>> tomorrow on "washington journal." of political roundtable with republicans lesley sanchez and jamal stemmons. and more on campaign strategies for 2012. kurt voljker -- volker on libya. and dennis >> "washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. supreme court justices anthony kennedy and stephen breyer testified before a house appropriations subcommittee on thursday about their budget for 2012. topics included the winding down of renovations to the supreme court building in

changes to a visitor access, as well as security for the high court and federal judges in general. this is an hour and a half. >> please give my regards to justice thomas and my colleagues as well. it seems strange that he is not here this year, but anyway, we appreciate so much that you all are here. we look forward very much to meeting with you and we will do our best to meet your resource needs this year. an independent judiciary trusted and respected by all u.s. citizens and committing to

fairly and expeditiously resolving difficult and controversial question is fundamental to our nation. although the supreme court budget is not large and compared to other programs, i am pleased that you are here today because outside the confirmation process, today's hearing is one of the few instances when we actually get to interact with the judicial branch. it is a worthy interaction, as we recognize and respect the processes of each branch. the committee is working to reduce domestic spending to fiscal year 2008 levels, and we will ask you all if there are any areas of a budget that could be reduced. at the same time, be sure that we will make certain the court has the resources it needs to fulfill your constitutional responsibilities.

>> congratulations on the cardinals. >> thank you, we finally have hit our stride in hitting. all we need to do is learn how to pitch and we will be in good shape. >> don't get used to it, it may fall apart. i would like to warmly welcomed the justices back before the subcommittee. i must really commend them on what they may be in 44 showing up again. as i have said in past years, this is one of the rare opportunities for our two branches to interact. because of this, our question sometimes range beyond state appropriations issues. as our nation's highest court, many of us look to you for important insights into issues affecting the federal judiciary as a whole. there's no question that these

are difficult budget times. however, as we look for savings, we must be careful not to affect the ability of our federal judiciary to hear cases and dispense justice in a fair and timely manner. we must also be sure to provide the supreme court as the most visible symbol of our system of justice sufficient funds to undertake not just judicial functions but your public information functions as well. we look forward to your testimony, and i join the chairwoman in having you please bring our warmest regards to justice thomas. as a person who represents the bronx, new york, a special hello to sonia sotomayor. i was born where her parents were born, in puerto rico, and we take great pride in her ascension to the supreme court.

>> speaking of justice sotomayor, she may be playing on our congressional softball team this year, just so you know. that way you will have to come to our games. she and a couple of the other cabinet secretaries who are female have indicated a desire to play on the team. >> talk about the branch is getting together. i will have to show up. >> i would now like to recognize justice kennedy. you'd be so kind as to keep your comments to under five minutes, we will have more time for questions. thank you so much. >> it is a privilege to appear before you with my colleague. we will have lunch together tomorrow and they will be pleased to hear that you send

them warm regards. you mentioned the independence of the judiciary. we talked often of separation of powers and checks and balances. we use them as interchangeable terms. separation of powers means each branch of the government has powers that are its own. you have the power of the purse. we have the judicial power. checks and balances presumes that branches cannot be completely separate, we have to interact at some point. one is when we present to your budget and it is a budget request, and it is the time and which you can inquire about our operations to make sure that are efficient. the court by tradition is prudent and it has always been

our tradition to be extremely careful in the budget request that we submit to the congress. i can assure you that the chief justice went through the budget recommendations of owns that with great care before we presented the budget request for fiscal 2012. many of those stab our principal officers -- many of those staff are here today. the clerk of the court and our public it permission officer and others. -- public information officer and others. our staff talks on a regular

basis with your staff. this is an oversight function in itself. my understanding is that your staff has been extremely helpful and cooperative, and if you could extend our thanks to your staff for that. our budget request for fiscal 2012 is a reduction, if you take an assumed budget of fiscal 2011, and we worked very hard to get their reduction, because we are quite conscious of the fact that the government must be extremely careful in its stewardship of the taxpayer dollars. our budget request for this year, for fiscal 2012, is $75,500,000. that is a reduction of $706,000 of the budget of 2011.

even with the assumed reduction, we have been able to find cost- containment measures to enable us to ask for 12 additional positions. we actually need more than that, we need probably double, and we need other personnel, but in light of budgetary constraints, we have confined our request to that. it is urgent that we have that. we have a command center that has to be mandatory for hours a day. it is cost-effective not to pay overtime our police work, as you know, it's becoming much more sophisticated. our record has its own web site -- our court has its own web site, which has to be operated 24 hours a day, so we do need those extra positions. we are going to ask next fiscal

year for a small amount to investigate the possibility of having payroll and personnel functions contract it out to another agency of the government. we cannot use the defense department or hhs or a congressional payroll mechanism, we are too small, so we have an outside contractor. it will cost us the money for start up an investigation, but in the long term it will save money. we are about to see the end of the courthouse modernization of traffic. it has gone way over time, but

it is within budget. there will be claims on both sides as happens with a long project. pending the outcome of those claims, it looks like we are in budget and the construction people will be out of the building by around april 30. this landscaping can began and are court building, which has been undergoing this renovation since 2004 will once again be open. i think that concludes my remarks. >> let's go ahead and we will start the questions. i know you will be very happy to have the construction work completed. it is one of the questions i want to ask. i have so many constituents who come to washington for the first time to the city, and this is

the time of year that are visiting. and have asked about the front door of the supreme court. i know there was concern raised by some members of the court and also some of our colleagues with regard to the fact that you were closing its main door. then again, tragic incidents like that which happened last year at the courthouse in las vegas, at the pentagon, more recently the tragedy in tucson reminds us of the importance of security. it is my understanding is that visitors can climb the steps to the main entrance and still can exit the building from that entrance. i further understand that the new visitors reprocess was contemplated and funded during the modernization process. we all know that both the white house and the capital have

elaborate screening processes and there is no reason that you all should not as well. justice kennedy, can you describe the process the course is used in deciding to change its high visitor screening procedure -- the process the court used in deciding to change its visitor screening procedure? then i will ask justice briar for any comments he may have on that. -- i will ask the justice breyer for any comments he may have on that. >> just after the cold war we had visitors from eastern europe, they were amazed that our courts were open. of course they are open. as part of the reconstruction or renovation of the court, we had actually some experts on some exhibit and visitors, and they

found that the atrium to the court which was an air conditioned is just stifling in the summer, quite unwelcoming. the minute the visitors went into the great hall, we had to have screening devices in the great hall of the supreme court. it was just not a welcome or dignified entrance for visitors. quite apart from security. then when we look at security, the security people said there is no way that we can do that, and we agree to that. we spent millions of dollars on updated security facilities so that they enter under the steps. when you go into the court now at the ground level, it is a

slightly confute -- is slightly confusing for the visitor because some visitors don't know that they can go upstairs and see the court. we are working on new brochures and so forth so that it will continue to be a good experience. >> we have many difficult questions in the court and we don't always agree. because they are difficult and there are two sides to the question, and this is one of the questions where it was a close and difficult question. as you pointed out, there are security questions on one side and the other side is the traditional idea of people to be able to walk up the steps and

going to the room, so we disagree. i thought we should have left it open. i read the same papers, and others came to the conclusion that we should close it off from people coming up. i am glad i wrote the paper because i don't wanted to get lost eventually -- eventually, things will calm down, i hope, and at that time the security needs may diminish, and eventually at that time, i hope it will be possible for every american to walk into that plaza, walk up the steps and walk into the building. >> thanks. you and justice thomas last year, and justice kennedy, discussed this briefly in his remarks about the need and made a very compelling argument for

police officers. i think when we had last year's hearing, we never anticipated that the fiscal 2011 budget process would be dragged out until today, but nonetheless, it has -- our ranking member and i had hoped, but you had all proposed for 12 additional police officers to operate your modern police command center. also to enable you to secure additional entryways once the modernization is completed. can you all explain how this new command center is going to improve security of the court? our record is open 24 hours a day, because our web site is always occur up. i tell my law clerks, one of us has to work until 2:00 in the

morning, and it is not meet. the law clerks are there until late in the evening. we have 8 acres of grounds which have to be protected. a number of our officers now have to spend time learning about the cybersecurity threats and so forth. that is part of the command center. the command center should be manned by more than one person. we think it is unproductive and not a sound cost responsibility to pay overtime. our people said that we needed 25, and the chief justice said we could live with the 12. we do considered urgent, and it is in the context where i have explained, if you assume fiscal 2011 as the baseline, a reduction of $706,000.

they have to go through special training and we have to implement them. so the 12 will be quite workable. >> can you tell me to the extent that you can say it in public, as the shooting into some resulted in any changes in your protection when the justices are away from the supreme court building? >> let me just say this, since you mention it. the ninth circuit is my circuit. i was on that circuit court as a circuit justice for that. chief justice john low was one of the fine judges in it u.s. district. we know who are good trial judges are. he was one of them. he had a marvelous background. he was on the rules committee and would be called by judges

from around the country if there was a particular problem. the shooting left his wife and three children. the judges picked up right where they left off, in part because of the commitment that he shows. our judges are among the most dedicated, principal public servants in the world, and it is urgent for the congress to make provisions so that we can continue to attract to our bench practitioners who are preeminent in the practicing bar. anytime there is an incident like that, we take a second look at our procedures.

we have threat assessment going on at all times. we are always aware of security threats. >> i agree. >> thank you so much. we are always very careful on the house floor or committee hearings never to speak to anyone in the audience, so i will be very careful about that rule and say that some visitors to this building should be aware of what is happening today, which is a unique situation. we know the supreme court as this body of men and women who interpret our constitution and make so many important decisions that affect all our lives, but the supreme court is also a place where people get hired and salaries have to be paid and the building itself is a tourist

attraction, so to some, this hearing may seem a little different than what you expect, but it is that other part of legislating and appropriating where you have to make sure that those places which are part of our society and our government, such as the white house and the capitol building and the museums and all the other things, so issues of where the door was open or not are very important, and going up those steps are very important, and they take on new significance. we all want to make sure that the building is in good shape and that the tourists to come there get to see the proper presentation, that is something that we can be proud of. we have to make sure that it happens all the time. notice how did that without speaking to anybody directly. later today we will vote on

finishing the f. white 2011 process at last, hopefully. for salaries and expenses, the supreme court budget is held to last year's level of $71.8 million. this level sufficient for your staffing needs? >> my understanding, and i am going to look at my expert after i answered the question, is that we can live within 42011. that fight starts tomorrow. you are telling us it may be ok what we do today, but tomorrow you need some other things. the police officers that were mentioned, is this part of a larger need for security, not only at the supreme court by the

courts throughout the nation? the incident in arizona was one where a judge was stopping by a local congressional event, but we know in the past there have been issues in recent years where the security and the safety of judges throughout our system have been threatened. what are the security issues, if any, at the court? >> remember that the federal courts have the responsibility to adjudicate criminal prosecutions. we had won the last fiscal year -- 100,000 people indicted in the united states district court. these people are in organized crime, drugs, and so forth. then there is the correctional

population, for which the courts have lessened responsibility but still some ongoing responsibilities. this population alone means because of weaknesses and threats and so forth that we must be very, very careful in the u.s. district courts. the responsibility for security is generally divided into two parts. there are court security office hired in the various districts and there is the u.s. marshal's service operating out of the justice department. we have constant studies and recommendations from those agencies. that is one reason why courthouse construction is soak it -- so expensive. a trial court room has to have four entrances, one for the judge, one for the jury, one for the defendant in custody, one for the public. that sounds simple enough, but

if you have multiple court rooms, then it gets extremely complicated. so security drives not just personnel but construction costs. >> i would add one thing. i have been on the court for more than 16 years, and during that time, our court police -- we are in charge of our court police. there have never been a moment in that time that i have experienced anyone feeling nervous or that i have experienced any lack of efficiency, and the public reacts to them well. i would say for my own personal experience that the management of the court police by the supreme court and the people that have chosen to do that have done very well.

>> recently there have been several proposals to apply judicial conference's code of judicial conduct a supreme court justices and to make recusal decisions more transparent to the public. currently the code of judicial conduct applies to all other federal judges but is only advisory for supreme court justices. do you have any thoughts on this proposal? do you believe the code of judicial conduct should apply to supreme court justices, or are there good reasons for not doing so? >> i would ask my colleague to add his own insides. the code of contacts does apply to the judge's in this sense -- a comic-con that applies in the sense that we have agreed to be bound by them -- the code of conduct applies in the sense that we have agreed to be bound by it.

of course the court has to follow rules of judicial ethics. that is part of our obligation of neutrality. as far as making them binding, those rules are made by the judicial conference of the united states, which are district and appellate judges. we would find it structurally unprecedented for a district and circuit judges to make rules that supreme court judges have to follow. there is a legal problem in doing that. i really think there is no problem at all in terms of our resolution, we have agreed to be down by those rules and the

ethics in government statutes for conflicts of interest and so forth. >> the answer to your question i think is yes. a different question is if you should legislate. there i think the answer is no. reason i get two different answers it because i personally have seven volumes of ethics rules the same that every district judge has, right in my own office. when i find it difficult question, i go to those volumes and try to apply exactly as the district judge wood. i have people you would call ethics experts who i call if i have a difficult problem. the only reason not to legislate, i suppose, is where you get into a problem of can you legislate and we are on the supreme court, which people love to debate. i love when they have a question of where the power lies not to answer the question to go on to something else.

it never happens anymore, but when i worked on the staff of the senate, sometimes a bill which we thought was perfect would get to the floor of the senate and the words that came out did not seem to be the same we do quite the same words that went in. i did not always know what was going to happen when legislation started. those are rather detailed, technical, and they are not real objections. i think all the judges do what i do. we do follow the rules. they do apply. i apply them and i would add one other thing. it is a different thing which i discovered, being a supreme court justice in respect to ethics and disqualifications in the district court or court of appeals. when i was in the court of appeals for a district court, and the tough question came up, i said i would take myself out

of the case. they will find somebody else. you cannot do that on our court, so you have to think about it in a different way. you have to remember you also have a duty to sit, because there is no one to replace me if i take myself out. that could sometimes change the result, so i have to think long and hard in a way i did not have to think long and hard on the court of appeals. >> if we have one of was recused from a case and we come out 4-4, we have wasted everybody's time. in the judicial conference of the u.s. we have the judicial code of conduct. there were five of us that serb on that committee for more years than i like to remember. that is a very hard-working

committee. it is request from judges setting forth what the ethical problem is. the judge has invested years and years of time and suddenly there is a marriage in the family and a conflict of interest because the new spouse owns some stock. the judge -- does the judge have to leave after investing those years? those are the kind of questions we have to answer. we can ask for advice from the committee on code of judicial conduct, and we do ask for that advice. >> that we just close by saying that i would accept both of your statements that the court is very careful how it deals with these things. i guess the next question is, why are there not proposals floating around? what has happened recently that has had people ask these questions like they have never asked before?

>> just a guess, but somehow people got the idea that we do not apply the same seven volumes. that is just the wrong idea. i think that came from the fact that they are not legally binding on us in the sense that they might be in the court of appeals. i think that is what happened, and i suppose always -- not always, almost always, there is some controversial thing going on. the reason is more controversial in our court is because we are more visible, and we do have this duty to set, which can make the question of answering the ethics question or controversial. so i think those two things combined, and that is just my

guess as to why this is going around now. >> thank you so much. >> i want to thank the justices for not only being here today, but for your service to our country. it is an honor, a true respecter of the separation of powers and the branches of government dating all the way back to my civics classes as a new freshmen in this new congress. i am honored to sit up here today and engage you in conversation. just this -- justice breyer, thank you for your trip to arkansas last week. i speak for all arkansans for exporting yourself and your knowledge and your perspective to the people of the great state of arkansas. i thank you for that. as i told you in conversations

before the committee hearing this morning, i am particularly interested in security, having a wife who has spent the better part of 30 years as a trial court assistant in arkansas at the circuit court level, and fully recognize the importance of security. i noticed in your 2012 budget request, it is for the 12 officers. i read correctly, i think there has been demonstrated a higher need, but the 12 has been the number that we have settled on for 2012. is it adequate? given the circumstances, the times in which we live, the recent issues into son, is it adequate? >> our experts tell us, our staff have looked at it very carefully, that it will be adequate. as we train and implement these

officers, it may be that we find we will need more, but the 12 is what we can absorb and what we need now. >> given the fact that training and equipping officers in this line of work is a little different than what i am accustomed to as a former mayor and developing police officers at the municipal level, is there revolving door, so to speak? i want us to be very careful that we are not investing large sums of money in the training and equipping of officers, only to prepare them for the next line of duty in some other organization. all we pretty good at keeping our folks? >> might answer will be anecdotal. we are good about it. when they do leave, they go generally to other government security. we just lost one of our fine officers to the u.s. marshal's service.

the capital investment that the government made continues to produce results. i find it comforting that in the discussion about the entryway to the supreme court, the difference of opinion at the court -- on the court itself of what to do and not to do, it is comforting to know that we are not the only people that disagree from time to time on matters of importance. the yankees-cardinals discussions that take place in the well of the house, it is good to know that they have some division of opinion from time to time. i have no further questions. again is an honor to be here with two of our justice is. >> thank you so much. >> it is a pleasure to see you both. justice breyer, your in south

florida and it was a pleasure to listen to you speak. i am going to change my line of questions. we were talking a little bit about the separation of powers, which is essential for our democracy and for our freedoms. there is always a temptation to creep into other branches of government. i know the judiciary sometimes believes that congress may have a tendency to try to creep into what is judicial territory, and we in congress have many times a feeling of the same thing, in particular with the administration and the executive branch. is there anything that congress can do to resuscitate the nine delegation doctrine within the judicial branch?

there are many of us who feel that particular agencies tend to try to far exceed their congressional authority. is there something we could be doing to resuscitate that? >> i will answer so that the administrative law professor can be thinking about your question. it is one of the most difficult questions in the law. you will tell a civics class, here is a charge of the three branches of government, article 1, legislature, article 2, executive, article 3 of the judiciary. what is the administrative agency? does it make laws? yes, they make laws.

what is it? is it part judicial, part legislative? that is one of the conceptually most difficult questions in constitutional law. i am not indicating that agencies are not important, but it seems to me that congress has to make it very clear what the authority of the agency is. it is the congressional duty to given not only its responsibilities but to limit them on its powers. >> it is that you how much power you delegate. if you want to delegate less power, delegate less power. the enemy is the enemy of us all, which is time. if you have time to go into any agency and really understand

what they are doing, and really try to figure out whether they need power written into the statute or whether it should be more general, if you only have the time were you could do that, you have enormous power and be able to write the perfect statute. but we are all faced with time and complicated problems. we are all uncertain as to exactly how much authority is necessary to depict delegate to allow those problems to be dealt with as people in the country want. it is almost like a cliche, and it cannot be much more helpful than that cliche. >> opinions can also be seen as meddling in congressional authority.

they have delegated a system and they thought it kept them out of their depression, you would have committees of government, labor, and business people who would set prices and determine outputs. cardoza was known as a liberal judge. someone once wrote him a letter and said if you are a liberal judge, can you lend me $50? there are those cases, but they were reviewing decisions of congress and thought the

congress and the president had gone too far in those instances. >> that had codes of conduct for every industry, and they put a blue eagle on your storefront to show that you were compliant. it was just not working, and the court in declaring it unconstitutional, congress read this i relief after seeing what it had created. >> in japan, the way they do it is, the agency consists of the parliamentary committee. it would be like the commerce committee would be on the icc. is a mixture of functions so they know what is going on.

>> justices, i appreciate the opportunity to have you here today. i know how difficult your workload is, and to take time to come and visit with us about the financing of what we are doing here in this country is an important topic, and i am glad you are here to do with this. as a young attorney, is a great opportunity to have you here today. i had an opportunity for eight years to serve in the kansas legislature. we dealt with a similar issue of how to fund the growing pressures on our court system. we always dealt with the growing amount of caseloads and the pressure of having to add additional judgeships, and because of budget constraints, we were often unable to do so.

i want to have discussion about the situation in our district court and courts of appeals. in kansas, visiting with my local judges, they are concerned about the backlog. i want to get your comment on the severity of those things and what our potential responses could be, besides adding additional resources. in kansas we had growing areas where the amount of cases were increasing rapidly, but there are areas where it was also decreasing. the courts were reluctant to move judges from degreasing court case areas to increasing court case areas. we were only just adding where it increases and not where it was decreasing. is that a factor here, and how does that affect your work? what would your advice be for

dealing with this? >> over the years, the congress has been generous. >> if i might interrupt, it has always been my dream to interrupt the supreme court justice, so i just wanted to take that opportunity. [laughter] i am sure if i ever have the pleasure being before your court, i am sure you would do the same. >> the congress of the united states has been prudent, farsighted, and wise and sensible in providing resources generally to the federal courts. there are some problems with judicial salaries, but as far as resources, the congress has given ample support to the federal courts. the federal courts are one of the most efficient, admired the judiciary's in the world. in the last three fiscal years, bankruptcy filings have increased.

in fiscal 2009, 1,500,000 bankruptcy filings. i indicated 100,000 criminal defendants appeared before the federal courts. we have generally the capital infrastructure to manage that. when we go to foreign countries or judges come here, we find that worldwide, legislators and parliamentarians are somewhat reluctant to give resources to the court. they think judges have an easy job and they don't know why they need all these resources. i tell those people that a functioning, efficient, transparent, honest judiciary of integrity is part of the capital infrastructure. we handle bankruptcy filings as

part of the recovery. it's important for the courts to be open and flexible. of course, the caseload changes. we talk about that. we are losing some of the major civil cases to arbitration, and if the bar think that is more efficient, fine. i don't like to see us lose those cases, because it takes too long to go to trial. the caseload is changing. there are more federal crimes, more federal prosecutions, the immigration load. in some districts, we have a serious problem. my home district in sacramento, california, is the eastern district of california. the average caseload for a u.s. district judge isabel 450 cases per year per judge -- is about

450 cases per year per judge. we need more judges. congress should authorize the judges in those districts. the western district of texas is another one. some districts filings have dropped, not much. that can be taken care of over time. article three judges can be assigned to other courts. we could not manage in the ninth circuit without visiting judges. we have been sitting judges come to take up the workload. -- we have visiting judges come to take up the workload. >> that is helpful, and gives me an idea of how things are going. i understand that as cases drop in certain areas, you said that can be taken care of as opposed to reassigning judges from declining caseload areas to

areas that are increasing. that is one of the challenges we had. >> we do that on an interim basis, but over the long term it takes care of its own. >> in terms of technology, i wonder how much have we saved by moving away from paper filings and toward electronic filing? i did practice in the bankruptcy courts, and that was a very efficient system for the attorneys to be able to upload the documents, scan them, and the federal court was a good 30 minutes away, so it saved on gas and time and everything. i think it has been useful from my perspective, but i wonder if it saves money and how -- >> we have seen just since we have been on our court a quiet revolution because of

information technology. we have a web site and we run it ourselves. we get 59 million hits a month. there is a study i have seen and i am somewhat skeptical of it. we get 179,000 page hits a day. a paycheck is where you look for something specific and study it. -- up page it is where you look for something specific and study it. we would wait for maybe even a year for a law review. law professors in specialized areas, information technology crimes, antitrust, and they have

blogs. within weeks, days, even hours, they comment on our cases. law -- our case law is now part of the arguments that attorneys made to district and circuit judges within hours after we decide a case. it is very, very efficient. there has been a sea change in how accessible our opinions are. i have testified before this committee -- this is my 15th time. i looked at our budget in the 1980's, and it is half of what it is now. i thought maybe library expenses would go down, but you have made that investment now. it is in place, is running. it is quiet revolution. it makes our courts very

efficient and very effective. >> how do we move from what is a great service, and clearly it has revolutionized how we utilize the information coming out of the court very rapidly. how do we turn that into savings for the court? is there a point where we can reduce savings on the printing side? it said the budgets have actually gone up. is there a point where the investment pays off in terms of the infrastructure? >> i thought we needed fewer books, but we don't. we used to have a printing press in the basement. now we print the opinions electronically. on paper filings, only 2% of our petitions in criminal cases are granted, and they are hand

written by prisoners. if we scandal that, it would not be cost effective. often a prisoner will not comply with the rules and will not attach a copy of the opinion of the highest court of a conviction, and rather than send a petition back, we just push a button and we have it. we are much, much more efficient. we are handling a huge volume of litigation under which our old system would have cracked. when you think about cost savings, we are more effective on a case by case basis already. >> thanks for your responses. >> over the year, -- over the years, you all have heard numerous high-profile and somewhat contreras suitcases,

and it is possible that next year you'll be hearing another one -- a somewhat controversial cases. in situations like that, how do highly publicized and controversy will oral arguments affect the court's operations? especially if it pertains to reporters and interested citizens. does other core business get put on hold for the day? i am more interested in the process and not the subject, if you know what i mean. >> we have a system that has formal, traditional constraints and a ticket. we follow that -- constrains an adequate budget constraints and

ettiquite. our workload is such that we really don't address problems until we have to. as you know, we get all of our work done every year by june 30, thank you very much. it is always 100% finished on our argued cases. i go home and tell my wife, we have solved every problem in the world. there is nothing left. and then we find all these new problems. but that is the dynamic of the law. we wait until a dispute comes before us, and is only in the context of a real dispute that we determine how well we will elaborate and explain the legal principles that are involved. >> obviously, whether it is an abortion type of case or the health care law or anything,

when you actually are hearing oral arguments, that day in the court, does it require a lot more security? are there different things that you have to do? the behavior how the process works within the court, is the change from on a daily basis when you are not hearing a controversial arguments? >> i guess maybe there is an air of anticipation in the room, as you might expect, but we will hear a so-called high profile case, and then between 10:00 and 11:00, and at 11:00, we will hear the next case and judges start asking questions about the next case. it is a precedent based formal

system that enables us to go from one case to the other. >> there might be more police officers and they will look around and see if there are any problems, but there have not really been any processing problems. >> so even though you have all eyes on this controversial case, the rest of the business of the court goes on. >> it does cause a lot of extra work for a lot of other people. it does not cost extra -- it does not cause extra work for the nine judges. other people in the court may have to go to extra trouble. >> i am curious when you deal with cases like that, whether you are getting into the intricacies of health care law

or technology, how do you keep your skills and expertise current? you are getting into it needed greedy technicalities that are quite complex. >> i like very much the fact that people file a meet this -- amicus briefs. we had 70 briefs in one case. they will try to educate us. all kinds of different groups on both sides. we set up an exhibition in the library so the judges could come up and figure out how to work the computers in a particular way that was necessary in the case. in a patent case