justice, that arc is long, but it bends toward justice. sometimes it moves like a thunderbolt. -- want to judge what could happen in the next year. same time, this week, a lot of people studying the body language of barack obama and vladimir putin. ms. jarrett: they were standing up. host: not too many smiles. there was a handshake. what is that relationship? ms. jarrett: they are two leaders of the very important countries. they have to work together and will where they can. they will disagree on some issues and work together. another good example is iran. when we were having a clear conflict with russia, we had

them as a partner. that describes the president's overall approach to congress right now. hopefully, momentarily, we will have a continuing resolution. we have seen very positive signs with theminal justice senate to reform a system where we are spending $80 billion a year. we do not have to agree on everything to find common ground. that has been the president's approach. i think that is what he did as a senator and what yes done both domestically and internationally since he has been the president of the united states. host: thank you, valerie jarrett. ms. jarrett: thank you. this was the scene outside the cathedral of saint matthew the apostle earlier today, when several supreme court justices attended the annual red mass,

which marks the supreme court's new term. here are a look at some of the justices departing the service and meeting with others who attended.

, as the supreme court starts the new term, c-span debuts "landmark cases."

on the series premiere, we look ury versus madison. the ongoing battle between john adams, thomas jefferson, and john marshall. >> marshall established the court as the interpreter of the constitution. wroteamous decision, he marbury versus madison. >> is probably the most famous course -- case the course ever decide. akil amar and cliff sloan. premieres this" monday at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span3, and c-span radio.

-- copy your cases of of the companion book. addition to the series, we spoke with bob goodlatte about some of the cases featured in the program and how they are relevant today. and the relationship between the supreme court and congress. bob goodlatte, i want to start in our conversation in understanding the role of your committee and the supreme court. what is your responsibility? rep. goodlatte: the judiciary committee was established in 1813. a couple years ago, we celebrated the 200th anniversary. it deals with an array of issues, but one of the things i

love most is it deals with the u.s. constitution, the amendments to the constitution. any new amendments that are introduced are referred to the judiciary committee. in other areas, we are constantly trying to refer back to the constitution for guidance on what is appropriate legislation and what is not. when i became chairman of the we had a rule in the house of representatives that required you introduced a bill, you had to cite constitutional authority for legislation. that continues an existing congress. bill, member introduces a they have to point to a section of the constitution that justifies that. of course, every member gets to look at it. the committee suggested to leadership it would be good to read the constitution. we did that for the very first

of the the beginning congress in 2011. we have done it twice more since then. very strong bipartisan support. dozens, over 100 members usually come down and read pieces of the constitution. i asked my staff when we started doing it to check and see when the last time the united states constitution was right on the floor of the house of representatives in its entirety by anyone. by anyone. was 1800out that it and never. it had never been read before. we are trying to promote in stressed -- interest in the constitution. host: in regard to how the constitution lays out responsibilities of the court, what is your understanding of

what the framers had in mind for the supreme court? rep. goodlatte: the framers had in mind the supreme court would resolve specific disputes that themongress designated to and the constitution designated to them. original jurisdiction is set forth in article three. then anything else that congress may add or take away. one of the earliest decisions bury versus madison, which involved john marshall deciding a rather small case that involved a maryland federalist appointed in the of the adams administration to a justice of the peace position. a lot of them were done just as adams was leaving office. and the responsibility of

getting the actual appointments delivered to the people so it was official they were a justice of the peace was running behind time. they do not get them all done. and so the outgoing secretary of who interestingly also happened to the john marshall, he said the new secretary of state will have to finish delivering them. the jefferson administration did not like getting these decisions and did not deliver anymore. ury suited james madison -- sued james madison for compelling of the delivery of the appointment. that is what came to the supreme court. he decided it in an interesting way that has had ramifications

all through the last 200-plus years. they determined he was entitled to the appointment. that madison had an obligation to deliver it. but then he decided that the supreme court did not have jurisdiction over the case had -- the congress suit was based upon original jurisdiction, and congress had given them no authority to decide. so it is an interesting decision. in the small perspective, it limited the court's power. they essentially said, you are entitled to this, but we are the ones -- not the ones to get it to you. many people have taken that as a key case for the u.s. supreme court being able to decide the ultimate constitutionality of

any issue that comes before the court. i would argue that is not the case. i think that decision was based upon the supreme court weremining what the powers the congress had under the constitution and what the court had under the constitution in that narrow decision. but it caused a furor at the time. jefferson was critical. one of the issues was, should the chief justice have recused himself? he was secretary of state responsible for delivering these. today, the supreme court may have a justice recuse himself from the case. but he decided the case, and it has stood for different things to different people down through the last 200 years.

bury is taught in virtually every high school civics book as a pivotal case for establishing judicial review. some of the historians we have been talking to suggest that further the next 50 years or so, the court did very little but began to assert itself more. what you think of his role today in judicial review? rep. goodlatte: i think the has been mistakenly y and gone toobur far in a number of decisions in regard to getting involved in constitutional decisions or other decisions that are not to be found in the constitution and yet they found something there, or not finding something that

most people looking back suggest should have been there. one of the worst decisions the supreme court overruled upon was the well-known dred scott slave in where a missouri moved to illinois. established his freedom in illinois and went back to for declaration that he was a united states citizen. the court found he was not a united states citizen. most people would truly scratch their head. it necessitated after the civil to having the 13th amendment the constitution, making it clear he was a u.s. citizen having been born in the united states. the other issue was that they took a compromise. passed by the

congress and signed into law, the missouri compromise, and ruled it unconstitutional. how that changed the course of history is an interesting discussion. the underlying decision about , in my opinion, very wrongheaded. that is an example of where the court, i think, stepped in where it should not have. host: can you take a line from that to some of the review of legislation that the court has taken upon itself today? rep. goodlatte: i think you can look at several decisions. decision, the marbury and look at recent decisions that would, i think, not be found to be the correct position. i personally believe that the decision in roe versus wade is not founded in constitutional

language. the court stepped in and interfered with the laws of 46 states in that case. of tremendouse amounts of difficulty and anguish over that period of time. i hope that someday, as people saw with dred scott, that the rights of unborn children are deserving of constitutional protection that can be found in the document. is theoe versus wade final of 12 cases we have selected. a 1973 decision. ingress right now is tied up knots over abortion and funding for planned parenthood. it seemed like the decision settled nothing. rep. goodlatte: it did. established, overturned the laws of a number

of states. those states have been very busy over the years trying to figure out what the law means and passing new legislation, which has come back to the supreme 40 years. times over i think that would be better left to the states determining in the first place. but that is the decision we are faced with now. and we legislate in the congress. if we passed a law, it can be challenged and taken to see if it meets the supreme court's standards or not. i frankly think this is an area where the supreme court has found something in the constitution that does not exist pedthe constitution and usur the legislative powers of the state and congress.

host: the supreme court generally has the last word in cases like this. roilsociety continues to over topics like abortion, what redress is there to a supreme court decision? is it legislation? rep. goodlatte: the supreme court renders a decision. and it is very interesting because technology has changed dramatically in 42 years. i think that has played a role in people's attitude about the issue changing. mothers and fathers have much more information about the baby, what stage of growth it is in the womb. the ability to keep children alive after they are born prematurely has changed dramatically since that time. aboutility to know more

everything about a pregnancy has changed significantly. if you look at some of the technology people use in that time and look at what we use in other aspects of our life today, you would understand it has changed dramatically. has increased information given more understanding of the life that more and more people want to see protected. we are faced with an old supreme court decision that inhibits that. , andtates have passed laws when we do that, they can be challenged. then the court says, it meets the standards or does not. the other thing that could happen would be simply overturning the law and saying, you know what? is just an old perspective of what life means. them to theompare

plessy versus ferguson case. not one on your list, but one that very dramatic we changed later on. plessy versus ferguson was a decision in the 1890's that said it was ok with the 14th amendment to offer african-americans and other races other than the white race separate but equal facilities. was on railroads. but it was applied to virtually every aspect of life, from schools to drinking fountains. it met the equal protection of the law as provided in the 14th amendment. k could be separate as long as it was equal. they were not equal. , then and of itself

"separate" part was not in the spirit of the constitution. it took until brown versus board decision,on, a 9-0 that it was said that is not what the 14th amendment said. that does not happen often. whenpeople believe that times change, it should happen more often. there is a principle which causes the court to base all of its decisions on prior precedent. a the precedent is built on weak foundation, in my opinion, it should not stand. that is what the court struggles with when they have to deal with dse fact that people's min change, technology changes. what we know becomes more

perfected and refined. plessy did not make the list, but brown v. board did. i'm wondering, with the michael brown shooting, charleston shooting, the black lives matter movement, what do you think about how that has established race relations in society? rep. goodlatte: this is a long transition from the horrific start we got. the great people who wrote the constitution, many of them owned slaves at the time. they struggled with it, if you look at the debates and discussions. it has taken a number of different important events in our history to move forward on that, including the civil war, which involved this issue of

slavery. there were other issues involved in the civil war, but there was no doubt slavery was a part as well. after the civil war, constitutional amendments were adopted to ensure certain rights. but you had a bad case like which versus ferguson, says you can do everything separately over here. keep them segregated from other people over here. as long as it is equal. that is a bad decision. we were making progress, but i view the case as a setback. moving forward to brown versus board of education, which is a hugely important step in the right direction in finding that amendment does not mean separate but equal. it leads to the state and government to work through making sure that laws are

enacted that respect the 14th amendment. you have the civil rights act of 1964. this is where i think these issues need to be addressed by the people's elected representatives. the more that is done rather than relying on court cases, the more you will have a growing respect for the rule of law. the court should step in, as they did in brown versus board, but they should step in only when there is a clear in pinch -- infringement on the constitution by federal government or state legislature that does not comply with the constitution. world, anhe post-9/11 area of particular interest for you is a war against terrorism.

atare going to be looking the japanese internment case in world war ii. kuormatsu stayed and activist in this issue all the way until the end of his life at 86. he filed friend of the court briefs in the guantanamo bay case. i wonder what you think about the court's review of policy with regard to the war on terror and some of the antecedents to that. rep. goodlatte: this is an issue that is very important to again, underights, the bill of rights and the 14th amendment to the constitution.

and we need to make sure that our laws are respectful of that. whereis is also a place there has been an evolution in thinking. the idea of interning people of they may beause somehow a threat to the security of the united states when we also had german-americans and italian americans and we do not , was really an than it was ofism a coherent military policy. either way, that policy was very flawed. when you look at some of the issues today with regard to foreign nationals who have committed terrorist acts or are a member of terrorist organizations, i think that gets a different treatment.

i you, for example, the prisoners at guantanamo as being enemy combatants. we do not have a declaration of war like world war ii or a country to declare war against when you are talking about al qaeda, as we were in that case. or organizations today like isis. these people are engaged in war against the united states. anaining them while there is ongoing, coordinated effort to threaten the united states is, i that, a legitimate thing the administration needed to detain them in guantanamo. there are questions to be result. basically, the way they are being resolved is one prisoner at a time. the population has been reduced

agreement totries' take some of them. but when you have an undeclared war on terrorism, what is -- when does the justification for holding somebody end? one way would be if people were of the opinion there is no longer a threat from the organization where it was essentially military actors for. theher way would be if process had simply exhausted itself over a period of time. i believe there are certain actions taken by people who are a threat to the united states that simply cannot be handled as a normal criminal prosecution.

a threat to the united states as terroristlitary organization, not a specific crime. you detain them like prisoners of war. they have not violated american law. they have simply been engaged as enemy combatants for their country. we use the term "enemy combatants" for a terrorist organization. it is not like the case of taking law-abiding american citizens who are not involved in anything and saying you collectively could potentially be a threat to our security during the war with japan. therefore, we will take you from your homes and put you in a separate facility as a result of that. there is not, in my opinion, any comparison between guantanamo and the chassis -- japanese interment. host: one of the things we are

looking at in our series was world war i, the first amendment case. court historians look at that as a turning point for the evaluation of the first amendment and how broad our rights are. again, in thinking about the war , people joining terrorist organizations, do you see the first amendment right as appropriately guarded in society today? or is it threatened by concern about the messages that might be sent? rep. goodlatte: i think it is important we defend first amendment rights. our constitution and our freedoms do not guarantee people that they will not be insulted by somebody else. and i think that there are lots of things that people talk about in a free society that somebody else may be offended by. areas first limited

-- for free speech. you cannot shout "fire" in a crowded theater. you cannot threaten someone verbally. verbal assault, if you will. there are other types of cases like that where freedom of speech is limited. child pornography would be another example of that. but i think, overall, our society is served. to 162cently, i wrote public universities around the country who had speech codes that simply say here is what you say, here is what you cannot say. there is an organization called fire that basically looks at every public university, private and rates themo,

based on whether they are promoting free speech. there has been too much effort to try to control people's attitudes and feelings and so on by telling them what they can and cannot say. that is very concerning with regard to promoting free speech under the first amendment of the constitution. and we have gotten some positive responses back from schools who have said, school systems around the country, that have said we are concerned about making sure free speech is to be protected. at ourare looking policies today to see if we can make changes to them. host: we only have five minutes left with you, and sony issues to talk about. i wanted to get one of the cases, youngstown, on the record. this congress has had some trouble with executive power. that case and the korean war was about truman's seizure of steel

mills. the congress said, you have gone too far. what is the status of the separation of power and the limits on executive power? youngstowntte: the case was important because it narrowly ruled that the president says he's going to seize steel mills and have the government operate them. challenged that and said, where in the laws of our country does the president have this authority? it is not to be found in the constitution and not to be found in any law passed by congress giving the president that authority. the president had taken the authority under what he claimed was executive power and was simply turned back by the court in a very decisive and important decision. i would love to see the court step up and make decisions like

that when the congress or private sector challenges the power of the executive branch. we have a president today who came to the congress with a long list of things. every president does that. that they would like the congress to enact. but he did something different that i had never seen before. he said, if you do not do it, i will. i was so disappointed when members of his own party gave him a standing ovation for saying "if you do not exercise your constitutional authority, i will exercise it for you." he does not have the authority to do that. when we recently got a district court decision giving the congress standing when we takingge the president money to spend on an aspect of the affordable care act that the congress had not appropriated

for that purpose, and the judge found the house of representatives had voted to take this up, she found we had standing to make the challenge. that is a very important decision. it will be going through the appeals process here in the coming months and perhaps years. but making that clear, that the congress has the article one power to write the laws also has challenge theto executive branch in court when surps that power, is an absolutely important one. that is what youngstown strip or with the private sector challenge. but i think the people of the country is harmed when the congress passes a law, the president does something different, and congress says,

powerssident has usurped under the constitution. the court should decide those cases. on trent scott, if you had choose a in the example of the court functioning well, what would you choose? rep. goodlatte: something going on in the 1950's, but youngstown was very important in terms of determining that the president cannot exceed his powers under constitution. a short time thereafter, brown versus board of education, which said that separate but equal was repugnant to the constitution.

happily, they made it onto our short list of landmark cases. thank you for your time in talking about the supreme court and its history. for more informationcer: about our "landmark cases" c-span.org/land markcases. announcer: monday on "the communicators," chip pickering, mtell. cocktail -- co he is interviewed by the senior editor of "communications daily."

companieshese phone transfer from copper to circuit switch to new technology and new networks, how do we make sure that our public safety, the 911, how do we make sure that the competition that has taken root in the marketplace continues and thrives? how do we make sure that our critical institutions, our schools, our libraries, our hospitals, our first responders can depend on those networks and how do they go into the next technology, this transition, with everything being sustained and improved? because i.t. is what we all want. it lowers the prices. announcer: monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. on "the commuter caters" on c-span2. ,"nouncer: tonight on "q&a

tony mauro. later, a look at some of the offense last month with australia's parliament with the removal of predator tony abbott. ministerl of prime tony abbott. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," "national law journal" senior correspondent for the supreme court tony mauro. he talks about the supreme court's new term. , when did youuro start covering the supreme court? tony: in 1979, which is