and going back to the government -- to paul clement's position about just whose rights are we talking about here he brushed them off saying no, that would not -- we're not talking about that kind of slippery slope here. as the government is contending. because we still have to look at whether the government would have a compelling interest in vaccines. and that's no question here. gwen: it should be -- so justice kennedy in that swing seat again and sounded like the court was more sympathetic to the corporation. >> it was. and justice kennedy was the one who brought up abortion. saying wouldn't -- if we -- if we rule for you, federal government, wouldn't we be saying you can then down the road allow -- force companies to pay for abortions? gwen: fascinating. a great decision. and pull it apart and put it back together again. thank you, joan. thank you, everyone. we have to go. but as always, the conversation will continue online. the "washington week" webcast extra streams live at 8:30 p.m. eastern. and you can find it all week long at pbs.org/washingtonweek. among our topics, will ob

paul clement in his closing said the same thing. that's the impression you're left with, this is the slippery slope to think about. >> so, what does this mean for the next line of cases? one of the things if you take a step back here that i kind of have this sneaking suspicious, i don't want impute bad faith. let me say it does feel a little bit like you can't please these folks in this sense, right? in this case you have this for-profit corporation says we don't want to do this birth control mandate. coming up before the court, you're going to have the little sisters of poor who have an accommodation under the law where they have to sign a form so they don't have to provide this birth control coverage. they're saying signing the form, itself, violates their religious liberty. it does feel a little bit like people have a problem with the law, or they have a problem with birth control more than they have the sort of abstract principle beliefs. maybe i am interpreting them through bad faith. >> no, i mean, one of the interesting side

. >> jon: sure there's no compelling interest to hobby lobby's lawyer paul clement, he has a penis.abies rarely degree inside of those except for that one terrible arnold schwarzenegger movie. it's not a tumor. get into my penis if you want to live. [ laughter ] all right, what sayeth the man that will decide this case swing justice kennedy. >> justice kennedy focused on employers rights saying if a business is forced to pay for all types of contraception they can quote be forced ii principle to pay for abortion. >> jon: right in principle. in fact it would be the opposite of yes for that which i believe is no because contraception is not the same thing as abortion. that's a scientific fact. >> the government has to take& hobby lobby's religious views as they come..3 so off the table is any question about the accuracy of how hobby lobby and another company view these contraceptives as agents of causing abortion. >> jon: let me get this straight, corporations are not just peopll, they are ill-informed people whose factually incorrect beliefs must be upheld ecause they sincereisly bel

paul clement for the challengers goes first, and then the solicitor general goes. both of them will be up there answering lots of questions from the 9 justices and trying to get a word in edgewise. host: who are the justices to watch? guest: generally the rule of thumb when you are at a supreme court argument is that -- whatever what justice anthony kennedy has to say. he is often the swing vote in close cases. especially on sort of these types of issues. so everyone will be keeping an eye on him. and possibly looking out for interesting comments from other justices that might indicate which way the court might go. ont: one of your previews this case, you talk about the corporate rights issue that is being discussed here. explain what that is, because it is something the court is touched on before but in the area of campaign finance, correct? sort of an, this is interesting issue because it creates a lot of controversy. in 2010, the court decided the case called citizens united, lifted some campaign-finance restrictions on corporations and unions. people said -- so

i was once on a plane with two of the greats, the now judgment judge the boston, and paul clement. we were all together at the sixth circuit conference and our plane was delayed and we were in each other's company for many hours at the airport. we were talking about different styles. and paul clement said that sri navasin said that there are people who heat up the podium and those that cool it down and paul said that he is a heater upper. there is a tremendous energy when he steps to the podium. he is a very mesmerizing speaker and there is energy in the room. and judge srinivasin, he calms it down. he is everybody's reasonable man. how could you possibly disagree with what i'm saying in such a calm and cool way. [laughter] and they are both just tremendous, but very different in style. and probably, those styles reflect their personalities. you cannot turn yourself into a person you are not. but you don't have to, because there are lots of different ways to be great. >> and how important is oral argument? >> it's not all that important. [laughter] sometimes it is. it's not that it

gan,a kagan, a top lawyer in the obama administration, clashed repeatedly with attorney paul clement. suppose an employer refuses to fund vaccinations for her employees, or blood transfusions? one religious group could opt out of this and another could opt out of that and everything would be piecemeal. clement, a top lawyer in the george w. bush administration, pushed back, saying those cases were different. his clients provide coverage for most birth control methods, and argue the government should make an exception in the law so they enould not permit pills and devices that stop an embryo from implanting. puday, the chief justice s prested the law's contraception requirement forced religious business owners to violate their conscience. said roberts, they have to pay for methods of contraception they believe provide abortion. but the wild card is anthony kennedy, a conservative, but sometimes votes with the toberals. today in court, he seemed sympathetic to the business owners, but also expressed some concerns about whether a religious objection could trump a woman's access to health

elena kagan, a former top lawyer in the obama administration who clashed repeatedly with attorney paul clement. kagan said if business owners could object to birth control coverage based on religious grounds, what about the next case? suppose an employer refuses to fund vaccinations for her employees or blood transfusions. one religious group could opt out of this and another could opt oust that and everything would be piecemeal. clement pushed back saying those cases were different. his clients provide coverage for most birth control methods and argue the government should make an exception in the law so they would not have to cover for a pill and devices to preconvenient the implant of an embryo in the wound. >> roberts suggested upholding it. today he suggested that the contraception requirement forced religious business owners to violate their conscience. said roberts, that i have to pay for methods of contraception that they believe provides abortions. but the wild card senator kennedy said he expressed some concern about relegislation excess trumping the national health care. jan crawfor

there is kind of a tremendous energy comes from when paul clement steps to the podium. kind of just like, he is a very mesmerizing speaker and there is sort of energy in the room. and then judge vasi, when he used to argue he is like, you know, he calms it down. he is like everybody's reasonable man. how could you, how could you possibly disagree with i'm saying in such a calm and cool way, you know? [laughter] and they're both just tremendous but, very different in style and probably those styles reflect their personalities and, you can't turn yourself into a person you're not but, you don't have to because there are lots of different ways to be great. jon: how important is oral argument? >> it is not all that important. [laughter] i mean it's, sometimes it is. it is not it never decides a case. sometimes it does. sometimes i will go in and i really will be on a knife's edge and sometimes i'll have a lean and you can get me off the lean and i go of at argument and go back to my clerks and i will say, wow, you know i was thinking x but now i'm kind of thinking y because

i was once on a plane with two of the greats, the now judgment judge the boston, and paul clement.e were all together at the sixth circuit conference and our plane was delayed and we were in each other's company for many hours at the airport. we were talking about different styles. and paul clement said that sri navasin said that there are people who heat up the podium and those that cool it down and paul said that he is a heater upper. there is a tremendous energy when he steps to the podium. he is a very mesmerizing speaker and there is energy in the room. and judge srinivasin, he calms it down. he is everybody's reasonable man. how could you possibly disagree with what i'm saying in such a calm and cool way. [laughter] and they are both just tremendous, but very different in style. and probably, those styles reflect their personalities. you cannot turn yourself into a person you are not. but you don't have to, because there are lots of different ways to be great. >> and how important is oral argument? >> it's not all that important. [laughter] sometimes it is. it's not that it n

hobby lobby tapped paul clement. >> it may seem like there's something odd about a corporation exercising religion. a lot of people are familiar with chick-fil-a. if you try to get a sandwich on a sunday you have a problem because they are closed on sunday. >> reporter: the contraception mandate makes exceptions for churches and religious corporations. there's a grandfather provision exempting many other plans and the law doesn't even apply to companies with fewer than 50 employees. that adds up to millions of american workers exempt. so many, in fact, says clement that all the exemptions undermine any claim that the mandate furthers a compelling government interest as the law requires. >> we've never had a law exactly like that this the government tells me i have to pay for somebody else's abortizations or contraceptions. i think the government has recognized we're talking about abortion and contraception, you are treading on religiously sensitive topics. >> reporter: the contraception mandate was drawn up by the department of health and human services and follows a report from the insti

thanks. >> we will now hear from paul clement argued the case is today. >> the council for conestoga to make a statement. >> i just wanted to say this is not about a corporation. this is about a family. a family that has been a pillar to their community for over 50 years and providing jobs to men and women with good benefits and good insurance coverage. and this is something that they don't separate when they go to work during the week. they live their lives into their faith throughout the week. they are very generous in their contributions. they live their faith every day of the week. they don't separate it when they open up their family business. and i think is important here because this abortion pill mandate is an unprecedented intrusion into family business where the government dictates that the cost of severe and crippling fines and penalties that people should violate this sincerely held religious beliefs when they decidebeliefwhen theya living. and i am really sure that when all of us make a living we do not forfeit our constitutional rights of the statutory free foe exercise

paul clement on whether hobby lobby and conestoga specialties getting the religious exemption would openious exemptions, like allowing employees to consume pork profits or earn the minimum wage. the four conservatives on the court, or the three that spoke, samuel alito, antonin scalia, and john roberts pounced on the contraceptive mandate, with alito even suggesting that there might be something wrong with the corporate form if an innin m innamnant object can't have links. here's how they put it. the supreme court in a one-hour, 28-minute session on tuesday staged something like a two-act play on a revolving stage. first, the liberals had their chance and justice anthony kennedy gave them some help and then the scene shifted entirely and the conservatives had their chance, and again, kennedy provided them with some support. and that turns out to be a trend. in a court that's basically split down the middle, 4-4, kennedy is the ultimate swing vote. the one ring to rule them all. kennedy has voted with the majority in 5-4 rulings more often than any other member of the court. and the rober

. >> according to reuters, quote, justice elena kagan told hobby lobby lawyer paul clement that if the court granted the challengers an exemption from the health care mandate, a wide swath of other laws from social security to immunization, health coverage would face lawsuits. you would see religious objectors coming out of the woodwork, kagan said. melinda henneberger joins us and a lawyer representing hobby lobby. thanks as always. >> thanks. >> let me go to your case here. as i understand it so, people understand the nuance here, your client, hobby lobby basically does not want to pay for health insurance that covers things like iuds, which he argues cause abortions because they basically prevent the continuation of life of a fertilized egg? >> that's exactly right, chris. >> it's not about preventing conception. it's about the death, if you will, of a fertilized egg. >> that's exactly right. they do not cover abortion in their plan. that's a long-standing policy. and they also object to covering drugs that they could produce what they consider to be an early abortion, which would b

when paul clement was arguing representing the challengers to what we call the birth control mandate,e of the justices, particularly justices kagan, sotomayor, and ginsburg said, well, there are two different things here. if we decide here that hobby lobby and conestoga, the companies here, don't have to comply with the birth control mandate because they have religious objections, can other employers object because, you know, to provisions that might require blood transfusion coverage or coverage for vaccines? and more broadly, could there be exceptions, based on religion, to this federal law, called the religious freedom restoration act, that would allow employers, large corporations, to object and say, we don't want to for religious reasons, the minimum wage law or child labor laws, family leave laws. so on the other side, when don brilly was arguing for the government, the justices were concerned it would go in the other direction, and you could make for-profit corporations cover, for example, abortions as part of their health insurance. so one of the suggestions that came up came

paul clement for the challengers goes first, and then the solicitor general goes. both of them will be up there answering lots of questions from the 9 justices and trying to get a word in edgewise. host: who are the justices to watch? guest: generally the rule of thumb when you are at a supreme court argument is that -- whatever what justice anthony kennedy has to say. he is often the swing vote in close cases. especially on sort of these types of issues. so everyone will be keeping an eye on him. and possibly looking out for interesting comments from other justices that might indicate which way the court might go. ont: one of your previews this case, you talk about the corporate rights issue that is being discussed here. explain what that is, because it is something the court is touched on before but in the area of campaign finance, correct? sort of an, this is interesting issue because it creates a lot of controversy. in 2010, the court decided the case called citizens united, lifted some campaign-finance restrictions on corporations and unions. people said -- so

i could only listen to the audio, but one of the justices -- again -- tried to belittle paul clement's comments that they have a choice. the gentlelady has pointed out accurately you pay $2,000 or $ 36,500, but he was indicating when you add up, with all the employees they have, the total $475 hey either pay llion or they can drop the insurance, leave the employees in a dilemma, have to go buy obamacare insurance that other contraceptives that bring about abortion, they provide them far better insurance than what obamacare requires. and so when he said it's either $475 million or $26 million, he was insisting that you could just pay the $2,000 fine and was virtually in belief -- unbelief that it actually amounted to $26 million when you add up all the people they'd have to pay for. and so that was his position before the supreme court. to follow our religious beliefs, we either pay $475 million or we pay $26 million. $26 million even. mrs. bachmann: in fines to the government and nobody gets anything. in fact, you give up the health insurance you have today. that's why people are so up

the four liberals on the court pressing paul clement very hard. on the flipside, you saw the man on the court, particularly chief justice john roberts, justice scalia, to a lesser degree justice anthony kennedy, much much harder on the obama solicitor general who was trying to defend the contraception mandate. it broke down almost perfectly on gender lines. host: talk about the questions the justices had to face and what decision do they have to make about hobby lobby and conestoga? guest: they have to make a determination that these two religious employers of for-profit corporations are either people are not people for purposes of the religious freedom provisions in the constitution and the first amendment and under the religious freedom restoration act. a lot of the questions were predictable. how do they exercise religion, corporations? a lot of questions were pressing on the future implications, the slippery slope problem. you had justice kagan and soto mayor pressing paul clement saying, if you're going to grant religious exemptions to employ

paul clement, solicitor general under george w. bush said i have always found him to be of the highest intellect, skills and integrity. i would ask unanimous consent that the whole list of letters be made part of the record. madam president, i have been privileged to be both in civil practice where i have defended people and eight years as a prosecutor. i stand behind nobody in my support of law enforcement. i was picked as one of the three outstanding prosecutors in this country when i was -- when i was a prosecutor. but i believed throughout all that time that everybody who was prosecuted deserves the best of representation. in this case, they speak against a nominee on one single case, mumia abu-jamal's appeal from the death of officer daniel faulkner. i condemn that murder. but just as the british in the boston massacre deserved representation and got it from john adams, just as the man who murdered a number of people, including a couple of teenagers, deserve representation from john roberts, a republican who is now chief justi

it was shocking to hear a supreme court justice ask paul clement why his client didn't just pay the tax and then they could have their religious ideas and religious beliefs. of course, he called it a penalty, as the statute called it. she said, well, the legislation called it a tax. she didn't even know that the majority opinion said on page 15, it's a penalty because congress called it a penalty. 40 pages later, the majority called it a tax so they could uphold it. outrageous. pay your religion tax and then you can have your religious beliefs in america. where's it going to stop if we don't stop it now? i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlelady from california sook recognize -- seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. lee: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to join my colleagues in calling for a vote on comprehensive immigration reform. we have bipartisan legislation that has the support of t

pointed out, and that point was not -- her point was not made because time is so limited, know paul clement knows, but that is such a huge benefit to the employee, there was discussion by the supreme court about, you know, benefits to employee. well, you know, you can raise their salaries and make up the difference, when actually you may have to raise that salary an extra third in order to cover the cost that is pretax to the employee. so the employee is getting hammered when they just, as this justice appeared to callus oy -- callously advocate, play -- pay the -- drop the insurance, pay the penalty, congress said penalty, they said penalty and tax, take your pick, but either way they were advocating harming the employee -- mrs. bachmann: 16,000 employees of one company. mr. gohmert: harming 16,000 employees. with an unconstitutional act. mrs. bachmann: and isn't it true if the gentleman recalls that while this supreme court justice was advocating in a flippant way, drop health insurance coverage for over 16,000 employees, doesn't that seem -- doesn't that supreme court justice enjoy feder

some of thear from attorneys in the case, including paul clement who is representing hobby lobby. they spoke after tuesday's laura -- tuesday's oral argument. say, we arejust obviously gratified that the court heard these cases, accepted both of them. forhink it is important them to understand the religious objections of both the greens in the hobby lobby case and the haunting the calistoga case. took thesee court cases very seriously, took them very seriously. we believe when the government comes in and takes the position that even a kosher deli that was told that it would have to be open on a saturday at they would have no basis to even get into court and make that claim. that is a very difficult argument to sustain. the nature of there are unit would also say that a for-profit medical clinic and have no ability to raise the conscious objection and only if congress provides the conscious objection would they be in a position to do that. those are the arguments that were presented to the court today. we covered a great deal of territory. >> what about the argument from the other