kagan and scalia don't vote together very often. >> the dog nih case in florida. >> dog sniff case?'s not -- >> i want to know what the dog was sniffing. >> for those who haven't heard this -- let's move on. for those who haven't read the interview. he said i don't want watch "homeland" i watched one episode of "duck dynasty" i love "seinfeld." it was hilarious. the nazi soup kitchen, no soup for you. >> but you are saying that personality doesn't matter on the supreme court? >> it's not that personality doesn't matter but the idea that justices influence each other is usually vastly overstated. what matters on this court is there are five republican appointees and four democratic appointees. that's most of what you need to know. the republicans vote one way and the democrats vote the other. >> i could not disagree more. look at what happened with brier. he has jumped the shark on all kinds of cases. scalia is going the opposite way. there is no way you can say this is a republican/democratic split. >> you want to take a look at the supreme court. >> you have to pay more attention a

sotomayor and kagan are moderate to liberal democrats as advertised. >> george h. bush appointing souter -- >> he replaced william brannen, but he was -- the only choice for that slot. >> george herbert walker bush didn't care that much about the supreme court. that was not his issue. the souter seat came up when the berlin wall was coming down. the following year he nominated thomas. >> he didn't say i will nominate someone that was a moderate swing vote. the conservatives thought they were getting one of their own. >> souter's decision was clear. if you go to ginsburg, sotomayor, kagan, they're as promised. >> who would obama appoint. >> i think did you val patrick is a -- duval patrick. janet napolitano, former governor of arizona. >> the last would be probably last controversial of the three, janet napolitano because republicans have had it in for her -- >> after the speech at the convention. >> clear partisan. that would be pretty controversial. if obama goes the judge route. i think goodwin lou. >> he was filibustered. it is different to filibuster someone fo

as justin kagan said, i have a very special seat at the table. that's not what i want in my democracy. regardless of the amount of money you have you feel that your government officials are serving you, period. now this is not always going to be--we shouldn't try to level the playing field so some absurd extent. it will be a reality that people with more money will have more power. but i don't know why we want that status quo to exacerbate itself when it comes to government. >> one question arising from that why not level the playing field. why not putting in restrictions. >> one of the arguments that we heard in the supreme court is exactly about that. the system is just completely overcomplex. no one really understands how it works. and this is a great example of that. the more you try to legislate the amount of money coming in, the harder it gets. you have to tackle it at the other end and do we really need in an era where people are able to communicate necessarily without having to go through a tv studio, do we need politici politicians spend

and elena kagan who was the former solicitor general for president obama said wait a minute. what about going the other way? making it harder, you know, making it easier frankly for government to then come in and regulate expenditures. in effect reversing citizens united. and solicitor general don vereli who succeeded her was at the lecturn saying far be from me to go backward which was a nice moment in the courtroom. >> joan, what was the atmosphere like in the courtroom and did you get a sense that any particular justice dominated the questions or really aroused people's interests with this? >> justice elena kagan, flashback to september of 2009, when the court heard citizens united, she was actually at the lecturn. arguing on behalf of the obama administration to reject -- gwen: was very active in these arguments. >> completely active. and up on the bench having been appointed by president obama in 2010. and she was there right out of the box. trying to defend the obama -- the government's regulation here. so she was quite active. the person who i was looking for was chief

justice kagan, in my judgment, has appropriately stepped side when a matter of before her office, the office of the solicitor general. there might come a point where there's a tennuation. let leave those kinds of exceptions to the rule aside. something extraordinary is lost when a justice or more than one justice particularly it's one or recuses hip. the ability of a the court function. it's designed to operate as odd number court. nine justices and every member of the court should be participating in that every case. the supreme case, by the way, occurred when justice tom clark resigned from the court so that his son ramsey clark wouldn't have to face the issue when his son was becoming attorney general. a noble act. the second is one that i really do think that the justices should wrestle with, and embark a on a course of conduct that eliminates this entirely. and as recusal because of financial interest. if one is going become a justice of the supreme court, i think there is a deal. t an implicit tale -- deal. you conduct yourself as a justice. so you can do your duty. now there ma

and saying we contemplate that you are going to decide every one of these cases, unless you have a kagan type of issue. what are you going to do, whether in confirmation or in the budget, conversation, but that is an instrumentalist question. no justice should step aside because of financial interests. he or she should i best -- aslves as probably as probably as possible i would hinder them from doing their jobs. >> congress passed a law a few years ago that enables all judges to divest themselves without adverse tax consequences. this was a law applied in 1980 to the people coming to the executive branch, and it applies to the judiciary, and the number of the justices and judges have done that. they have to roll over there investors into a conflict-free account, and a tax-free transaction, so that if she's -- that excuse may have motivated some people. the other question is what are you doing with your children who are practicing law, and the justices have come to an understanding that, and have a policy on it, and everybody is comfortable because so many of them have so many different

-- just as kagan.the candidates do not have the ability to transfer money. >> they can transfer from a candidate to an election. >> that's a contribution. that's a hard conservation limit on how much they can contribute that this gets to another problem which is there is an overbreadth of the problem because if you're talking about the scenario in your scenario there's only one person who can make a contribution. at that point after the first $2600 -- >> you are exactly right ms. murphy. one person could make an 800,000-dollar contribution to a house race where $800,000 goes a long way and then what these 150 candidates can do is they can do it for every single other candidate in a contested seats so take your 30 or 40 house contested seats and it becomes a conduit for single person to make an 800,000-dollar contribution to a candidate in a contested district. >> even if you accept this scenario for all of these candidates are independently deciding to give all their money to one candidate you can have

be clear 8 alderson reporting company official subject to final review what your answer to justice kagan was, her hypothetical. is -- is part of your answer that this might -- the hypothetical that she gives -- contravene earmarking? or >> that's part -- it can pose both earmarking concerns and proliferation concerns if we're talking about something. and if we're talking about a pac that's-- >> so is part of your answer to her there that the hypothetical isn't real or isn't going to happen or -->> yes, i think >> or can't happen under the existing law? is that your answer? >> that's part of the answer. don't think it's a particularly realistic scenario under existing regulations. >> would the other side concede that this is true? >> i -- i doubt they would concede that it's true. but, you know, i think that if you look at it, if you have a bunch of pacs that are getting contributions from this same group of individuals, you are going to run into earmarking and proliferation restrictions. 9 alderson reporting company i official subject to final review but the other thing i would say -- >>

and then justice kagan, writing her first big, major dissent as a justice, giving her powerful answer to the chief's terrific opinion. and this back and forth among them was just so wonderful to watch, and i share the sentiment of the panel that i wish that more americans could see it. it's a pity that americans don't get to see it. particularly in an era when, you know, the other branches don't work quite as well. we've had a shutdown in congress for 16 days, we have very little of that reasoned deliberation that we see in the supreme court happening in congress, at least visibly. and, boy, they have something really to teach us. it is surprising that congress' approval ratings since 2005 have never gone above 40%, the supreme court's approval ratings by contrast have never gone below 40%. so that leads some to think, well, the solution is let's order the supreme court to have cameras in the courtroom, and i guess i'd issue a cautionary note about that. i at least can't presume to tell the justices what to do. i take it that they believe that their situation is different than the sta

and justice taken has been also very -- justice kagan has been also very strategic in a number of cases and she's also a great writer. there was a case where the issue was whether drug-sniffing dog is, can be deemed to be reliable and a fourth amendment search, and she said, you know, the smith is up to snuff, by my rights. that may not sound like great prose, but at least it passes for humor at the supreme court. [laughter] anyway, those are some few thoughts and we'll talk more about the cases that are coming up. >> can i mention one prediction about the same-sex marriage cases? the supreme court issued a ruling that allows california proposition a to go into effect. those bottom lines are perceived as very favorable towards same-sex marriage. but they did resolve. there's a fundamental question whether it's a constitutional right. what happened is the consequence is that almost immediately given was seen to be a huge green light couples around the country including in some very conservative southern states filed a series of challenges to state laws that banned same-sex marriage. and

justices o'connor and tkpweupbzberg up front, sotomayor and kagan in the back. the oil painting is now on display at the national gallery in washington. we'll be back in a moment. the pain started up the back of my head and wrapped around to the front. i was on my way to a music conference and the pain from shingles just made it impossible to even want to move. i couldn't play my bassoon because of the pressure that i felt throughout my whole head. eventually i noticed that i had these little blisters up on my forehead and they started spreading. the blistering and the rash was moving down towards my eye. the doctors at the emergency room recommended that i have it checked out by an eye doctor. there was concern about my eyesight. i eventually learned that if i had chickenpox i was susceptible to getting shingles as an adult. i couldn't do the things i loved because of the pain. when i had shingles the music stopped. >> pelley: western europe was hit by a powerful storm today. at least 13 people were killed most baby falling trees. in france, the winds were hurr

sotomayor, kagan, o'connor, and ginsberg.a photo taken by ringo in new jersey when the beatles visited in '64. a week ago ringo asked for help in finding the young beatles fans. our friends at the "today" show not only found the surviving former kids, got them together on the plaza this morning, they recreated the photo. they have arranged for them all to attend an upcoming ringo starr concert in las vegas. how about that? >>> this weekend in las vegas, a 64-year-old man named john force did something extraordinary. this is what he does for a living. it takes only four seconds to show it to you. that's drag racing. 4.062 seconds, 310 miles an hour. that was john force winning the nhra title for the 16th time. the driver he beat in the next lane was his daughter courtney. he says he'd like to celebrate turni turning 56 next year with a 17th nhra title. >>> and let's hear it for the world series and strange game endings. saturday night's game ended with an ump's call at the base path to home was obstructed by a pair of legs. la

justice kagan made a very strong point, saying that if the court is now thinking independent expenditures can be corrupting, they should recognize that the government ought to have power to put in place commonsense rules to protect our politics and our government from being captured by private economic power. that is what we are talking about here. that is what the court always recognized. even when they cut down on the ability to have those particular rules, regulating in this sphere is important because otherwise what you see is a throwback to the robber baron you're a or even the watergate era. watergate was premised on campaign contributions, quid pro quo political favors. the milk industry, it is in the record, gave money in order to get a price favor on milk subsidies. this is the kind of bad democracy we do not want to go back to that exists too often elsewhere. too much big money elsewhere. but we need to maintain the kind of protection we currently have. >> i want to bring up these two charts. they show a breakdown in the individuals who met contribution limits. the first is cont

it has i think had a tremendous effect on the court as well and kagan and sotomayor are very forceful justices and they are both going to make a difference over time. just as sotomayor is i think still thinks she is on a three-member court which she was on the second circuit because she tries to dominate the arguments with questions that entropy advocate and intra-beat other justices. more than once chief justice roberts has had to tell the advocate you know answer justice breyer's question first and then answer justice sotomayor's. she has proven herself to be very effect this in teasing out the important issues through the question as aggressive as it isn't just his cake and has been also strategically court and in a number of cases and very effective in her questioning and also she is a great writer. in a case where the issue was whether a drug sniffing dog can be deemed to be reliable in the fourth amendment search? she said the smith is up to snuff by my rights. not great prose but at least it passes for humor at the supreme court. [laughter] anyway those are a few thoughts and w

it absolutely would and this is a question that was debated in the court this morning but justice kagan made a very strong point saying if the court is now thinking that suddenly independent spend a chair is actually can be corrupting then they should recognize that the that the government ought to have power to put in place commonsense rules to protect our politics and our government from being captured by private economic power i mean that's really what we're talking about here and that's what the court has always recognized even when they cut back on our ability to have these particular rules they've understood that regulating in this sphere is important because otherwise what you see is a throwback to the robber baron era or even the watergate era watergate itself was premised on campaign contributions quid pro quo political favors you know the milk industry easily very clearly it's in the record in the watergate legislature hearings you know gave money in order to get a price of favor on subsidies so this is the kind of bad democracy that we don't want to go back to that exists too

conventional wisdom would be, and justice kagan and roberts being relatively young. they have a sense of how to align themselves, move the court around. people don't get appreciate it appreciate justice sotomayor or. if you look at her concurrences and dissents. -- deepvery deep fall and thoughtful. justice thomas is out there by himself thinking what the law might be like 50 or 100 years from now. justice sotomayor is closer to present day. she is not really appreciated for her deep legal thinking yet. over the next five or 10 years, more of those opinions have a chance to become the law and she will be recognized as more influential than she is today. i would love to open it up to questions. >> i hope i don't phrase this in a convoluted way. hollingsworth,t it was the most socially controversial case, at least in the media, and the court seemed to throw that back to the appellate court. at the other controversial cases that were not as widespread in the media, they seem to be taking small, incremental steps to a more conservative position in the law. with this upco

showing justice kagan shaking hands and greeting red masshomas at the that took place.he cathedral has celebrated it every year since 1953. it gets its name from the red vestments worn by the clergy to symbolize the fire of the holy spirit that loves people of different languages and allows them to understand each other. that is from "the washington times," this morning on the red mass. jared, michigan, independent caller. hello, jerry the. caller: i wanted to comment that the health care law consumed two years of the first term of obama. the talk of the country was how health care could sustain in cost, theing delivery being atrocious. the republicans have somehow stuck it in at the midnight hour, i find it amazing that they were able to sneak that by on the midnight hour. the president in his first day on the job had a lot to do. aig was ready to go under, wall street was ready to go under, gm ready to go under, chrysler ready to go under, the stock market was just below 7000. the president put on a wet suit, going down to cap the bp oil spill, he has been a real busy

not legal, justice kagan. they do not have the ability to transfer money to each other. is $2600 toum another candidate per election. >> a candidate can transfer $2000 to a candidate for election. a hard contribution limit on how much they can contribute. but i think all of this also gets another problem which there is an overbreadth problem and if you are talking about the scenario come in your scenario, there's only one person who can even make contributions. after the first $2600 -- >> you're exactly right. ane person can make $800,000 commission to a house race. and then with these 150 candidates can do is they can do for every single other candidate in the contested seat. so take your 30 or 40 contested seats. and if it comes to conduit for a single person to make an $800,000 contribution to a candidate in a contested district. >> even if you accept the scenario where all of these candidates are independently deciding to give all their money to one candidate, you can't have a law that is designed to prevent one person from circumvention i prohibiting everybody else

. >> i want to be clear what your answer to justice kagan was. the hypothetical. is part of the answer the hypothetical she gives contravene earmarking? >> that's -- it can pose earmarking concern and proliferation concerns if we're talking about something. if we're talking about a pac. >> is part of your answer to her. that the hypothetical isn't real or isn't going happen? or -- can't happen under the existing if that is your answer. >> that's part of the answer. i don't think it's a particularly realistic scenario under existing regulations. >> would the other side concede it's true? >> i doubt they would concede but it's true. and i think that if you look at it. if you have a bunch of pacs that are getting contribution from the same group of individuals you are going to run to earmarking and proliferation restrictions. the other thing i would say is -- >> you have a pac which says we're going give money to smith. that's bad. but if you have a pac that says we're going give all the money that you contribute to us to smith and jones that is okay. or smith, jones

shows the now retired justice sandra day o'connor, justice ginsburg with justice sotomayor and elena kaganait is nearly ten feet tall and took nearly three years to complete. >>> after pulling out heavier coats for the last couple of mornings, we're going to put them away for a while. howard has the warm-up in his seven-day forecast. >> we're going to look at the recovery efforts in some of the communities arresteddest hit by -- hardest hit by superstorm sandy one year ago today. >>> let's see who's celebrating an october today. [ male announcer ] we know heat control means everything in cooking. that's why we reimagined the range using a tri-ring burner. from the lowest simmer, to the hottest sear, nothing can stop you from achieving the perfect dish... almost. ge. reimagining home. visit bray & scarff and save 10% on select ge cooking appliances when you buy two or more. hurry in for this limited time offer. ♪ hurry in for this limited time offer. therryobi is number one.ons we have over fifty products that work off one 18 volt battery. plus, ryobi offers more value and selection than an

. >> reporter: justice elena kagan took no part in the case because of her involvement in the matter of solicitor general before she joined the court. if the case results in a 4-4 tie, that would lead the lower court's decision striking down the measure as the final decision. bret. >> we also learned today the supreme court will take up a major challenge to the epa's regulatory power. what's at stake with that case? >> well, that case is about whether the epa can do something this administration has made a very high priority and that's regulating greenhouse gases that come from stationary sources like power plants and refineries. the epa says they're necessary in order to reduce the impacts of global warming, but critics of regulation say they'll cost billions and destroy thousands of jobs. bret. >> shannon, thank you. >>> the grapevine is up next. let's take a live look at will rogers statuary hall as the house republican leadership is meeting, we're hearing from an aide "no decision has been made at this time, the elected leadership will meet soon." there's a scramble to figure out

kagan? >> not me, for sure. i think that as we think about afghanistan and why it matters, there is a tendency to treat it in isolation, to have this discussion as though the discussion we were having is whether we should put troops into afghanistan or not. and when people say it's not worth it for us to be there, why should we go into afghanistan when we're not going into yemen or any of the other places that there's al-qaeda, the problem is you start from the reality of where you actually are. and the reality is we have been in afghanistan, and we have made enormous sacrifice and effort in afghanistan, and as ashley said quite rightly, we've made an enormous amount of progress. there is an afghan national security force that is getting after our enemies, and they are getting after our enemies. they are the people that the afghan national security force is taking it to are al-qaeda and their allies. they're doing that increasingly. but they will not be ready in 2014 to take over that responsibility without any

alana kagan is sitting this one out. skeptical of distinctions based on race so it's going to be a very hard go to persuade the supreme court. the mere fact that they took the case is a bad sign for the people who think that the lower court got it right. about eight states in all have similar bans on affirmative action, but there's a question here about whether the country's mood about affirmative action is changing. this nbc news/esquire poll that we've just done in the last couple of days indicates that a majority of respondents in what you call the political middle, about 56% think the government should end affirmative action. >> judith, if you could join in the conversation here, some of those who have been watching these developments are looking at some of the statistics after the michigan amendment took effect in 2006. the number of black and latino students entering michigan's public universities dropped by a third. when you look at what we're discussing today, how big an impact will this ruling have on minority s

you know all these people, obviously, bob kagan, bob zoellick, james woolsey, richard armitage. and as a matter of fact, you even criticize richard armitage in your book about his attitude toward the saudis, if i remember. >> guest: toward iran. c-span: yes. and ... >> guest: .. declared iran to be a democracy that's a -- that's a statement i think he will ultimately regret. c-span: but go back to this. your -- your enemies see thenewamericancentury.org as the great conspiracy. it's an -- tell us about the organization, and why did you sign the 1998 letter to president clinton saying, go after saddam? >> guest: because i believed then, as did the other signatories of that letter, that he posed a significant threat. remember that at the end of the gulf war, he was obliged to do certain things, including limit his military activities, including weapons of mass destruction. there were inspectors in - in iraq pursuant to that. he threw them out, or he basically made it impossible for them to remain. so we were at a crisis point. i think the failure of the administration to respond t

think three point six million dollars isn't that much money and the greatest irony came when justice kagan suggested well we really think that we've created a problem and an absurd rule and we could go back and revisit it and rather than taking that seriously they all left because they know there's no chance that they would actually go back and do the right things are going to just keep plowing forward with this insanity. basically what they're saying in here is the challenge that it presents the american people is the court is saying we don't care if the legislative branch and the executive branch thinks that this corrupts our government we don't even care if the people themselves think that allowing these unlimited contributions to independent expenditure committees or allowing all this money directly to candidates creates gratitude and undue influence we don't think it does or five of us don't and so we're going to overrule the collective judgment of the legislature the executive and the people themselves and that's when we actually start losing sovereignty of our country well and witho

. >> when a portion of the justice kagan swearing in was broadcast. >> but it was not in the course. >> was in a conference room. >> they don't want to preach that wall. the chief justice o'connor you said congress should not tell the supreme court what to do on this. and one of the questions from the audience is how can congress help me move to more transparency of the supreme court? to other panels think it should play a role? >> if there is to questions separation of powers a situation not so long ago took the view the papers were their own yet even though the taxpayers have paid for them and paid for the president's salary that they belonged to the president. congress stepped in as a result of the nixon impeachment and said no. those calling for word are not personal private papers. they are the papers of the people and they can be made public. that could be viewed as the infringement it was tried to call it average rent of the separation of powers and the supreme court said no. you cannot do that. there is a minor problem i don't think there is a separate -- separation of powers

kagan is best known for his work in iraq, although he and septra both been at rand corporation. today is ane here opportunity to remind ourselves what is at stake in afghanistan, and why the u.s. should care. the first question i was given was to ask what was at stake. but i want to put it in a much more pointed way. years, thest couple term war has become unpopular in washington. in fact, from the cia to the white house, it has been made very clear that we have been war for war on terror, and it was probably a mistake. i am conscious of the fact that every other day, i get another casualty report from the battlefield in afghanistan, where u.s. soldiers are still dying. as far as they know, they are still fighting a war. you have an afghan election coming up. you have united states pulling out of afghanistan, to a large degree. you have a nation that has completely lost interest in what is going on over there, and is not given a reason to care by its leaders. behind the stage, we picked our first victim. he is going to begin this conversation. before.nterviewed him i can promise

you have the chief justice and justice kagan who are in their early to mid 50's. you can get the sense that perhaps they are playing the long game. it is like a chess game. they are thinking about where the law will be going in years to come in trying to start to shape that. just say that the single most important change in the supreme court has been the retirement of sandra day o'connor and her replacement by samuel alito. is replaced'connor by some of by who you can scratch the world -- the word "moderate." the importance of the retirement of john paul stevens. ruth bader ginsburg is the leader of the left side of the court. seen several examples of where the court does like to take baby steps. in the voting rights act when a couple of terms ago they came right up to the edge of striking down the voting rights act. and then out of taxes said we are going to leave it up to congress. this is out today. we think congress has not done their homework. have another chance. they didn't. the court then take the next step. we also saw when the supreme court ruled for the

as justice kagan and her question earlier indicated, that means an individual can contribute every two years up to $3.62 million candidates for a party, national committees. >> that's because they can transfer the funds among themselves into a particular candidate. is the possibility of prohibiting those transfers perhaps the way of protecting against data corruption appearance, while at the same time allowing individuals to contribute to however many house candidates he wants to contribute to? >> i mean, the concerns you have somebody who is very interested, stay in environmental regulation and very interested in gun control. the current system, the witty anti-aggregation system works if he's got to choose. you go into this express his belief that donating more than nine people there, or is he going to change the gun control issue? >> mr. chief justice, i want to make two different points in response to that question. the first is restricting transfers would have a very on the circumvention problem, wouldn't eliminate, but with a bearing bearing on the problem. there is a more fundame

kagan is best known for his work in iraq, although he and septra both been at rand corporation.hat you have here today is an opportunity to remind ourselves what is at stake in afghanistan, and why the u.s. should care. the first question i was given was to ask what was at stake. but i want to put it in a much more pointed way. over the last couple years, the term war has become unpopular in washington. in fact, from the cia to the white house, it has been made very clear that we have been using the term war for war on terror, and it was probably a mistake. i am conscious of the fact that every other day, i get another casualty report from the battlefield in afghanistan, where u.s. soldiers are still dying. as far as they know, they are still fighting a war. you have an afghan election coming up. you have united states pulling out of afghanistan, to a large degree. degree. you have a nation that has completely lost interest in what is going on over there, and is not given a reason to care by its leaders. behind the stage, we picked our first victim. he is going to begin this con