comfortable enough to say, even if i am a little bit different,

it is ok. i guess that is where i am now. it is ok. thanks. [applause] >> they know? ok. >> i am a freshman year at the university of denver. in high school, i was on the the 18 -- debate team. i was curious about your experience with debate in high school and how that impacted your education and how it impacted your eventual nomination to the supreme court. >> i do not know how your debate competition goes on. when i was in high school, we would show up at a local college somewhere -- not so local.

once we traveled to buffalo, got snowed in, and decided i would never go north for college. and i did not. you went into a big room. you were paired into teams. you were handed the topic and the side that you had to argue. you had 15 minutes to organize your thoughts and then the debate started. that exercise probably assisted me in every stage of my professional life as a lawyer. the moment, as a lawyer -- even as a person in almost any profession, that you can see both sides of an issue, that you can muster the best arguments on either side, and come to a

resolution as a debater or a lawyer or a judge, in terms of making a choice after knowing what all of the arguments are, and understanding them, then you feel that you are making a right decision. there is rarely are right or there is rarely are right or wrong answer -- a right or wrong answer. what -- people wonder why the law is not clear. the law is clear. human behavior is not. that is what the law addresses. the activities, relationships of people. anytime you're dealing with that -- when you are applying that conduct to law, it is never quite black and white. as far as me as a judge goes, and my career, it has always

been, have understood all of the arguments on each side? have i fully appreciated what both sides are trying to say to me? and have by then come to a conclusion that i think is commanded by -- i then come to a conclusion that i think is commanded by the law? being on the debate team was the foundation of that learning for me. for all of you who are debaters, it is important, not just if you want to be a lawyer or judge or justice, but in all of your relationships. if you can deal with people by being passionate about your own views, but sensitive to what motivates other people, what their views are, why they think of it is important, you can improve your relationship with them. [applause]

>> good afternoon, justice sotomayor. thank you for coming to our school. i'm the president of the student bar association here. as a law student, i will ask a legal question. since miranda versus arizona was decided in 1966, a long line of decisions has eroded productions persons facing police interrogations' enjoy. -- protections persons facing police interrogations enjoy. there is a heavy burden to prove that someone has waived miranda. there is a warning that any statement can constitute an implied waiver of miranda rights. you wrote a passionate dissent. do you believe that a majority

of the court has expressed the view that the protections of miranda are essentially no longer necessary? in other words, are the purposes of miranda protection -- this is what the law school has done to me. [laughter] in other words, are the main purposes of the miranda protection -- to prevent coercive interrogation -- no longer something the court is concerned about? thank you very much. [applause] >> i am glad you recognize what law school did to you. [laughter] for all the young lawyers in this audience -- or young lawyers to be, when i start talking to my law clerks about legal research, the first thing i tell them to do is to explain the problem to me without using one word of legalese. i say to them -- because what

happens often to lawyers is, you start using legal terms and you forget what they mean. often, if you look at what the legal term means, it gives you a pretty clear answer to whatever question you are looking after. i am not accusing you of that. i am going to translate, i think, what your question meant. [laughter] for the students who did not read it. the court, in the case he mentioned, was faced with the question of whether or not a defendant who had remained silent for a number of hours during police interrogation -- whether he had waived his right to remain silent when a police officer came up to him and basically asked him whether he had asked god for forgiveness for the murder he had committed.

he shook his head yes. i am simplifying the tax greatly, but those are the essence -- the facts greatly, but that is the essence of it. did the defendant, after hours of not saying anything, when he spoke, waived his right to silence? what the majority basically held -- again i am simplifying things for this conversation -. it is always dangerous to do this. he should not take this as a complete explanation. you should always read it. for the purpose of your question, the majority held that, if the defendant knows of his rights, in this case, it was a clear finding by the below courts and that the defendant knew he had a right to remain silent.

if he speaks in the face of that silence, one could assume that he waived his rights. that is, in essence, what the majority said. i descended -- dissented on the prior that the court's cases had demanded that a waiver of the right remained silent -- a waiver of the right to remain silent had to be more explicit. a defendant had to say, yes, i'll waive. i want to talk with you. your silence was not proof of a waiver. there were cases that had said that in the history. do i think that the majority is revoking miranda? no. one of the most interesting things i was given by justice souter, whose seat i took on

souter, whose seat i took on the court -- in one of our first conversations, he said, this job will be eminently easier for you if you except that the people -- accept that the people you're working with our people of good faith. you may disagree with them, but each of them is doing what they think is right under the constitution and the law. you may think they are right about their conclusion, but if you did not ascribed evil motives to them -- do not ascribe evil motives to them, you will find that the disagreement is something you can engage in with passion and respect. what do i think? i think that i was right. [laughter]

i do think they were wrong. some people on the court joined me in saying they were wrong, but not -- it was not done out of an intent to undo miranda. they're holding was that the person who knows their right and chooses nevertheless to speak as made a statement. they believe that. this is a question of your perspective and what you think it works best in terms of your view of the constitution and its protections. [applause] >> hi. i am from denver south. >> what is that? high school, college? >> high school.

cultural issues such as immigration and religious tolerance often make it to the court. should the court considered the political culture of the nation in various decisions? >> one beauty of being a justice for life -- which all federal judges are -- is that we're charged with not considering the political views of the time. we're charged with looking at the constitution and what belongs command -- the law commands. it is difficult to answer that question in the abstract. there are situations in which a certain dangers -- searches and seizures, for example. we have to make a determination whether certain police conduct in searching either a person or

place is reasonable. how do we draw our conclusions on reasonableness? in part, by thinking about what the situation is. under what situation are the police officers doing the confronting? what are the experience is the society has had -- experiences the society has had in those kinds of confrontations? is it political? no. it is a societal situation that we take into account. there are other questions where it would be completely inappropriate for us to look at what the society's political reaction is because the constitution says you cannot. we do not permit laws that abridge freedom of speech. that is not an absolute law,

because there are restrictions to speech that we permit within certain circumstances and not in all. if you are a judge or justice in that situation, you have to be careful to put aside the political views and look at what the law commands you to look at in making your choice. with respect to the situations you are talking about -- religious freedom and immigration law -- i am sure some others did it will ask me my views on those. clearly, i cannot give them. first of all, i have not really examined the arizona law in detail. i have seen what you have seen in the newspapers. i have not read the arguments. i do not know what the other courts will do. i have not formed an opinion yet and i will not until i hear the case, the same with other

issues that involve religious tolerance. there is an important issue involved in these questions that all of you have to bear in mind. by the time the case comes to the court, it is because some dynamic in the society has had a confrontation. it means that interest groups in the society have done something either to create an law or to create a situation that is going to impact another group. that is why waiting for the courts to resolve these issues is not what all of you should be doing, whether you want to be lawyers or not. just to be good citizens -- we should all be actively involved in shaping laws that get past, it involves -- get passed,

involved in changing them when we do not agree with them. waiting for the court to do that is giving away your rights of citizenship. citizenship means participation in the development of our law, our society. for all of you here, there are big and important issues, critical to many communities. i do not know what the answer is. you, individually, may not know what the right answer is, but you have to work at finding it together. you have to work hard at either passing laws that you think to the right thing or changing those which you think to the wrong things. don't wait for the court. start the process much earlier than when the confrontation develops. [applause]

>> afternoon, justice sotomayor. i am a senior here. i am applying to law school to pursue a career as a corporate attorney. what challenges did you face as a corporate litigator, both in general and in terms of your ethnicity? thank you. >> i could give you pat answers. i will try to give you a more direct one. what i found when i moved into the corporate world was that my greatest problem was that i did not have access previously to people in places of power so that i could make the contacts to get the business that i needed to develop in my firm.

a complicated concept, isn't it? law firms are businesses. they need clients. how do people make clients? they usually make them from people they know. generally, not always, but often, the people you grow up with, the people that you go to camp with, the people that you do things with -- they are the people who become your business leaders -- to become business leaders working in corporate settings. through those relationships, they bring new business. when you come from a background like i do, where there was not that corporate familiarity, it becomes harder to make those inroads. obviously i develop some of my business from my contacts at princeton and yale. those and garments let me meet

those kinds of people. -- those environments let me meet those kinds of people. a lot of my friends in the law firm were -- had clients who were people they grew up with or were the parents of their friends from school. i developed my business the different way. you'll learn how to do that when you are challenged and cannot do it in the traditional way. i took the clients that the firm had and figured out what additional business i could develop with those clients. i took three of the firms bigger bigger clientsm's and i developed areas that they had not had with the firm previously. that is what got me the partnership. you have to be creative in meeting challenges. in terms of entering the corporate area, that was the biggest disadvantage i found. i know that i have spoken

previously to other student groups about writing. the biggest challenge that most students -- not just minorities, but frankly the entire population has --is an understanding that the persuasiveness of lawyering is not the argument you make in the court. getting up and talking to a judge -- it really does not matter how articulate or inarticulate you are. if you have a strong case and you have made a persuasive case in your papers, you are going to win. that is probably true about almost anything you do it as a professional. you persuade in your riding. -- in your writing. that is the task that every student has to spend most time on, in my mind, learning how to write tightly and concisely.

that takes a lot of effort. i've talked about what i did in college to improve my own riding. -- writing. i went to the biggest bookstore in new york and bought grammar books from first to 12th grade and spent the whole summer reading those books to teach myself how to write right. i still work at it. it is not natural for most people. it takes practice to do well. if i were going to talk about a second structural challenge to success, it would be improving my riding -- writing. [applause] >> thank you. the next question will come from

a student in the blue section. >> good afternoon, justice sotomayor. sotomayor. i'm a senior at abraham lincoln high school. it is an honor to ask you this question. in your remarks on may 2000 -- may, 2009, you said and the along the lines of, "are at -- our founding fathers have set of principles. times have changed, and so have the principles." what your beliefs about the words "all men are created equal" and calling illegal immigrants "aliens"? in what direction is immigration reform heading?

>> it was the declaration of independence which spoke about all men being equal. they did not mean all men, because they excluded blacks and excluded women. it was not all people are equal. obviously has changed. we have grown into a society borne ferom -- from brown versus board of education that it does mean all men. we have grown through legislative -- not constitutional -- actions -- most people do not recognize this. most of the change in equality for women came through legislative reform. the right to vote. the court followed with requiring equality of women in the workplace and in other

fields in other ways. it was not just the constitution. it was the law that opened the door for women. what will "all men are equal" begun to immigrants is a more complicated question because of the constitutional power over immigration that is given to congress and the president. a change in that area is likely to beat a little slower and -- be a little slower and require much more legislative action ben court action to b, top be frank. to the extent of the country is focused on this, it requires more meaningful conversation about that principle. what do we, as a country, want equality to me in this situation?

there is no clear answer in the constitution. we will find it more in its principles and in the country having a conversation about how it wants that issue to look. [applause] >> the next question will come from a student in the green section. >> i come from thomas jefferson high school where i am a senior. what gave you the motive to become -- to accomplish all the things that you have? >> i am the most stubborn person you can imagine. [laughter]

i really mean that. when i was little, my family used to talk about me being so hard-headed. i know how to work and compromise on issues between people. when it comes to me and doing things, i keep getting knocked down and i will just keep getting up. when i was 2 years old, i did not like eating. i used to bunch up my cheeks like this to shut them so my mom could not show the spoon in -- shove the spoon in. my mother would put her hands around my cheeks and forced it down my throat -- force it down my throat. we would do that for hours. [laughter] every time i did something that she thought i was wrong, she

would put me in one of the timeout corners and say, come out whenever you change your mind. i would sit there forever. she would have to give in to call me to dinner. these are not great qualities. [laughter] i can assure you she did not think so when i was little. there is an essence to the idea that every time you get knocked it down, you get up and try again. that is sometimes really hard to do. when you get embarrassed over failure -- that happens to me -- you get embarrassed and you want to walk away. there is nothing more degrading to yourself than when you feel you have been embarrassed.

and yet, getting up and saying, ok, how my going to not let this beat me? what do i have to do to make this work? try again. go a different way around it. that is what has helped me succeed. i do not often tell this story. when president clinton nominated me to the court of appeals, i was not certain i wanted to go. i loved being a district court judge. i was not sure i wanted to leave being a trial judge. a lot of people started putting up resistance to my appointment. [laughter] one day, i looked at a bunch of my friends and i said, why am i fighting so hard for a job i am not even sure i want? i answered my own question by

saying, if they had not fought so hard, i would have given up earlier. i could not let them beat me. as i said to you, that is hard to say to people. when you fail, it is just tough to try again. it is really worth it. you will eventually get through. [applause] >> thank you, your honor. now, a question from a student in the ping exception -- pink section. >> hi. i am and 8 greater -- an eighth grader. how did you feel when president obama nominated you to be judged on the supreme court? -- to be a

judge on the supreme court? >> let me tell you what happened that day. i got up at 6:00 in the morning to go to the white house. i was going to get ready to go meet the president and have him announce my nomination. as i walked into the room where we were going to meet the president, my whole family was there. they had been brought from florida and syracuse to the white house. we were sitting around. i was hugging and kissing everyone. the president and vice president walked in. from that moment till almost today, i have been living a fantasy. i have often said i keep waiting for someone to pinch me and wake

me up. i do not really want them to, but i keep imagine it is going to happen any moment now. when i walked from the back towards the podium, it was like my whole body started floating in space. there was sonia walking and talking and getting kissed by the vice president and the president. i was totally shocked. it is impossible to describe what a moment like that is. i heard the president talking about me, saying things i did not even know. [laughter] and it was the most exhilarating, the most incredible moment anyone could ever have.

the most special part of this whole process, for me, and i say this to you so that you go away from this experience with me today aspiring to reach a moment like that for yourselves. despite all of the wonderful things that had happened to me, perhaps the most terrific was perhaps the most terrific was watching my younger brother cry on television. [laughter] do you know why? i knew he loved me. i never knew he loved me so much. if you have a moment in your lives where you can share a special event with your family and look at them and look at the joy they are getting and the joy

they are feeling for you, it really is the most touching part of this experience. when i say watching my brother cry, what i mean is learning how deeply he loves me. i hope you have that opportunity to feel how much they love you. to feel how much they love you. [applause] >> next question. >> i am a senior at the contemporary learned academy. thank you for the wonderful opportunity that you have given us today.

the odds you have overcome our extraordinary. -- are extraordinary. what advice would you give to young people who feel they are being held back by their financial situation? thank you. >> i do not want to be flip, because i do not intend to. but i actually believe in getting into debt for education. for me, there is nothing more important long-term, then getting the best education that you can add whatever cost you -- at whatever cost you have to pay. that often means getting more loans than you think you can afford, and working more jobs than you think you can do, but i do not think there is an opener

to doors in this society greater than education. education open your eyes -- opens your eyes to the world and it lets you fly without a plane. it lets you experience the world in a very direct way, because it lets you think about things more deeply and more sensitively then you could on your own -- than you could on your own. it is about learning things you would not seek or experience in your everyday environment. you cannot let money hold you back. it means sacrifice. i actually started working when i was in high school, during my freshman year summer. i worked summers and all year

round. i worked for two years at two jobs, even on a full scholarship. i know it is hard and tough, but you just cannot let it get you down. you have to do a lot of research on looking for every financial assistance out there. i got a scholarship from the new york state rehabilitation society. ands a juvenile diabetic i did not know that i qualified. i applied and got it. who would have thunk? i didn't. i was researching every scholarship. i found out my local church had a scholarship, so i tried for it. was not big money.

it was small amounts that added up. that put me through college. [applause] >> good afternoon, your honor. i am a junior. i was wondering what was your main goal that you wanted to achieve by becoming a supreme court justice? what do you want to most influence? thank you. >> when i was being prepared for my senate hearings, one of the questions i was asked was, when i die, what is the legacy that i want people to talk about? that is the one preparation question that i had the most

difficulty with. i will explain why. i am one of nine. i cannot actually influenced the development of any area -- any specific area -- influence the development of any specific area unless i can convince others to interpret them in the way i think is right. to talk about a legacy in a particular area of law is not something i am equipped to do. so, if it is not a change in law, because we did not make it, we interpret and apply it, then what is the legacy i could leave as a supreme court justice? what i came to, in terms of

answering that for myself, was i hope that, at the end of my legacy, people will say to me that she was a justice that people understood and knew appreciated their problems, and that the decisions i reached were always based on a principle based in law. if i can be known as someone who respects law, then i can teach others and guide them into what is happeningif i can understands

they are involved in, i will have fulfilled my legacy. [applause] [applause] >> good afternoon. i am from the denver center for international studies. i am a jew near there. i am a jew near there. -- i'm a junior there. what is the biggest sacrifice what is the biggest sacrifice you have had to make in your life and why? >> this is getting more personal than you may want. [laughter] it was taking this job when i know that i am on the tail end of my mother's life. for those of you who are young

year, you probably cannot appreciate that. my mother's health is not perfect and i know that. she went into the hospital two days ago in florida. i am not there. i knew that the responsibilities of this work were likely to keep peace -- keep me from spending as much time with her as i would want during this stage of her life. that has been my biggest sacrifice. [applause] >> thank you, your honor. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon.

>> there is -- as i said to you earlier today, there is no black-and-white line. it is all very much a gray area. how much the courts will permit, but congress to go in terms of was that it passes, each a statute will raise a different set of questions and a different set of balancing. there is no clear answer to your question.

>> i go to palmer high school in colorado springs. i was wondering, in your use, did you experience agrees to profiling -- did you experience racial profiling? if so, how did you overcome that? >> not in the way that many others do. i have a white skin tone. that is really helpful to avoiding profiling. it is not likely -- i came over the border with a friend many

years ago and she was a mexican- american citizens from california and we were in the car together and they stopped our car and the only one the pullout was hurt. -- they pulled out was hurt. if that was because she was dark skin. -- as they pulled out was her. that was because she has dark skin. i have an understanding of what the larger society's expectations of me are. so, i have understood -- it was very painful on the court of appeals and on the supreme court nomination process >> thank you for your gracious

welcome to marry and me here in the ninth circuit here in hawaii. here in this room, where we continue the important tradition of the circuit conference. the circuit conference for its members, for the courts, the

judiciary, the legal profession, for the lawyers, for the academy, for the professors, is not an option. it is a necessity. it is a characteristic, the distinguishing mark of american life and american culture that we constantly learn and adapt and become more efficient, and this room has probably been the venue for hundreds of different conferences. people involved in every segment of our cultural and economic and social activity, learning how to do better. >> he said he was anxious to get

back to washington and get back to his responsibility for one reason, so he could learn more. we are at this conference to learn more. i see you in your elegant hawaii and a tire. waiin attire. tireless joe was a terrific attorney. juries loved him. when he tried cases and went to the appellate court, he wore no tie. he got a terrific, staggering verdict for his client, and the case was appealed to the supreme court of alabama. he argued the case in his usual attire. a few minutes later, they reversed the case and took away his verdict. a few weeks after that, he was going down the street in

montgomery and so the chief justice coming. he said good morning, chief justice. the chief justice said good morning, joe. tieless joe said chief justice, did you rule against the in that case because i did not wear a tie? the chief justice said no. tieless joe said, i am sorry to hear that. that would have been a better reason than the one you gave. [laughter] when the professor told us we had to learn more, he was summing up the purpose and the dynamic and the structure of this conference. the structure of this conference is designed to mirror the structure of the legal

profession. it includes members of the bench, members of the practicing bar, members of the legal academy. we take this for granted. we take for granted because it is part of the anglo-american tradition, that members of the bench in significant number come from the preeminent ranks of the practicing bar. judges are born at the bar. ssa, we just assume this is the natural order of things, but in most parts of the world, that is not so. in most parts of the world, there is a rigorous separation between bench, bar, and academy. each is more distant from the other than is true here. the constant interchange, the constant transfers we have

between and among our branches are simply nonexistent in most countries of the world. if you choose to be a judge, you become a civil servant and never intend to practice law, in europe. the result is that if courts need rule changes, it is very difficult to accomplish. many people think that judges, because they are federal judges, they are confirmed by the senate. i have a lot of political clout. nothing could be further from the truth. we rely on the legal profession, on the members of the practicing bar and on the academy, to make your case. if we want rule changes, we have advisory committees which include attorneys and academics. we design the rules and that way. when i was in eastern europe,

the judges were complaining to me that civil and criminal rules were broken, and that was looks like inauspicious and very sound experiment or decision, to have an open court system, is not working. the idea of meeting with attorneys or academics to jointly propose and support and endorse and fashion and formulate rules and to urge their adoption in the legislature is simply not part of their culture. so we are very, very fortunate. i hope that the public can learn more about the nature of this conference and the subject we discussed. i hope that the legal profession as a whole, not just litigators, but the legal profession as a whole can learn about the issues and the problems that you have

discussed here with great intensity and great diligence and really great intellect and expertise. i wish the public could know and understand the dedication and commitment of the members of this conference. as i just indicated, the efficiency, the expertise, the prestige, the excellence of the federal judiciary is the business of the entire legal profession, because we not only symbolizes, but we in effect are the reality of the structure that guards the idea of the rule law. it was simply a fascinating to me that you began your

profession with a discussion of one of the most crucial, dangerous, disturbing issues of our time, terrorism. we had on the panel prosecutor, defense attorney, law professor , dedicated, extremely capable u.s. district judge. became very clear halfway into the discussion that the attack on the rule of law had failed. article 3 courts are quite capable of trying terrorist cases, and the judge told you. [applause]

the judge told you, you didn't need a special panel. the fjc and the judicial panel and the legal profession and the law school had background experience. judges can learn to do this. and then we switched from that predominant, disturbing issue of our time, an issue where our national survival is at stake as well as the rule of law, to a single case of a woman who claimed to have been mistreated or perhaps brutalized by the police, and that dignified man who had a noisy neighbor, the neighbor sued him, and neither had an attorney.

we found out from judge marvin aspen that this program in chicago -- that there are ways to provide attorneys for the unrepresented litigant. i was taking notes, and the figure was that in 70% of cases, civil cases in the united states, at least one litigant is unrepresented. i did not know that. the judges in the legal profession are committed to fix that. it is an astounding figure. are there problems in the judicial system? of course. are there delays, excessive costs, or the judges overworked? of course. but we are learning more, and

what you learn in this conference must be shared. others in the profession, with others in the public. it is important for the public to understand that the excellence of the federal judiciary is at risk, and for this we need the understanding and knowledge and the help of the entire legal profession and the public. if judicial s excellence is cast a policy of congressional indifference, the rule of law is in peril. [applause]

the bar as a whole, not just to dedicated attorneys who are here, the congress and the public ought to know the figures. the eastern district of sacramento, california, part of that district that extends from fresno to the oregon border, we have five active judges, and the statistics tell us that we need 15. 1200 cases per judge. our committed, dedicated, brilliant federal judges are struggling with this case load, but their dedication must be recognized. that is why such due to this conference and the fact that this conference occurs is an

absolute necessity. i have just a few comments about these different branches of the profession. let me first make a few comments about law school. the original purpose of law reviews was to have case comments to be critical of judicial decisions. we are one of the only professions that encourages criticism by those who are not even members of our ranks yet, law students, cuckoo lawyers -- cocoon lawyers. it surprises me how often i am trying to describe -- decide if

certiorari should be granted. it is surprising how often weak grant certiorari in a case. and there is no case comment. part of this is the time line. we have a very efficient system for the adjudication of issues in our judicial system. for understand our reasons, law students want to take time and care and the painstaking, but it does not help us if the comment comes out on the law review too late. what my clerks do now, they read blogs. weigh in, and the golden age of any thing is when you are there. maybe the world was changing, but i think law schools must be very careful to remain relevant

to the appellate process. it is perfectly possible and feasible, it seems to me, for law review commentary immediately to come out with reference to important this record cases so that we have some neutral, detached, critical, intellectual commentary and analysis of the case. we need that. i was at an event not too many years ago and i was at this table for lunch. we had the dean of harvard and the dean of yale. in order to make conversation, and because i was interested, i said, what is different about

law school now and many years ago, the golden age when i was in law school? what is different? one of the deans said that when you went to law school, your professors thought of themselves first as lawyers, second as professors. now it is the other way around. now they think of themselves first as oppressors and then as lawyers. i thought about it and said, i can understand this. it is important for the legal academy to maintain their own excellence, their own pre- eminence in the world a graduate studies. if this means that we have to have lawyers with multiple degrees and multiple disciplines, economics, science, literature, fine. i can understand that.

but is very under -- important that law professors do not either explicitly or unconsciously depreciate or disparage the practice of law. the law schools and their law reviews should ask themselves how better they can help the legal profession. one way they can do this is by empirical studies. we make assumptions when we write appellate cases based on what we think we know is happening in the legal profession. this is rather dangerous for someone who has not practiced law for more than 30 years. it is rather dangerous for people who don't go out and have a beer with the boys and see what is going on. we need empirical data.

i will give you just a few cases. a case from the ninth circuit. the question was this. the courts of appeals near the borders have hundreds, probably thousands of applications from those who are subject to a deportation order and they want it stayed so the court of appeals can hear the case because they claim they are not portable. the question is, what standard should the court of appeals use? the supreme court said it should be the usual standard. we were tempted, knowing the workload of the ninth circuit, to relieve them of the responsibility of applying a more lax standard, but we did not do that.

we were certain that the court of appeals would be faithful to the standard. we were not sure whether or not -- would it have empirical studies on that. was the standard right? did the court of appeals have enough time to do this? we don't know. it would be very simple for law students and law professors to talk to the clerk of court, to have some sort of electronic indexing for these complaints before these cases. there was a confrontation case, the question, laboratory does a report on a blood alcohol sample, fingerprint.

does that export have to testify in the court, or can she sent a certificate or an assistant? melendez dias -- the justices did not dissent. its guy's going to fall, would destruct trials, we will have demands on overloaded lab technicians who have to wait in the hallway of the court room for touring three days. the judge in good faith will schedule the case but then the case has to wait for two or three days because of some other emergency. we did have empirical studies. our prosecutions being dismissed? we don't know. this is something that is very

easy to study. it is odd to me that in this age of statistical empiricism that we don't have more raw data, and in the breeze in that case, we found very little to help us -- in the briefs in that case, we found very little to help us. in another case, the seamen ask for maintenance and cure in addition to an unseaworthy this claim. can the request. it damages? we have only had at multi law for a couple of hundred years, but nobody knew the answers that we gave them. one of the questions was, if you allow pitch of damages in maintenance and your case, will there be routine requests for punitive damages, which would,

of course, changed the dynamic of settlements, changed the dynamic of litigation? it would be very easy to have empirical studies, to track the number of cases in major jurisdictions and to the statistical study so we know, were right or wrong? it seems to be that this is very important for law schools to do. the state of arizona vs. gant. if the policeman arrest the driver of an automobile, puts the driver and the back seat of a poll -- patrol car, handcuffed -- can cut some so that he is restrained, that the patrol officer could search the car for weapons are contraband.

the supreme court held that is not true. there is no safety concern because he is in the back of the patrol car. there may be some circumstances in which can search, something like well-founded suspicion, or you can just have a police officer stan there until the tow truck comes and you can do an inventory search. but what about the dangers to the neighbors and to other people from guns that might be in the car? can we have statistical data to show that one side or the other was right in this debate? after all, the constitution talks about unreasonable search and seizures. this is a factor in reasonable. these are the kind of empirical studies that i think the law schools would be well abies to make. -- well advised to make. something i addressed to the law schools and the bar, judges must take out of this one. we have a crisis in attracting

preeminent attorneys to the bench and keeping them with us once they come. in addition to the obvious need let the congress has elected to follow with reference to compensation, there are other factors as well. is the selection process in the confirmation process working the way it should for district and circuit courts? forget the supreme court, that is a whole different set of problems. it would be of immense importance for the bar and the academy to have studies, dialogues, conferences, about how well we are doing in the selection and confirmation of judges for the united states district courts and courts of

appeals. and the delay factor i have already mentioned, were the judges in the eastern district of california have a 1200 case for judge caseload. if that study could identify certain neutral principles, certain criteria, certain standards that could be followed in that process, then maybe they could be applicable to supreme court confirmations as well. it is of immense importance that the public have confidence in the confirmation process. separation of powers was designed to fix accountability, not to obscure it. it was designed to assign

responsibility, not to evade it. the congress has the responsibility to determine whether or not we are going to have a judicial branch of excellence, and i think that the constitution demands that and it is their constitutional duty to do that. these kind of studies might be the basis for more productive dialogue with the members of the congress of the united states on this issue that is so vital to the tradition of excellence and to the prestige and to the respect of the judiciary of the united states. i was fascinated that you had this productive discussion on the whole idea of case management, and it was interesting that the judges

received the awards. mr. westerberg, a practicing attorney from ohio received an award. it was interesting how important it was that all three of those people are committed to excellence in the federal courts. arbitration or alternative dispute resolution is, of course, or was an undiscovered, and export realm, and it is of immense importance, but simply because there is an option for alternative dispute resolution does not mean that the federal courts should be complacent about sending cases to arbitration. it is a source of concern to me

that the federal courts, which i have always thought of as the fairest, most efficient, most neutral, most prospective forum for the resolution of disputes, is now seeing far fewer civil cases. there is talk of the vanishing caseload. in part, if there is sound judicial management, that is because there is no vanishing judge. the judge has just entered the process earlier. there are other problems that the cases are not coming at all. with the cases that are here, they are not vanishing if a judge has participated in the settlement mediation, and discovery management process. in 1975, it was my first

judicial conference. i practice law in the beginning of the 1960's and 1970's. how can some judge tell me how to try my case? that is a fair question, if it did not have a false premise. it was not my case. it was the court case, the systems case, the public's taste. -- a public pose a case. case. public's it benefits the public to have a judicial system in which the trial of cases is managed. i get much of my information on this subject from all of you here, from a superior court judge in los angeles in charge of complex litigation, and david

levy, former u.s. district judge, and former chairman of the standing committee on federal rules. they all tell me that the good news and the bad news is the same. all the participants in the process want more judge intervention, more judge time. that is good news, because it means there are systems we can learn, standards we can apply. in so many choices now we have not narrow them down. every case is different. there are systems that judges can apply to make litigation more efficient. the bad news is that more judge time is required. you know the problem, if you commit to many judicial resources up front in the case does not sell, then maybe you have wasted your time. but the expertise and the commitment and dedication that

the bar and the bench and the academy showed in discussing this problem and this challenge here is immensely reassuring. the dedication and commitment of the members of this conference have my admiration, and for your attendance here, you have my most respectful banks. thank you very much. -- my most respectful thanks. [applause]

>> justice kennedy, but chief judge kosinski, congress chair and conference colleagues, justice hugo black speaking of the supreme court responsibility rests upon this court then that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield. for the benefit of every human being subject to our constitution, of whatever race, creed, or persuasion, justice kennedy, i believe that the participants would suggest and i am sure this idaho kid would say, we thank you for making that your creed and doing what you do on the supreme court

and coming here to address us. [applause] you will now hear the questioning of justice kennedy by two we have chosen to represent with questions from judges and from lawyers here, to question him today. we first have asked our conference chair, chief judge oregon solace from the southern district of california -- chief judge irma gonzalez. i think you all know chief judge gonzalez. there are some facts in the brochures, or not in the brochure, which i thought were interesting. she is the president of the ninth circuit district judges association. she is also the first mexican-

american woman appointed to the federal branch, and in the law blogger underneath their robes, she is a super hottie of the federal judiciary. [laughter] [applause] we also asked to join her the chair of the lawyer represented coordinating committee, who has been recognized as one of the best lawyers in america for bankruptcy and creditor rights law, a fellow of the american college of bankruptcy, a partner in the century city office of steptoe johnson, llp. she has written articles and published in the national law journal. these two wonderful people will now ask justice kennedy

questions on our behalf. [applause] >> justice kennedy, it has been a privilege to get to know you a little better here at the conference. we have spent some time together and it has been a real privilege. i am going to ask the big questions and robyn is, too. we are hoping that at the end of our time here with justice kennedy, there'll be a few minutes left over for those of you in the audience who have some questions for justice kennedy. so i will start. justice kennedy, teaching is near and dear to your heart. i know that you teach in austria during the summer for the month of july, and i have also learned that you teach in china. my first question has to do with of course used to teach in salzburg, law and literature.

one of the books that you discussed with your students there was shakespeare's hamlet. can you explain the reason behind your choice of this particular play for discussion, for trail a lot and literature, and secondly, do you believe shakespeare makes a strong case for an insanity defense by hamlet? [laughter] >> cannot explain my choice? no, it is completely idiosyncratic. i have a list of the 10 books that every lawyer should read. i tell my law clerks and young people, you cannot write anything good because you have never read anything good. [laughter] the list is not really shocking or astounding.

the trial by frans kafka. i change it from time to time. i was thinking i was going to read to you for the closing of my speech, a book that thought about this morning. i forgot to read it to you. i thought maybe implicit in your question was hamlet? why not ago measure for measure or old merchant of venice -- plato's republic does not work. maybe merchant of venice might have been better.

portia becomes a super lawyer in is that great speech about the quality of mercy. it is twice blessed, it blesses him who gives in him who takes. it is the mightiest and the mightiest. a magnificent speech. women in literature and life often signify equity. antigone, portia, and literature, joan of arc, rosa parks in life symbolized justice and equity. porita is wonderful, except she does not follow her own rules. she is really guilty of in -- vindictive sentencing. once he does not accept the settlement offer, she becomes just ruthless in what she does. the other one is "measure for

measure," about a corrupt judge. isabella is a wonderful heroine in "measure for measure." as you go through, you see all the characters have a certain flop. it reminds judges that introspection is one duty of our profession. i am amazed at how you can be a judge a long, long time and keep asking yourself the question, what is it that is making me do this? what are my standards? those are probably the better spake -- shakespeare books for law and literature. i choose hamlet for idiosyncratic reasons. a couple times, are produced the

trial of hamlet. we have two wonderful psychiatrists testify as expert witnesses on whether or not and let should -- hamlet should plead insanity at the key moments when he stabs the man behind the curtain. that is the high point of the play. i wrote the last rewrote the last 12 pages. then i have to the news reporter shocking event that he was just in a coma. the jury has to read -- a hole

play is the record. everything in the play comes in. the best kind of teaching is to oblique way.old lik the best way to teach kids is to make a side point so that he or she is really learning something and they don't know it. this is a marvelous way to teach hamlet. the law professor usually testifies for the defense -- excuse me, for the prosecution. a marvelous forensic psychologist. we have had the dean of the columbia school in madison and psychiatrists testify for the defense. hamlin has, according to the defense, bipolar disorder. it is a marvelous way to examine the whole play and human motivation.

so often, you know the facts, and you know who the culprit is, but you don't know why he did it. this is a marvelous example of how literature can enrich your view of life. the last time we did it, it was at the kennedy center. the eisenhower theater -- they sold out in 48 hours. it is because the ticket was only $20. [laughter] on the way out, and hamlet has a tough time getting even six boats for the jury -- 6 votes for the jury. on the way out, there were high

school kids and college students are doing about the issue of senate because insanity on the way out. i don't take a position on whether or not he is sane or insane, because i am the judge in the case. i wish to blame and understood more often what it is -- i wish laymen understood why we recurred -- reserve judgment, what we don't discuss pending cases. it is partly because the dynamics of decision making or that you have to make up your mind at a particular time. et have committed yourself before hand to the idea, it is hard to change your mind. we owe it to the profession, to the judiciary, to the rule of law to keep an open mind. ronald reagan had moral concerns about mutually assured

destruction, the rule that if we have an atomic attack, we will immediately retaliate. he is to talk about a just a little bit. i thought it was very important for him to talk about the moral grounds, but he did not have to make up his mind. the moment will form your decision, and that is why don't take a position on hamlet. >> thank you for allow me to address it with these questions to >> i forgot, i was going to read for the end of my speech, and i forgot. james gould wrote this book in 1942, "my generation."

the gunmen is a prosecuting attorney and thinks he wants to be a judge. -- the young man is a prosecuting attorney. his dad gives him this advice. in the present, everyday is a miracle. the world gets up and goes to work and is fed and in the evening comes home and is that again. to make that possible, so much has to be done by so many that on the face of it, it is impossible. everyday we do it and every day we will have to go on doing it as well as we can. so it seems that is all we want to do, ever. what you want of me? we just want you to do the impossible picks that is what our district -- we just want you to do the impossible. that is what our district judges do. [applause]

>> i want to thank you for allowing me to address you. did you see the dynamics of the court changing as a result of elena kagan's nomination as associate justice, and if so, how? >> there is a replacement juror. the whole dynamic changes. it is a difference jury. steven briar was junior justice for longer than any, other than what other justice, for 11 years. nine people in the same room for 11 years he was getting good at the job. of course, when that mix changes and there is a new face, it is a completely dark court. john stevens -- a completely

different court. john stevens had one of the most marvelous legal minds i have ever encountered. he will be tremendously miss, and it will be a different court, but we have experienced it -- the system works. we have gone for the same issue, so you tend to refine your remarks. when you have a new justice, you tend to strut your stuff all over again. anphen brieyer had interesting comment. not long ago i was then the county courthouse in sacramento.

i walked up the steps were my heart used to miss a beat. we did get nervous when we go into conference. you have to argue for or six cases, this time before a new colleague. you get nervous, because you want to be well-prepared and you don't want to mistake the law. -- mistake a lot. and you just is reminds us that we must be committed again to be as excellent as possible. i am sure she will be simply a wonderful colleague. and i don't think it is important that you have been a judge before you come on the court. i think there should be a mix. i think she will bring marvelous experience [applause] . >> i have a follow-up. >> a couple of years ago i told

ruth bader ginsburg, i am from the west, and i am surrounded by new yorkers. three new yorkers, none of whom is lacking in self assurance. [laughter] i said something has to be done. she said no, you have bronx, queens, brooklyn, you need manhattan. and sure enough -- what is next, s.i.? >> as a trial judge, i would like to know whether you believe is important to have a trial judge on the supreme court, one with trial experience, and whether that makes a difference in how that justice would approach his or her decision. in this case i am talking about judge sotomayor. >> i think it is important.

district judges and circuit judges sometimes have a different approach. law clerks we get from courts of appeals think the record that was made in the trial court is something you read may be in an idle moment of curiosity. [laughter] i said no, this case began in the district court. trial judges know that. if you ask any justice, in the judge, what is the ideal background for a judge, you will listen and pretty soon you will hear his or her own autobiography. [laughter] so course, crile experience is of immense importance. -- trial experience. i wanted to be a district judge, and i could never get the job.

i suppose a lot of people would be glad to accommodate me at this point. [laughter] >> is there any and nonlawyer, alive or deceased, who would you would desire to serve as a colleague on the supreme court would you? >> a nonlawyer, alive or deceased. on the deceased, i would give an interview to plato, but i would not hire him. [laughter] i would give him an interview because i would want to thank him for making me a platonist, which i am. political theory was my particular interest in school. for six weeks you are a plague platonist and then you are and

.ristotlelian i can you suggest a utopian state -- how can you suggest a utopian state? i think abigail adams, maybe. she was phenomenal, and was the mother of presidents and the husband of another. i think she understood the purposes of the founding fathers. in the present day, i think gordon wood would be wonderful. i have had the privilege of teaching with him a couple of different times for a few hours at a time.

his book is called "the empire of liberty." i have the name wrong, but it does not go into great depth of how it is that we could have this magnificent documents affirming freedom, the constitution, one of the greatest documents ever penned by the human hand, and we had slavery, and women could not vote. that is the duality we have to live with. i think john didion who was in high school -- joan didion would be the voice of my generation. maybe hurtado desoto -- hurtadho

desoto. i think maybe for the living, lisa randall, author of "warped passages." there is another of astrophysicist in santa cruz. i think they could bring important perspective. physicists have to think in terms of metaphors. they are the first to discover dark matter. we are close,i hear.

if we could discover the nature of dark matter, we would have a unified theory of creation for the first time in human history. that would solidify the bonds of humankind. but physicists would be fascinating as colleagues because they deal in metaphors. ophysics say there is a drop in the ocean but there is also an ocean in a drop. dark matter is so dense that the earth would be the size of a .ecaa what happens in washington, if you want a certain solution, you propose a ridiculous thing on

either side and everyone adopts the thing in the middle. in physics, the ridiculous solution often turns out to be true. i think lisa randall is a brilliant writer. >> i want to remind all of you that at each table there is a bookmark that has been provided by justice kennedy about rule of law. my next question has to do with the rule of law. justice kennedy was telling me the other day that he teaches in china, in beijing, each year. one of the most difficult tasks for him is to explain or define the rule law -- the rule of law. can you tell us how you do it, and if there really is some way to translate it, and do they get get?

>> the phrases are troublesome. it merced you had to wear the yellow star, that is the law. -- hitler set you have to wear the yellow star. but that is not the rule of law. when i was in china in the late 1980's, i was met at the airport by an attache from of foreign ministry. he said i want you to know, just last week, we adopted the rule of law. [laughter] what he meant was, they had enacted a statute or decree saying that the government was bound by the law. this didn't ask what was the rule of law? the chinese love descriptions of three principles. i said it is binding on the just, and itit is

is enforceable and accessible. i used that later to write this out, and it became the guide to the un commission. this is the iconic, and alterable traditional definition of the rule of law. i think it is the 12th version, and it is just my attempt to explain it. a lot is just -- recently a comment made by justice that i cannot document, the council argued that the supreme court and he says what we seek with this principle is justice. holmes allegedly is credited

with saying, young man, this is a court of law, not justice. i don't particularly buy into that philosophy anyway, and i think that is a false choice. that is just a false dichotomy. you can have a lot less justice. the whole idea of what the appellate court is and what is records do, when you have a problem that has not been resolved yet, you fill in gaps. you can do it one of two ways. you can look at every case, or you can have a principal when you are making law. when you do when you do so, you should do so with the idea of making justice. in most of the world, there are

no graduate law schools. the u.s., canada, south africa, recently japan -- the only ones with graduate law schools. lott is undergraduate -- law is undergraduate. that is true in england as well. you can do graduate -- post- graduate work. in china, the law is graduate -- undergraduate. when i went over there in the early 1980's, i thought the curriculum was broken. te.was by ro you had to memorize the statute of limitations in 50 states. who cares? the college administrators, the president, the provost, the beans -- they all agreed they should change the curriculum. china is no stranger to the academic intransigence. they were not going to change -- the professors. they had been teaching for

years. we decided to leapfrog that and have a graduate law school. it is funded completely by the government. it is one of the graduate schools of pekin universe g city, one of the finest -- university, one of the finest universities in china. it would be 600 students at the end of three years. everything in china is numbers. it is 1.3 billion. if you four get the billion, the 0.3 -- forget billion, the 0.3 makes the em still one of the biggest countries in the world. it was designed to get students with diversity.

there were 6000 applications for 200 places. they got it down to 500 and decided to have personal interviews. they wanted standard questions for the interviews. in china, the young people love movies made in england or the u.s. they seem to be able to watch almost any movie at any time for free. [laughter] they are real movie buffs. they know all of that stuff. one of the standard questions was, why do you want to go to law school? what inspired you to go to laws school? they could not say, might aunt w -- my aunt was ajudge o -- a lawyer. father waws a

they would often say that they were inspired by movies. the movie was "legally blonde." [laughter] >> when we were talking about this the other night, i said "my cousin vinnie." >> i had never heard of this thing. we went out and rented it and watched it. [laughter] when i went over there to teach this class, i understood. in going to this new law school, this new venture, they were taking our risk -- a risk. were not sure this new culture of law -- they were not sure if this new culture of law would be welcoming or effective.

it identified with the protagonist -- they identified with the protagonist, reese witherspoon. >> we were speaking with our grandson, talking about you, getting ready for the conference. he asked me what i should know about you. given your tenure, what you believe is your greatest contribution. how would you like future generations to remember you? >> that is for others to judge. they can put the most -- i think the most difficult case is the one i'm working on today. [laughter] i just hope that my tenure might teach that you have a duty of introspection. it is not just an egocentric exercise. it is to find -- you have to share your reason with your

colleagues first and then with the bench, then with the bar. the law will survive because we give reasons for what we do. you must be honest about examining those reasons. >> thank you. we have several other questions. since we are running a little bit low on time, if anyone would like to ask a particular question of the justice, we have microphones set up. any questions? i see someone coming to the microphone in the back. >> justice kennedy, i was wondering if you could in part -- impart your wisdom regarding the secret of a successful marriage. [laughter] >> we were in china and my wife,

mary, is a marvelous school teacher. she was invited to a school -- a high school for women. then i came because i had a break in the schedule. we were in class together. headmistress' was with us. they were on their good behavior. they knew we were dignitaries from abroad. i started to ask people questions. some girl in the back kept shaking her head. finally, she raised her hand. it was in chinese and had to be interpreted. the headmistress says, uh -- i am not leaving china without knowing that question. [laughter] and so she said, justice

kennedy, we're very interested in american cases. can you please explain to us the bobbitt case? [laughter] that was the case in which the woman had the poor taste to mutilate her husband. of course the class roared with laughter and i got very red. i said, that is why i brought my wife. she can answer that question. [laughter] the secret of marriage is to realize that every day is more beautiful. [applause] >> any other questions? i will ask one last one. is there any message you would like to ipmart -- impart to the

judges here and the lawyers? >> i think you should know the admiration and respect that i have for your dedication. i missed the practice of law. i loved the practice of law. i would just ask judges to remember they are the guardians of freedom, and lawyers to remember that they are the counselors, critics, and the conscience. >> a thank you. >> beautiful. [applause] >> yesterday i signed a disaster declaration for the

state of louisiana. and this morning i signed a disaster declaration for the state of mississippi. >> as the gulf coast marks the fifth anniversary of hurricane katrina, look back at thousand federal government responded to the crisis online at the c-span video library. all free, every program since 1987. it's washington, your way. >> president obama said additional measures are needed to help the u.s. economy, and called on republicans to drop tear opposition to a bill pending in congress that would provide tax breaks and other smevs to small businesses. his remarks in the rose garden are about five minutes. >> good afternoon, esche. i just finished a meeting with my economic team about the current state of our economy, and some of the additional steps that we should take to

move forward. it's been nearly two years since that terrible september when our economy teetered on the brink of collapse. and at the time, no one knew how deep the recession would go or the havoc it would wreak on businesses and families across this country. what we do know is that it took nearly a decade. -- how are we doing on sound, guys? is it still going to the press? ok. what we did know is it was going to take nearly a decade in order for -- can you guys still hear us? ok. let me try this one more time. what we did know was that it took nearly a decade to dig the hole that we're in and it would take longer than any of us would like to climb our way out. and while we have taken a series of measures, and come a

longing way since then, thing fact is that too many businesses are still struggling. too many americans are still looking for work, and too many communities are far from being whole again. that's why my administration remains focused. every single day, pushing this economy forward, repairing the damage that's been done to the middle class over the past decade and promoting the growth we need to get our people back to work. so as congress prepares to return to session, my economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting goat and hiring in the short term, and increasing our economy's competitiveness in the long-term. steps like extending the tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire this year. redoubling our investment in clean energy in r & d.

rebuilding more of our infrastructure for the future. further tax cuts to encourage businesss to put their capital to work creating jobs here in the united states. and i'll be addressing these proposals in further detail in the days and weeks to come. in the meantime, there's one thing we know we should do. something that should be congress' first order of business when it gets back, and that is making it easier for our small businesss to grow and hire. we know that in the final few months of last year small businesses accounted for more than 60% of the job losses in america. that's why we passed eight different tax cuts for small businesses and worked to expand credit for them. but we have to do more. and there's currently a jobs bill before congress that would do two big things for business owners. cut more taxes, and make

available more loans. it would help them get the credit they need and eliminate capital gains taxes on key investments so they have more snofe invest right now and accelerate $55 billion in tax relief to encourage beens spall and large to expand their businesses over the next months, unfortunately, this bill has been languishing in the nat for months, held up by a partisan minority that won't even allow it to go to a vote. that makes no sense. this bill is fully paid for. it will not add to the deficit, and there's no reason to block it besidse pure partisan politician. the small business owners and communities that rely on them don't have time for political games. they cannot afford to wait any longer. just this morning stories shows shode small businesses have put hiring on hold while waiting

for the senate to pass this bill. holding the bill hostage is directly detrimental to furthering this. i know we're entering election season, but the people who elected us expect us to work together to get this done. no step is the silver bullet that will reverse the damage done by the bubble and bust cycles that caused our economy to go into this. it's going to take a full-scale attack that not only helps in the short-term but builds a firmer foundation that makes our nation stronger in the long haul, but this will benefit small business owners and our economy right away. that's why it's got get done. there's no doubt we still face serious challenges. but if we rise at the moment, i'm confident we will meet them,.

i've got confidence in the american economy and the american people. we've just got to start working together to get this done. thank you, very much. >> up next on og on c-span, a news conference on security threats to federal judges. on this morning's washington journal, talks include china's growing economy and the november elections. and israeli-palestinian peace talks resume this week in washington. later today, we'll get a preview of the talks from the washington institute for