well, i think we've established very convincingly, we did during the sotomayor hearing that there is such a thing as judicial activism. there is such a thing as legislating from the bench. and it is practiced repeatedly by the roberts court and it has cut in only one direction, in favor of powerful corporate interests abagainst the rights of individual americans. in the next few days, i want to continue this conversation because i think things have only gotten worse. and so i want to say one thing to the people in minnesota who are watching on tv or listening. with few exceptions, whether -- and i'm echoing senator cardin here, whether you're a worker, a pensioner, a small business owner, a woman, a voter, or a person who drinks water, your rights are harder to defend today than they were five years ago. my state has been victim to the third largest ponzi scheme in history, and yet, in 2008 in a case called stone ridge, the roberts court made it harder for investors to get their money back from people who defrauded them. the twin cities have more older workers per capita than almost

i am very impressed with her, just as i was with justice sotomayor. >>>she has gone through an intense series of during rehearsals. i wonder if you could tell us what you will do to plan for the hearings and what you will be doing before you get started with your opening statements. >> we tried a resource, and i have been able to go to my apartment house in vermont and sit under my favorite apple tree. that sounds silly, but i am away from the phone, away from the blackberry. i could just sit there and read. i have been trying to do that evening's end weekends, getting off quietly, and doing it all at once, but i try to get away from thh computer and the blackberry, which members of my family referred to as my crackberry. i tried to get away and see my tom -- to see how much i know of her. i think when i come in there, i will have enough of a sense of what her thoughts are and her abilities, and i will ask specific questions common and i will be one of the fused -- questions, and i will be one of the few senators who will be there for the whole hearin

i do not know whether sotomayor is up to that. she is very good. what we have seen from her so far is most impressive. in fact, more impressive than i expected it to be, because i had seen some of her arguments on the second circuit and she is better than i thought she woold be. but i am not sure whether or not she is that next level up of intellect that the court had when it had david souter. to my mind, he was the smartest just as i have ever covered, with apologies with apologiessbryer, who is awfully smart to. >> we asked justice thomas when he chooses not to ask questions. this is a brief response. >> i think it is hard to have a conversation when nobody is listening, when you cannot complete sentences or answers. perhaps that is a southern thing. i do not know. but i think he should allow people to complete their answers and their thought and to continue their conversation. i find the coherence to get from a conversation helps you to understand your questions. i do not see how you can learn a lot from 50 questions. >> i will let that stand wi

>> after watching sotomayor, i honestly believe the change that president obama is bringing to washington is contradictory to the change he promised on the campaign trail where he promised and they gave flyers to americans all over the country saying he would always support the second amendment. his first nominee.... >> ifill: what about elena kagan? >> there's nothing in her track record that believes she'll be supportive. i'm a second amendment absolutist. i don't want anyone on the supreme court that will not support that. >> president obama hasn't done a thing about the second amendment since he's been in. he's not even will to go talk about gun violence. we're wait to go hear more of her testimony. sounds like she'll be open minded. >> she said heller is settled law. >> if i were taking a law school exam today i'd say you have a right to have an gun in your house for self-defense. what do we do now to help reduce gun violence in our communities? we need to work with people to find a common middle ground. >> prosecute the criminals and leave the good guys alone. >> ifill: both of you

he said is same thing during the sotomayor's confirmations. this president gets to a point someone unless there's an outrageous why you should vote fence them you should sort of go along. that's how some republicans view it and some democrats too. host: next call from pennsylvania. democrat line? call cow this woman scares the be jesus out of me for two reasons. first and for most, her adamant - stop against the second amendment right of this country and her views on foreign courts decisions. nothing to do with this country. people got to remember one thing. without your second amendment rights you have no first amendment rights. host: what have you heard or read that elena kagan has said about the second amendment? caller: she does not believe in it. host: where did you read that. caller: either on c-span or one of the local channels here in the state of pennsylvania. host: what is elena kagan said about the second amendment that you know of? guest: there's only two things can i think of that deal with gun issues. one was when she was a law c

not surprisingly, it was the first interview granted by new justice so vote -- sonia sotomayor and the only interview with justice david souter, who is notoriously camera shy. when the documentary was finished and we have these marvelous transcripts, we knew we had something special that ought to be recorded for the ages. we asked our colleagues at public affairs publishers in york city who have worked with us in the past if it would be interested in helping us publish a book. this is the brand new book on the supreme court, which came out in a timely way -- last week, just in time for the president's new nomination to the supreme court. and on the noon of its publication, we thought it would be appropriate to talk more about how the supreme court functions. tonight, we are pleased to have with us three of the people who are closely associated with the court, three panelists who were involved in this project. i will tell you about them later. and we're also pleased to have a justice bork himself here to talk to us for a bit. before we get to that, i would like to introduce dr. don van

. >> we sat in the same room to consider the nomination of then judge sonia sotomayor. and to impartially apply the law to resolve disputes between parties. judge sotomayor explicitly rejected the empathy standard that had been espoused by president obama. a standard ere legal process alone is deemed inefficient for the so-called hard cases where the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart. perhaps because his first nominee failed to defend the judicial philosophy that he was promoting, the president has repackaged it. now he says that judges should have a keen understanning of how the law affects the daily lives of the american people. and no that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. the clear implication is that at least in some kind of cases, judges should abandon impartiality and engage in results-oriented judging. his own press secretary has confirmed the results oriented view. exactly what kind of results is the president looking for from his judges? perhaps he wants judges who

." >> judge sotomayor, are you prepared to take the oath? please raise your right hand and repeat after me. i, a seminar, do solemnly swear -- i, sonia sotomayor work, do solemnly swear. >> justice white what said win wwen the court gets a new its seeds by in order of seniorrty so there will be a shift there. fundamentally, it can cause you to look at how things are decided, the new number of having a particular view about how issues should be addressed may be addressed from the we had recently. and is an exciting time of life in the court. change at all, i think. i think the relationships change. to acquire another one.opefully- i miss a lot of my former colleagues on the court from white to bill brennan. that is thh cross -- that is the process. they leave and people come on. >> it is different today than what it was when i first got here. i have to admit thattyou grow up very fond of the court. there was a. there were chief justice -- there was a time with chief justice rehnquist and sandra day o'connor, we had a long time together to get

unlike the information that we had with sonia sotomayor, they are not in court, so they are digestible. heavy in policy, but not legal language. host: next phone call. independenct line. caller: finally the if there are 100,000 pages of stuff out there, nobody should be rushed into making a decision. that is part of the problem and that i, as an american, have now. none of these bills are being read. i do not think that is right. it is time that people started doing the job that they are paid to do. basically from what i have heard this morning, once you take our guns away, it is ok to kill our children, and that we can give these illegal people all the rights that they want. it is getting old. i would prefer any of the senators out there, listening, i hope they know what they're doing. we are getting tired of these people running our lives. these people are running our lives, depending on what they think. i do not think anybody should be confirmed completely and clearly. i did not care how long it takes. guest: she has laid out the republican's case pretty perfectly. this. jeff sessio

kagan is leaving herself more of an elfin sotomayor last year. host: debut here optimism in her response? -- did you hear optimism? guest: it would have been surprising to hear her say, the decisions were wrongly decided and i want to overturn them. that is not the kind of thing nominees say. she said would be expected. it is appropriate for her not to express a view about whether they were good or bad law given that she is not on the court yet. she will have to look at those issues when she gets on the court. but what is also the law is the language in both of those decisions saying that reasonable regulation is still permissible. i would add that regulations the district of columbia enacted after their handgun ban was thrown out, which we think are common-sense regulations, were actually up held by a federal judge in the district of columbia as being consistent with the heller decision. it will go up on appeal. it could go to the supreme court. we think the court has sent strong signals to the lower court twice that although handgun bans may be

lindsey graham to see what he does because he was one of the republicans who voted to confirm sonia sotomayor. one of the only ones. i just wish we knew a bit more about the documents that clinton library is releasing. we only have a quarter of the memos that she authored because she does have razor thin experience. i look at that and put that in context with some of the things that she said and some of the people she's looked up to and people with whom she's sort of organized herself with. i just wish that she had a bit more of a record and that we were able to read a little bit more of more than 160,000 pages of memos and documents and a quarter of which has been released so far. it seems tough to make a decision based on that. >> larry: stephanie, william rehnquist was chief justice and was never a judge and he was a presidential assistant. >> someone just an upper east side liberal as of friday and just moved back to l.a., she's a centrist. for many on the left, she's not a liberal justice. she shouldn't replace who she's replacing. this court has skewed very much to the right particularl

." >> judge sotomayor, are you ready to take the oath? >> i am. >> raiseeyour hand and repeat after me. >> justice white always used to say when the court gets a new member, it changes everything, it changes everybody. i think it causes them to take a fresh look at how things are decided. a new member will have a particular view about how issues should be addressed. it may be very different than what we have been following for some time. so it is an exciting part of life with the court. >> the institution doesn't change at all. the relationships change. you lose a friend, nd hopefully gain another one. i miss all my friends on the court. that's the process. they go, new people come on. it is different. >> it is different today than it was when i first got here. i have to admit, you grow very fond of the court that you spent a long time on. there was a period there with chief justice rehnquist and justice o'connor that when we had gone, we had a long run together, and you get comfortable with that. and then it changes. now it's changing ag

i think sotomayor's nomination -- obviously both women nominees. at the time of the respective nominations. but simply other news this crowding out the nomination. host: last question. we don't have it on a graphic. but you could tell us a statistic, when you ask people today whether it matters and nominee is male or female? guest: basically, most of them, above 60%, say it doesn't matter. what does matter, truthfully, is they are less interested in -- i think the sense of diversity is a bit different now. host: what does diversity mean? guest: over 60% say they wish the nominee was not from harvard, yale, or columbia. there is a sense that perhaps we are a little less averse than we need to be in terms of background, the legal training of the people nominated for the court. host: thank you for being with us. we have the full result -- a result of the ball on our website, c-span.org. and questions about the interest in televising the court's oral arguments. thank you very much for being back with us -- with us this morning and telling us about the

i think after sonia sotomayor, barack somebody who -- one as somebody without a paper trail.host: what you mean by activi judges? caller: the case that she lt, saying corporations are basically people, that is pro- republican. it just really irritates me that people like jeff sessions are coming out and talking about activist judges but when they put roberts and alito, the activist judges to me as a liberal. host: thanks. jess bravin. guest: activist judges is a term that gets thrown around a lot. actually president obama in his book "audacity of hope, " he said an activist judge is a judge that rules against you, in effect. as a journalist would try to stay away from that term because it has become just a synonym for, a judge would disagree with. republicans have often claimed that liberal decisions are activist decisions, this year we hear it conservative decisions are activist decisions. we prefer to stick to what the decision said and referred to our own judgment about whether we think that is an with precedent. in terms of who the democrats and republicans have appointed

host: here is a photo of sonia sotomayor in the news today.ere is the reaction she had from those that attended the school currently. we will go to our next call as we look at this picture. texas. caller: i grew up in el paso texas and moved to california with my wife. i can agree with the situation in arizona. many jobs in my field has been outsourced. i am a hard worker and went to school. many from the south, immigrants, are taking work and need the work. people say many americans do not want to do the work they do, but we do. we need to work. we need to make a living. my wife has something to say as well. she grew up in texas. >> most of my friends, i applied to a restaurant as a last resort. one of my friends has a master's in business. we work really hard. no one really cares. we went tt school. we are trying to pay off student loans. host: what was your masters' background in? caller: i have a bachelor's in web design. my friend has a master's in business. many other good friend masters in a different area. she is a bartender. we work h

taking the schedule for the john roberts and sonia sotomayor, which turned out to be to the day, the same. probably do the same scandal for elena kagan. she will take a day longer only because we don't want to start a hearing on sunday. i have to go to mass on sunday. i will started on monday. we get a lot of stuff to do in the senate. i want to get it done, because of she is confirmed she has to set up her chambers, do all of those kinds of things that really take a little bit of time to do. >> how long do you expect the hearings to last? more than a week? >> if they last more than a week we would probably be the only people in town. they will last until we finish. i would hope it will not go into a second week because my family will be in vermont and i imagine most other senators will be in their home state. host: the full interview will be at 10:30 a.m. on sunday morning eastern time. charles, ky. caller: i'm calling concerning the unemployment rate is high. the way that they could possibly do to get the unemployment rate down would be to move people who are close to retirement in

she is more liberal than sonia sotomayor. colleges prevented the rotc from being on their campus because there is anti-military feelings. this over-concerned of having the military when the military in this country has fought to keep us free. she should never be confirmed and anybody who votes for her especially blanche lincoln if she were to vote, she will go down anyway, but it will assure me not voting for her. host: coming up, we sat down with senator patrick leahy who is the lead on the committee. i want to show you a little bit about what he said on that criticism. about her stance on the military. let's take a look. >> jeff sessions has doubts about elena kagan's position about days. she said she was being hypocritical by criticizing gays but not accepting members from the royal family for an islamic center. what do you make of that? >> it was not a law school that accepted money from the saudis. if i was on the board of harvard i am not sure i would be that eager to except saudi money. i am interested in having studie

a unanimous decision written by sotomayor. the comments where roberts and scalia are on the other side. you see all kinds of divisions in the cases coming out this week. you see from the court -- john told me that was having to get the right result. obviously, if you align these up, you do not have the ideas that work together, but there is something more complicated going on. why they are trying to predict what is going on in congress and the court requires something a little bit more elaborate than simply getting it right or wrong. these are people looking at different sets of words coming out of different contexts in the way the cases come off. there are really trying to do what they fit is a wall of fire. the justices will disagree about that. it is not such a simple world of the court doing things that undermined the congress, the congress clearly having that. when the court looks at two provisions and one of which says the courts do have jurisdiction over this and the others is these can go to the easiest circuit, the ma

she is qualified, but she is to the right of sonia sotomayor. i would have rather have a liberal justice to counteract the extreme members of the federalist society they're sitting on this court now. if you that are sitting on this court now. guest: a lot of people believe that. that is a consistent, a liberal view that our caller just articulated. we have a difference of opinion it -- opinion. i would strongly dispute that i'm anywhere near extreme, right wing, if you saw my history of fighting against david duke and all whole litany of other things. i am hardly where it went. host: confirmation hearing will begin at 1230 eastern time. elena kagan will be introduced. it will be. on one of our many c-span networks and on radio, and on radio and the internet. i don't thi the house is in that day. i'm not sure. but it will be carried all over c-span. so you can't miss it. chandler, arizona. thanks for holding. go ahead, mo. caller: i've been reading in certain magazines that she's gay. is that what -- understanding is? host: mo, where have you see