sandra o'connor told me this. sandra said there are two unwritten rules of the court. the first is, at conference, nobody speaks twice till everybody's spoken once. that's a very good rule for a small group. the second, tomorrow is another day. you and i who are the greatest of allies on case one. >> rose: right. case three comes along, we're add -- at odds. the fact you were with me on case one is irrelevant, unless it's legally relevant, but is really irreel want to whether we're allies on case three. what that means is we're a court, we decide. that's the job. decide the case, do your best in that case, absolutely, but, eventually, you have to decide and then move on. there will be plenty of people around in the next case or the one after that to tell you all the mistakes you made and try to do better then next time. but it's on, on, on. tony kennedy said that, he said it's more like an express train than you think. they come in, decide them. pay attention. read the briefs, listen to the argument, you see the idea? >> rose: would you rather be the swing justice or t

sandra o'connor told me this. sandra said that there are two unwritten rules of the court.s, at conference nobody speaks twice until everybody has spoken once. that is important for a small group. the second, tomorrow is another day. you and i were the greatest of allies on case one. case three comes along, we are at odds. the fact that you were with me on case one is irrelevant, unless it is legally relevant, but i mean, it's irrelevant to whether we are allies on case three. what that means is we are a court. we decide. that's the job. decide the case. do your best in that case. absolutely. but eventually, you have to decide and then move on. there will be plenty of people around in the next case or the one after that to tell you all the mistakes you made, and try to do better next time. tony kennedy said it is more like an express train then you think. they come in, you decide, pay attention, read the briefs, listen to the argument. charlie: would you rather be a swing justice or a chief justice? justice breyer: what i rather be the swing justice or the chief justice. i

after that comes up in court justice elena kagan on the influence of the first woman justice sandra day o'connor. first, we talk with a white house correspondent about the news today on steve bannon. >> john bennett is a correspondent for roll call. the other shoe has dropped, steve bannon is out. if he fired or did he leave on his own terms? john: i think it is pretty clear that mr. bannon was asked to leave the white house, you know, this is definitely the new chief of staff, general john kelly, this is his second big personnel move and it has his fingerprints all over it. it happened a little later than a lot of, even republican lawmakers wanted. they felt it needed to happen a little bit faster, earlier in the week after charlottesville and the far right, the white supremacist groups, that band and had at least -- bannon had at least some ties to and had pushed some of the same ideas of these groups, not all of the ideas of these groups, but there were similar strains in what he had written and said over the years, especially working at breitbart. so general kelly, it appears others in the i

and society program has brought together all of these important strands of justice o'connor's legacy through the sandra day o'connor conversations. i am delighted to introduce the first of them. i begin by returning to the different justice o'connor -- difference justice o'connor made for law. in 1981, this conversation would not have been possible. if we look to 1981 come up women who served as a state supreme justice, our task would not have been impossible, but it would have been difficult since only for women had ever held that position. fortunately, those things changed. eveningrlaboratory this , retired chief justice margaret marshall spent 16 years in private practice and general counsel to harvard university for joining the massachusetts supreme judicial court in a can at as only the second woman to serve on that court. she became its first chief justice and i can and i'm and it served in that capacity until 2010. her commitment to equality and worked tooned as she end at minority rule in her home country of south africa, became a hallmark to her service to the court. and in 1981, it would have

charlie: sandra day o'connor. justice ginsburg: it was his choice.rlie: in fact, you said that when she left the court, retired, and alito came on, it marked a change in the court. she was gone. justice ginsburg: i have said more than once that the term she left, whenever the court divided 5-4, and i was one of the four, i would have been one of the five if she was still with us. there was that in our miss difference. enormous difference. charlie: my question goes back to your influences, like your mom. your late husband had a huge influence. you said to me that you would not have made it to the supreme court without him. justice ginsburg: no question about it. people who observed at the time, ruth would have been on a list, maybe she would have been 22 or 23, but it was marty who made her number one. charlie: how did he do that? justice ginsburg: he had a little book of people that he contacted. [laughter] mainly my academic colleagues. in those days i was teaching at -- this was before my first job in d.c. he got in touch with academic colleagues,

. >> rose: sandra day o'connor. and it was a brilliant choice. >> rose: in fact, you have said when she left the court, retired, and alito came on, it marked a change in the court. >> yes. >> rose: because she was gone. well, i have said more than once that the term she left, whenever the court divided 5-4 and i was one of the four, i would have been one of the five if she remained with us. so there was that enormous difference. >> rose: but my question, too, going back to both of you have been influenced by people. your mom. your late husband marty had a huge influence. >> yes. >> rose: you have said to me that you would not have made it to the supreme court without him. >> no question about it. people who observed at the time said, well, ruth would have been on a list, maybe she would be 22 or 23, but it was marty who made her number one. >> rose: how did he do that? he had a little book of people that he contacted. ( laughter ) mainly my academic colleagues. in those days i was teaching at -- well, this was befor

after that, supreme court court justice elena kagan on the influence of the first woman justice sandra day o'connor. first, we talk with a white house correspondent about the news today on steve bannon. >> we are here with john bennett, a correspondent for

chief justice of the supreme court, to talk about their legal careers and the legal career of sandra day o'connor. this is just over hour. good evening and thank you merrill. car where ig in my was a relatively recent partner at my law firm. our lawyers and our

if i had to choose four or five words it would be sandra o'connor who wrote in one of the cases and i joined her opinion on this and it was the court's attitude in those cases, it says, she says the constitution does not write a blank check to the president. not even in time of war. great. fine. the only unfortunate thing about that is well what kind of a check does it write? now you're beginning to see the problem. from our point of view, from the point of the view of judges and lawyers and others. what kind of check does it write? it's not too hard when you're not in the business. but now we're in the business. so if we are in the business of answering that kind of question there has to be answers and now maybe you'll see as well why our opinions are not particularly popular. i mean there are some groups who say you never should have gotten into this. you shouldn't have gotten back into this. you should go back to cicero. you want japanese, 70,000 citizens. the other side said you should have been more thorough, not thorough but more definite. you should have had a few rules here. y

if i had to choose four or five words they would be sandra o'connor's who wrote in one of the cases that i joined her opinion on this, and that's i think is the court's attitude in most cases and probably will be, she says, "the constitution does not write a blank check to the president, not even in time of war." great, fine. the only unfortunate thing about that is what kind of check does it right? now you are beginning to see the problem from the point of view of the judges, the lawyers and others. what kind of check does it write? it is not too hard when you're not in the business, but now we're in the business. so if we are in the business of answering that kind of question there have to be answers. now maybe you will see as well why our opinions are not particularly popular. there are some groups that say you never should have gone back into this, you should be back at cicero. i say really, do you want the japanese, 70,000 american citizens? the other side says, but you should have been more -- not thorough but more definite. you should have had a few rules here. you should have sai

chief justice of the supreme court to talk about their legal careers and the legal career of sandra day o'connor. good evening and thank you merrill. car where ig in my was a relatively recent partner at my law firm. hadlawyers and our spouses returned from a firm outing to prescott,

what you see from the supreme court, with sandra day o'connor in 2003, is to say race can be one factor, but it can't be the exclusive and only factor. so all of a sudden, you see the justice department, what was alarming to me was to see the civil rights division involved in this, because i don't see that there is any outright discrimination against white people in colleges. but i think that they are not sin, we were worried about the fact that so many asian students have extraordinarily high grades, but they are held to a different standard than whites, whites, latinos, anybody. and so they say, you are unfairly treating the asian students. and then in places especially out west, they say, we can fill the whole place up with these high-flying academic top grade sat, act asian students, but we are trying to have a whole campus that represents the entire community that pays taxes to this institution. so, i think it would be legit. i thought, by the way, the excuse from the administration, i think that was of the year. it is about white students. >> greg: i thought the affirmative action

sandra day o'connor signed off on that opinion. do we take those memorials down? the question is, are we going to remove those monuments to justices who ruled in ways that we now find quite troubling or are we going to add to those memorials information like what is being done at the jefferson memorial. there will be an addition placed on the jefferson memorial saying that he was a slave owner. that is one of his great contradictions. >> martha: in many ways adding to the monuments is what becomes more of a history lesson. you think about the taney decision and dred scott, which as you read the language of it, it's obviously from a very different era and reprehensible in its approach to the people of this country. however, you also pointed out that we probably wouldn't have had the civil war without the dred scott decision. so these are the moments in history that push forward the steps that bring us in our evolution to where we are. >> yeah. and taney's words are deeply unsetting. at the time there was a dissent in that case that redeemed the court to some degree

political science from brigham young university, earned his law arizona state university's sandra day o'connor college of law. welcome to one and all, and thus endeth the biographical portion. compelling recitation of ground rules. we're on the record here. please, no live blogging or tweeting or filing of any kind on the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what say.uests there is no embargo when the session ends. to help you curb the relentless selfie urge, we will email several pictures of the session the reporters and officials here today as soon as ends.eakfast if you would like to ask a question, please send me a subtle nonthreatening signal and i will happily call on one and all. we will offer our guests the opportunity to make opening comments and then move to questions from around the table. it will be david louder, ron klein linda feldman, phil douglas, alan ferguson, and sammy snowing to start. the floor is yours. thank you again for doing this. >> thank you so much. thank all of you for welcoming me and mayor benjamin and mayor the unitedehalf of states conference of

science from brigham young university and earned his law degree from arizona state university's sandra day o'connor college of law. welcome to one and all and thus endeth the biographical portion. now, onto the ever so compelling ground rules. as always, we are on the record here. please, no live blogging or tweeting or filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our guests say. there is no embargo when the session ends. to help you curb the selfie urge, we will email several pictures of the session to all reporters and other officials here today as soon as the breakfast ends. as regular attendees know, if you would like to ask a question, please send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i will happily call on one and all. we will offer our guests the opportunity to make opening comments and then we will move to questions from around the table. the list will be -- david lauter, rick klein, john gizzi, linda feldman, phil douglas, alan ferguson, and sammy snowing to start. with that gentleman, the floor is yours. thank you again for doing this. mayor landri

political science from brigham young university and earned had us law degree from arizona state and sandra day o'connor college of law. welcome to one and all and thus end the biographical portion of the program. now on to the ever so compelling recitation of ground rules. as always we're on the record here. please no live bulldogging or tweeting in short and no filing of any kind while breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our guests say. there's no embargo when the session ends. to help you curb that relentless selfi urge, hint, hint, we'll email several pictures of the session to all the reporters and several officials today as soon as the breakfast ends and the regular attendees know if you'd like to ask a question do the traditional thing and send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i'll happily call on one and all and would let our guests make opening comments and move to questions around the table and david lauder, rick klein, john gizzy, feldman, douglas, and sammy snell to start. with that, gentlemen, the floor is yours. thanks for doing this. >> thanks so much and thank y

she became the first -- the second woman after sandra day o'connor and the first jewish woman on the court. now a year later steven briar who i'm proud to say is from san francisco. technically he didn't live in san francisco. and he is appointed and both of them still serve on the court today. they're considered pretty much part of the liberal bloc on the court. and ruth bader ginsburg has now surpassed brandeis and frankfurter in terms of longevity on the supreme court. steven briar had a very interesting -- he served in the 1980s as the chief counsel of the senate judiciary committee. both he and ruth bader ginsburg were known as voices for conviviality on the court. he got along with everyone. as counsel for the judiciary committee, he was able to get along famously with the late ted kennedy and orin hatch on the other. they agreed on their admiration and respect for steve. when he was nominated in the last days of jimmy carter's administration to the federal bench, they came together to n finesse his nomination. anyone who can get along with orin hatch and ted kennedy must be go

of course reagan promptly nominated sandra day o'connor which infuriated phyllis schlafly, but they'd been working ever since to get to that point. and now trump has promised that if he gets another appointment that it will be someone who would take a pro-life position. so absolutely that could happen. >> wouldn't there be a tremendous cost to that? overthrowing something that existed for 45 years? as we saw with the health care issue. >> i think that absolutely there would be a tremendous -- you saw the january 21st marches in the streets. if that happened, i think you'd see about twice that many people show up. absolutely. i believe it's something that a whole generation of people have grown up with believing that that issue was resolved. and there has been tremendous increase in support for the pro-life movement in part as the years go by since people remember the huge number of babies found in fetuses in trash cans and women bleeding to death from back alley abortions as those instances have faded from memory and as it has been put in a position in which there's less emphasis on p

after that comes up in court justice elena kagan on the influence of the first woman justice sandra day o'connor. first, we talk with a white house correspondent about the news today on steve bannon. >> john bennett is a correspondent for roll call. the other shoe has dropped, steve bannon is out. if he fired or did he leave on his own terms? john: i think it is pretty clear that mr. bannon was asked to leave the white house, you know, this is definitely the new chief of staff, gera

the second woman after sandra day o'connor and the first jewish woman on the court. now, a year later steven briar who i am proud to say is a fellow longsman from san francisco. the only one to be on the court and the only san franciscan because old warren didn't live in san francisco, and he is appointed and both of them still serve on the court today. they're considered pretty much part of the liberal block on the court and ruth bader ginsburg who just turned 84 has now surpassed brandeis and frankfurter by a few months in terms of longevity of jewish justices on the court. steven briar had a very interesting, just to say he served in the 1980s on leave of hafb art law school and both he and ruth bader ginsburg were known as voices of conviviality on the court. he was on the judiciary committee and able to get along famously with the late ted kennedy on the one hand, the leading democrat and orrin hatch on the other hand kennedy and on orrin hatch didn't agree on things and they agreed with steven briar when he was nominated on the last days of jimmy carter's admin

she became, of course, the first -- the second woman after sandra day o'connor and the first jewish woman on the court. now, a year later, steven briar, who i'm proud to say -- is a fellow lons man from san francisco, the only san francisco -- i think the only san franciscoen because technically he didn't live in san francisco. but any way, and he is appointed, and both of them still serve on the court today. they're considered pretty much part of a liberal block on the court. and ruth bader ginsburg, who just turned 84, has now surpassed brandeis and frank if you are terr by a few months in terms of longevity of jewish justices on the court. steven brieier had a very interesting -- i'll talk about other things but just to say that he served in the 1980s away from harvard law school as the chief counsel of the senate judiciary committee. both he and ruth bader ginsburg were known as voices for, you know, con vif although on the court. he got along with everyone. as counsel for the judiciary committee, he was able to get along famously with the late ted kennedy on the one hand, the leading

and i think sandra day o'connor put it very well. she said because of marbury versus madison each of us have constitutional rights that no president and no congress can ever take away and that's really what marbury stands for. >> well, you amar why does this matters? >> many of you have heard of this concept of judicial review. in a nutshell it means the court, not just the u.s. supreme court but all courts in our system, state court lower and federal court has the ability to disregard even an act of congress or a state law if in the judge's view that act of congress or a state law is inconsistent with the judge's understand of the constitution itself. now, the interesting thing about judicial review is although marbury is the first case about judicial review, it actually -- judicial review wasn't that vigorous before the civil war. so marbury becomes in some ways more important because of stuff that happens later in our story. and we look back and read some things into marbury. at the time, perhaps it was a more narrow decision than

justice sandra day o'connor observed when we are looking for a court of appeals decision for use as authority we look first for opinions of henry friendly. and justice thurgood marshall quipping on the conventional second circuit wisdom that one should quote learned but followed guts said that for him the rule would always be quote friendly and follow friendly. his productivity on this court was simply staggering. he wrote 1056 signed public opinion. he was producing 20% more opinions than the average production of his fellow active judges. his opinions clarified roughly every area of the law he touched to pick in addition to run the time of this judgeship he wrote scholarly articles, making seminal contributions to our understanding of federal jurisdiction, administrative law, judicial discretion, the common-law process in the federal courts and criminal law. it is a measure of the respect shown by the supreme court and other courts for friendly rulings that have been cited as precedent with greater frequency than those of any other judge the low the supreme court with the exception of learn