now, justice cardozo didn't spend a whole lot of time on the supreme court.he had an untimely passing but he had been a judge on the new york court of appeals for a very long time and during his short tenure on the bench, one of the factors that he was so well known for was his great respect for precedent and his great respect for -- respect and deference to the legislative branch and to the other branches of government and their powers under the constitution. in those regards, i do admire those parts of justice cardozo, which he was most famous for and i think that is how i approach the long as a case by case application of law to fax. >> thank you. appreciate that. judge sotomayor, many of us are impressed with you in your nomination and we hold you in great regard, but i believe we have right to know when we're getting before we give a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. and has confirmation hearings we have seen nominees until something during our private meetings and in the confirmation hearings and then go to the court and become a ju

oliver wendell holmes, cardozo and others. you acknowledge they made a big difference in discrimination cases, but it took a long time to understand, it takes time and effort, not something all people are willing to give and so on. then you concluded this. in short, i accept the proposition that difference will be made by the presence of women and people of color on the bench and that my experiences will affect the facts that i choose to see. you said i don't know exactly what the difference will be in my judging but i accept that there will be some based on gender in my -- and my latina heritage. you don't, -- as you said in your response to senator sessions, you said you weren't encouraging that, and you talked about how we need to set that aside, but you didn't in your speech say that this is not good. we need to set this aside. instead, you seemed to be celebrating it. the clear inference is it's a good thing that this is happening. so that's why some of us are concerned, first with vice president's i will use days of his

the first hispanic appointed to the supreme court was benjamin cardozo in the 1800's and he served aull team. the second one was distraught on the filibuster side for the democrats. they all talk about the supreme court as a good old boy network. they all overlook clarence thomas. my problem with sotomayor is the tour marks. i came to jury duty and i happen to beat american indian. how could i say that i would make it better decision. and her membership in a racial organization. i don't see anybody bringing too much of that up. i just went over to the independent side. i was a democrat, but it is not my party anymore. obama appointing 22 czar's is taking all of the power away from the people. host: thanks. what is this organization? guest: they have played an important part not just for the lead tenant community, but many low-income minority communities in this country being able to get ahead. it is a very mainstream american institution, and it has done so much to help the american economy by helping latino families, and helping families in the past may not have known how to do this

justice cardozo in connecticut talked about the changing values and the one court changed the constitution practically every day, of which i saw being in a district attorney's office which change certain season, miranda right to counsel, who would have thought it would take until 1963 to have the right to cancel union reverses wainwright? we have heard a lot of talk about the nomination proceeding of judge more and they have tried to make it into a verb of somebody being bored. anyone who looks of that record will see that it is very different. we had a situation in where judge bork was an advocate of original intent from his days writing the law review article in the indiana law review. and how can you have an original intent and the 18th amendment was written by a senate on april protection which were segregated or were you have a and judge bork who blame to equal protection alive only to raise and ethnicity and didn't even apply to women. that was a very thorough hearing. i spent beyond a hearing days in three long sessions five hours with judge bork said it was his own approach to the

wendell holmes's famous statement that the life of the law is experience, not logic, the justice cardozo and palko connecticut talked about changing values. and the warren court changed the constitution practically every day, which i saw being of the district attorney's office which changes in search and seizure, confessions, miranda, right to counsel. who could have thought that it would take until 1963 to have the right to counsel gideon v.wainwright? we've heard a lot of talk about the nomination proceeding of judge bork. and they tried to make bork into a verb. somebody being borked is credited welcome anybody who looks set the record will see that it's very, very different. we have a situation where george bork was an advocate on original intent from his days writing the law review article in the indiana law review. and how can you have our original intent with the 18th amendment was written by a senate of equal protection with the senate galleries which were segregated? or where you have judge bork who believed that equal protection applied only to the race and ethnicity? it didn't

as justice cardozo reminds us, you are not free to act as a knight errant, roaming at will in pursuityour own ideal of beauty or of goodness. yet, he concluded, wide enough in all conscience is the field of discretion that remains. the question for this hearing is, will you bring good judgment to that wide field? will you understand and care how your decisions affect the lives of americans? will you use your broad discretion to advance the promises of liberty and justice made by the constitution? i believe that your diverse life experience, your broad professional background, your expertise as a judge at each level of the system will bring you that judgment. as oliver wendell holmes famously said, "the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience." if your wide experience brings life to a sense of the difficult circumstances faced by the less powerful among us, the woman shunted around the bank from voice mail to voice mail as she tries to avoid foreclosure. the family struggling to get by in the name where police only come with raid jackets on. the couple up late on the

justice benjamin cardozo put it this way, "the j judge is not to innovate at pleasure. he is not a night errant, roaming at will in purr - pursuf his own goodness. he is to own his decision from consecrated principles. he is to exercise a discretion informed by tradition, methodized by analogy, disciplined by system, and subordinated to the primordial necessity of order in the social life, wide enough in all conscience is the field of discretion that remains." madam president, within this wide field of discretions, judges do not, cannot and should not close their minds to their experience of the world nor to what their experience teechedz s them about the effects of their -- teaches them about the effects of their decisions on the world there. has been plenty of empathy at the supreme court recently for the rich and powerful, resulting in decisions that frustrate congressional intent and deprive americans of crucial statutory and constitutional protections. there has been plenty of empathy for right-wing ideology and plenty of empathy for big corporations. should we not