they're expected to begin work later in the week with the computer chip industry. watch live coverage of the house. or online at c-span.org. host: remind viewers what this is and why you find it. guest: to make sure that they have someone to defend them. to be faithful to the constitution and rule of law. twitter or on the

judicial network. host: is a conservative judges that you mostly defend? guest: we would be happy to defend judges appointed by democrats. the fundamental metric that we use, are they someone who will interpret the law is written and as originally understood? if democrat started appointing judges like that we would encourage them as well. host: before we get to this term of the supreme court in the dobbs decision, i just want to give you a chance to explain your campaign focused on stopping threats to judges. guest: this is something we have seen an increase in disturbing ways particularly in the past few years. it is not something new, we have seen it for a while. we saw attacks on justice thomas during his confirmation process

and following his confirmation, a lot of attacks that have racist undertones and now, i am seeing the same thing with amy coney barrett with sexist undertones dismissive of her role on the court. the biggest thing that we have seen in terms of attacks on the judiciary and people who are trying to intimidate judges. we recognize justice kavanaugh's investigation, he was attacked. following that, we have seen people protesting at the justices house. this is something relatively new, it did not used to happen. we have protest at the court, i support that. the inherent threat of protesting at someone's personal residence, are particularly justice that has young children

at home is something new and the level of threat is also new. the attempted assassination of justice kavanaugh and the groups that say violence is the answer. there are organizations who are open about it and that is very concerning that the white house is not pushback on the protests of private residences. the bullying with the attempts to pack the court. the idea that we will add justices to the supreme court not because they need more help or there is a bigger workload but because we are explicitly partisan. we want to add judges in an effort to outweigh the judges that were appointed by president trump. that would be a very dangerous

step to take in our judiciary a and would lead the way to a back-and-forth every time power switch hands and government where you had the other party adding judges. you can't take them away, they have life tenure. things like this are a real threat to the integrity of the court because if you have one branch of government declaring war on the other that is a concern to me. host: congress passed in president biden signed the supreme court parity law. what is that due and has done enough? guest: that was long-awaited, something that is been on the table for a long time particularly after the leak of the dobbs decision that has never happened in history before but created an unusual threat to the justices. people like justice kavanaugh

would be assailed. we could change the makeup of the court by attacking the justices, that was proposed very surely after that. congress waited until there had been a real threat realized before they passed it. they increase the ability of the marshals service, giving them the support and the ability to protect the justices family. we have justices that do have children that could be targeted and i think that was something that gave the justices more peace of mind when they knew that their children were also going to be protected at a level where the rhetoric has gotten so high. also, the physical threats and

intimidation has gotten so high. i think it was a little bit late , by the time they did it we were almost done with the term. the other thing that would be much more helpful is the government enforcing laws that are already there. there is a federal law that protects against judges being intimidated about cases that they are in the process of deciding on. that was precisely what we are talking about during may and june when people wanted the justices to change their vote. that is attempting to intimidate a judge. we saw no action from the white house or attorney general garlin to enforce that federal law that sits on the books and has been on the books for a long time. that is very discouraging to see. i have no doubt that if it had

been justice ginsburg or justice kagan, i feel like they would've thought this needed to be addressed. it is discouraged that the basic adderall law was not enforced as to these justices in a case where the president has a strong opinion on himself. he is entitled to that. but enforcing the law is a real concern and the states virginia, maryland have similar laws and they are starting to be enforced more. there also seems to be spotty enforcement especially where justice robertson justice kavanaugh live. the mayor says he is so upset about the decision that he will not support the law to protect the judges. none of our justices should have to be concerned that the way

they vote and a case is going to affect their personal safety. that is something i would except from cuba or venezuela where a judge would think is something bad going to happen to me if i rule one way or another. that is not the rule of law. that is the rule of violence and i think we should get away with it. host: let me quickly invite the viewers to join the conversation. one more question on safety or threats as folks are calling in, i know your focus is the judiciary. how concerned are you about threats to members of congress? we saw a story of a man arrested outside the house of pramila jayapal. what are your thoughts on that story? guest: leaders in every branch

should be protected. the president has secret service , certainly the congress has. i am glad they caught this person. i think this is something we should care about at every level of government. no one should have to worry that because they are a public servant they will put their life at risk. host: to the issue of a post roe world. the new york times, the next frontline in the abortion wars, state supreme court's. do you foresee your work going down to the state supreme court's. we mostly talk to you about the supreme court on this program. guest: state supreme court's is something we have had on our radar for some time. there are some state supreme court's that have a similar tendency toward activism that the u.s. supreme court has. i think it is important that 90% of laws are done at the state

level. national programs get canceled because different states want different things. there are important things happening in the states. we have several states that already have amendments in their constitution. quite a few states, their courts have added those provisions. california and vermont do have on the ballot the idea of adding it to their constitution. kansas has a constitution saying that the constitution does not have anything on abortion. the proper place for that to happen is with the people of the state themselves to change their constitution. it should not be the courts that

are changing the constitution and the state but the people of the state. different states have different processes for that but they have to follow those processes and have justices read their own political views into the state constitution itself to address some of these major issues. host: this is why nita from north carolina. good morning. juanita are you with us? caller: thank you for taking my call. yes, i am here. host: go ahead with your comment or question, we are listening. caller: thank you. thank you for taking my call. how do you feel about this large miscarriage of justice and often repeated that the lower level, a

very innocent, naive girl worked at a 7-eleven. she came to work on a very busy saturday night and was told that she had to train a new employee. the policy was that if there was a missing lottery ticket they were to report that to their employer. however, she was so busy and rushed with saturday night business that she failed to report it. when she went to court, the judge and the prosecuting attorney, and this is a quote that i heard, i don't know if you are innocent or not but if you plead guilty and give valero you will never have to come back

here again, this blog go away. was justice served here? host: this was a specific case in south carolina the you heard about? caller: the case was in virginia. host: is this a case you have heard about? guest: i hesitate to give a conclusion, that is a challenge in how the pleading process works in criminal cases. even if they are not guilty, we have to weigh the risk of going to trial and thinking they could potentially lose that trial even if it is something that he she did not do to make it all go away. that is something that is a real challenge in the process. this is something that has to be dealt with with those that are involved in the criminal law.

host: patty out of louisville, kentucky. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i have a question about the violence and threats against the supreme court justices. i think that there should be term limits for sure. i think they should be held accountable for decisions they make. she is saying that they want judges who go by the constitution as written. that was many years ago and this country has moved forward since then. there has been people who have fought for civil rights, gay rights, all kinds of rights. women's rights, these things are

not in the constitution but they are in this country that we live in. i think when donald trump ran for president he vowed to only appoint justices that would overturn roe, which is exactly what he did. in this country, the majority of the people in this country right now do not want that overturn. the majority of the people. so when they say give it back to the states, you look at the states. you look at the leaders in the states and the way they are trying to keep people from voting. intimidating them to the appoint where they don't even bother to vote.

this is not representing the people in this country. the state laws are not fair to the people. a lot of the representatives in the states are not picked by the majority of the people in the states. host: we will let carrie severino jump in. guest: to the question of term limits, that is absolutely something that a lot of people have talked about. many state supreme court's have term limits for their judges or an age at which they have to retire. that is something we could absolutely add or change to the constitution. the challenges the constitution itself does give the judges a life tenure. we don't want judges to think about their next job, how can i curry favor with other people to help me out later. they wanted people to have the freedom to rule as how they

believed. people lived a lot longer. the terms were a lot shorter because they would leave to do other things are diane office. there are reasons that term limits could make sense. the challenge is to implement that in a way that will not unduly favor one party or another in the time of transition. we have to have a constitutional amendment which requires a large majority of americans to approve it. saying we will add term limits and give republicans a chance to replace other people forced off the bench. you have to get that super majority to amend the constitution. i would be in favor of such an amendment if you could do it in such a way that was bipartisan

and evenhanded. i think a lot of people would. we have to be careful about one party or another trying to change the system that only favors their party. the amendment process is the answer to the other problem that you highlighted in your concern about areas of the constitution that need to be updated or there is something that might be broadly popular but is not written in the constitution. that is what the amendment process is designed for. the framers understood that this document would not answer every question. they immediately went back and added 10 amendments themselves. it is a high bar, it is only done for issues that really are important. i would love to see that process referred to and taken recourse to more often because i think that is the proper answer.

the proper answer to amending the constitution to update it as things are needed for modern life. it is not to say, we will give a finite amount of elected men and women on the supreme court to do that. to change our laws we need a majority of congress and the president to do. we need a system that doesn't happen willy-nilly. we do reflect the american people interest. and finally, i think we would have to see. let's put that to a vote and see what the american people want to do. the polls are more complicated. you do see majorities for americans that say they want to

keep roe v. wade. you see even larger majorities for people wanting abortion policies that are inconsistent with roe that do limit viability. there is much more subtle opinion than polling would show. most americans really don't know what roe requires. especially when read together with the other decisions, ineffective means that women can receive an abortion through all nine months simply by appealing to general emotional health. not every state that has that law protecting fetal life says that it protects the life of the mother. if there were an issue where a

woman had to have a procedure that would result in the death of the child but also would save her life. that is permitted in every state of the country. we have to have a system that is able to address the reality of what americans think and most americans don't agree with the actual laws required by roe even though they liked roe in the abstract. we will see a much wider variation where different states and where different people decide to draw that balance. host: about five minutes before the house comes in, let's get to work calls. jimmy from baltimore. caller: my concern is about the democrats trying to pack the court. it is very interesting because that is exactly what mcconnell did with merrick garland that

should have been carried through. he had a year to do it. he gave a speech to the federalist society later saying that if he had a year to do it for trump when you let trump but the nomination through? and he said very dryly with a grin on his face, of course i would. host: carrie severino, merrick garland. guest: when we talk about packing the court it refers to adding seeds to the court. so your political party can take advantage of it. this concept goes back to 1937 when rank lynn roosevelt tried to do the same thing. he was frustrated with the supreme court, they kept finding his new deal policies unconstitutional. he was doing things in american law that have not been done

before. he proposed adding seeds of the court which would've allowed him to fill the seats with people sympathetic with us all. it was wildly rejected even in a democratic-controlled congress. i am not talking about a metaphorical putting lots of people on the bench. we talk about packing the court, that has history in america which was soundly rejected and later rejected by ruth bader ginsburg and justice stephen breyer. liberal justices on the court. that is what the democrats are trying to do to add seeds for political ends. what leader mcconnell did in that case was a different thing. you can disagree with that decision, you can say he should not have held that seat open. that is something different. we can debate it and democrats are in a similar situation.

that is something that the political process has a check on. if the american people said this is out of line, we don't think that's appropriate. there were senators and a president up for election at the end of that same year and there was the opportunity to have people say this is beyond the pale. they did not say that and gave the senate back to the republicans at the end of the time. this was a gamble. it certainly could have gone the other way for him. that is something that has the political process as a check on that. we talk about packing the court, it was a reference to that phrase since 1937 to add to the court itself. that is something i would hope both parties could recognize. host: a final minute sober for the house comes in, as we wait for them, you mentioned a

constitutional amendment. is there any issue right now that you think could get two thirds of a vote in the house and two thirds of the house and senate and three quarters of the states to ratify? guest: i think term limits are a good example. there are both people on both sides of the aisle. law professors have talk this out and proposed various systems. how could you do this in a way to keep it evenhanded. if you had an evenhanded system, i think you could get that overwhelming requirement to pass . i think that would be something that might be a good example for people. there is a way in the constitution, it doesn't have to be something that is done in the closed, secret body of nine judges. host: carrie severino j

>> >> c-span's "washington journal." every day we take your calls live on air on the news of the day. we discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up saturday morning, we discussed president biden's meeting. then, the host of politics and religion talks about his podcast. watch "washington journal" live on c-span, or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. >> tuesday, transportation secretary gives an update on the infrastructure law including roads, bridges and rail

projects. watch live on c-span3, also on our new voting -- video app or online at c-span.org. >> president biden -- stopped in jerusalem to announce $100 million in aid for hospitals located in the region. . [background sounds]. pres. biden: my name is joe biden, i am jill biden's husband. [laughter] before i begin, i would like to say that hope springs eternal, you know the expression. my background in the background of my family as an irish