you mentioned that certain justices came to see this, including sonia sotomayor. what about justice thomas? >> he was not there. tavis: where was i? [laughter] >> you were waiting for me to take you out. tavis: i was just asking. a little birdie told me that this show is even better now than when i saw this on broadway. >> somebody said this to you? tavis: i cannot imagine this. >> this is certainly much deeper and much richer, because i had a couple of years to let this grow inside me, and having grown to washington, where all of this happened, has added something to this. the marshall family has graced me with their presence many times. and they have given me so much loved, and this has been enriching the performance. this is much deeper and i think that you will see this. tavis: what was it that drew you to this material? >> when i was reading the material, i was learning so much. i had no idea that, for example, he was arguing brown vs. the board of education. i did not believe that he was the first african-american supreme court justice. and learning that he

they have been forcing the theme with the black racism with the black panther cra crad sotomayor. i think the party has to stop appealing. and fox news put that on. >> chris: wait, wait, governor. >> i know the obama people. >> chris: i know facts are inconvenient things but let's try to deal with the facts. the fact is that the obama administration fired or forced shirley sherrod to quit before her name had ever been mentioned on fox news channel. did you know that, sir? >> what i do know is that video came out -- >> chris: did you know that, that her name, she was fired before her name was ever mentioned on the fox news channel? >> what about the video? where did that play. in what about the incomplete video? >> chris: the video had never played on the fox news channel before the white house fired her. it was on andrew brightbart and the government.com. it wasn't on fox news so maybe you shouldn't be using racist either. >> and it was about to go on glenn beck which is what the administration was afraid of. i think newt is right, she shouldn't have been fired summarily and we ou

and this year we saw unusual combinations among the justices where sonia sotomayor could be with anynumber of different alignments and with elena kagan coming in, i think will you see more of that, for ten years the supreme court didn't change. now we have had john roberts, sam alito, sonia sotomayor and presumably elena cagar. >> in a short period. >> over the past 15 years that a big shake-up in the last five in particular, and so i think that's a good thing. if the court is just perceived as a bunch of idea logs, okay, it will be 5-4 and we'll see what way kennedy goes. i think it is progress just getting that renewed energy. >> brown: that does mean naomi that a lot of this is a work in progress because a lot of these people are still relatively new? >> i think that that is right. i mean if elena kagan is confirmed we'll have four new justices in a span of five years which as tom said is a tremendous amount of turnover. and with the new chief justice i think the new composition of the court is just starting to take shape and it will be very interesting to watch how things do shak

it is one area where he and sonia sotomayor are very simmlar.oth are really hard workers who want to read and digest everything, go through all the briefs. she has finished her first year and i would ssy she has voted very similarly to david souter. on the moderate to liberal side on all big issues. it will be awhileebefore we know down the road whether she -pis really different. the court -- i cannot think of any case this year for you can say the accord was different because david souter was gone and sonia sotomayor took his place. host: presumably justice stevens has just about pack up and is moving out of his offices sometime soon. what would you say has been his influence on the court and be on the court here in washington? guest: he has been a remarkable justice for 34 years. he is somebody who had a tremendous influence inside the court. he has not made himself into a public figure. he is not someone who has gone out to give speeches, done c- span to abuse. he has not written books. -- or done c-span interviews. all the justices had a hig

we saw the same problem i fear with justice sotomayor's testimony on the second amendment. last year she testified that heller was settled law. and that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. but last month she joined a dissenting opinion in the mcdonald case urging it be overturned because she said the right to keep and bear arms is a not a fundamental right. the second amendment and the rest of our constitution are too important to rest on empty promises. finally i'm troubled by solicitor general kagan's testimony on military recruiting during her time as dean of the harvard law school. i believe that her refusal to allow the military to recruit on campus just like any other employer reflects a willingness to stigmatize the u.s. military. it suggests the nominee -- well, and i take the point that others have raised that recruiting actually was improved during that time but no one including the nominee could tell us what impact it would have had if they had been able to continue like every other employer to talk to them -- talk to individuals in the offic

one of the highlights of justice sotomayor's hearing last year was senator sessions who told wade henderson, we're going to do something about that crack cocaine thing. many people joked about senator sessions choice of words, but i heard him and followed up on it because i was glad to hear he shared my interest in this important issue. he was referring to the crack powder disparity in sentencing in the united states, which is one significant cause for a record levels of incarceration and racial disparity in our system. it takes 100 times more powder cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentences. crack cocaine sends the same five year mandatory minimum sentence as selling 500 grams of powder cocaine. senator sessions is a man of his word. earlier this year, the committee unanimously passed legislation to reduce the crack powder disparity from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1. some of us had hoped for 1 to 1, or some other configuration. but this was, in fact, a wholesome bipartisan agreement that was reported favorably with an overwhelming vote from this committee. in 1997,

when justice sotomayor was nominated, she had good experience, as i said at that time. as a matter of fact, an exceptionally fine background for the court. the kind i like to see. when the president nominated elena kagan i expressed my concern with her lack of experience. not for the lack of judicial experience, but for the lack of a robust, legal experience. there have been other supreme court nominees who did not serve as judges prior to their nominations, but for the most part, these justices have spent a number of years in the full-time practice of law before joining the court. they spent years trying cases, drafting, arguing motions. taking depositions. that's the kind of legal experience, day in and day out, practice of law that forces clarity of thought. that's the kind of experience that separate's the lawyer's layer from the political lawyer. miss kagan does not have that kind of experience. she just does not. instead, much of what she's done has been defined by her involvement in politics. that's not disqualifying. but the american people must know that a nomi

last summer, miss sotomayor offered nearly identical assurances, yet this monday justice sotomayor and justice breyer declared that heller should be overruled. these rights which so many americans consider so important will be eliminated by judicial fiat. miss kagan has rejected every opportunity which this committee has offered to provide any meaningful commitment to the second amendment. to the contrary, she has even refused to affirm that the declaration of independence has any value in guiding constitutional interpretation. while the declaration states that protection of inalienable natural rights is the very purpose of government, miss kagan will not answer whether the natural right of self-defense is among those inalienable rights. we know from history that jefferson and madison and the rest of the founders and their intellectual ancestors consider self-defense to be one of the most fundamental of all rights. as a supreme court clerk, justice kagan wrote, i'm not sympathetic when a man challenged the d.c. handgun ban, which the heller court later found to be untons cushional. i'm

there's supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor saying a wise latina may have advantages over a white judgethe mainstream media all too often ignores these stories. glenn beck has called president obama -- >> a racist. >> reporter: rush limbaugh has called liberal policies a form of reparation. there have been plenty of controversies that paint conservatives as racists. senate candidate george allen calling an indian man this name -- >> macaca or whatever his name is. >> and more recently allegations of racial epithets hurled at black members of congress during the health care debate -- >> have been called the "n" word, have been spat on. >> reporter: and allegations of racist signs held aloft during tea party rallies. a presidency hailed by many as post-racial has turned out to be anything but. dan harris, abc news. >>> well, it seems one politician is keeping his mouth shut. rod blagojevich declared yesterday he won't testify in his own corruption trial. >> this coming from the man who said from the start that he would tell his side of the story. but why now the change of heart? barbara p

when justice sotomayor was nominated, she had good experience, as i said at that time. as a matter of fact, an exceptionally fine background for the court. the kind i like to see. when the president nominated elena kagan ixpresse my concern with her lack of experience. not for the lack of judicial experience, but for the lack of a robust, legal experience. there have been other supreme court nominees who did not serve as judges prior to their nominations, but for the most part, these justices have spent a number of years in the fu-time practice of law before joining the court. they spent yars trying cases, drafting, arguing motions. taking depositions. that's the kind of legal experience, day in and day out, practice of law that forces clarity of thought. that's the kind of experience that separate's thelawyer's layer from the political lawyer. miss kagan does not have that kind of experience. she just does not. instead, much of what she's done has been defined by her involvement in politics. that's not disqualifying. but the american people must know that a nominee for

well, justice sotomayor said a similar thing about heller case, and it didn't bother her one bit to be in dissent in the mcdonald case monday. so you're not saying that you're binding yourself to be a 6-3 vote with now six members of the supreme court on the gun cases, and you're not binding yourself and suggesting you feel bound by lopez and morrison, are you? >> senator sessions, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to bind myself with respect to any future case that came before me. it wouldn't be appropriate for me in any case to say, oh, i promise that i'm going to take a case like that and do, you know, x, y, z with it. that wouldn't be appropriate. >> well, i t his confirmation hearing. i don't recall anyone disagreeing with him. do you disagree with that? >> no that sounds right. >> thank you. >> i don't think i would need a third round but i would ask maybe a little indulgence to go over if we can't get throught all very quickly. are you familiar with plessy versus ferguson? >> yes, sir. >> i think most people are r it is an 1896 case and it interpreted the equal protection clause

is that yes, of course she will be confirmed but maybe with fewer votes than sonia sotheby's -- sotomayor. >> i think that is true. she had the advantage of being the first latina, first hispanic supreme court justice. the support of mel martinez, cuban american in florida, he has left the senate since, defeat bid george lemieux, he has political ambitions of his own. wants to establish conservative credential. beyond that i don't think she got the support, i think, that justice to be kagan can expect with the renegade s in the fine-- state, susan collins and olympia snowee, lamar alexander and lindsey graham. and then for retiring, republican senators kit barnum, dick lugar of indiana and judd gregg of new hampshire. but i think it will be a smaller group than that supporting justice kagan. >> woodruff: i'm moving along to a number of different things here, david, to immigration. the president made the first major speech of his presidency yesterday on immigration reform. but hardly anyone thinks it's going anywhere. >> you have to have a political strategy. you can't just-- he said some

thomas and alito and sotomayor, and kennedy is the swing vote. if you look at their recent decisions, especially dating back to 2007 with the decision up in connecticut where -- the taxpayers had the purpose of giving it to developers to provide greater taxes. this is extremely unconstitutional. it would hardly be considered a conservative decision. so this leftist we into our court is eroding our rights and our liberties. and to believe that the rubbish that the "the new york times" prints, you have to be consumed with the koolaid of the left. the accord is presently assisting this administration in eroding our constitutional right, and it has to be corrected. host: the new york post this morning, a follow-up story that occurred just before the weekend started on representative charles wang colorado. rangel. he said he did not want any special breaks and he will face ethics procedures because it is the thing to do. "maybe, just maybe, i have evidence that i hit is not substantive." they are working on a deal that could forestall thursday's annou

sonia sotomayor saying she was a wise latina and ruling against white firemen who didn't get promotionsecause of their race. it has been nonstop, nonstop, nonstop. >> but why? >> i think we found out from the journal in this large part and that's liberal journalists, hundreds of them, chitchatting about how to protect obama and, you know, they are openly saying that we are in trouble ask we need to distract from what's going on. let's just randomly call the conservative racist. so liberals do this all the time to distract from what's going on. >> i'm guessing you don't agree with that, tanya. >> speaking of distracts, ironic. with all due respect to ann, a lecture on race relations from someone that says she does many need to be perfected. moving past that, i think when you look at this incident let's not get distracted of what happened. a woman's whose father was murdered by a white farmer which there was never an indictment, never prosecution, was telling a story about racial redemption. and what we saw happened on the right, an dry breibart ran with the story. i expect selected it it

and i brought this up with then-judge sotomayor at last year's hearing. i asked her about net neutrality. she agreed that there is a first amendment interest in ensuring that the internet stays protected from corporate interference. i'd like to ask you a variation of that question, applying it to the merger context. let me start with a pretty simple question. do you believe that the first amendment helps to promote diverse public voices and opinions? >> one of the purposes of the first amendment is to ensure a public sphere in which all kinds of opinions and views and thoughts can be expressed and we can learn from all of them. >> and would you agree that the first amendment governors actions or behavior by the federal government? >> of course, the first amendment governors actions and behaviors by the federal government as well as by the states. >> okay. so the first amendment helps to promote diverse speech and it governs action. given all of this, do you believe that the first amendment could inform how the government looks at media antitrust cases? >>

. >> as you watch this process, how much different has it been from the nomination of sonia sotomayor? >> it has played out similarly in the sense that the democrats are lining up for her and so far whoever is announced in the republicans have been pretty, less around voting against her so far. 14 republicans have said they will vote against her. >> aside from the fact that the committee members are able to call for a delay of one week, what in particular was senator sessions worried about with her record? >> he voiced some new concerns on tuesday about the solicitor general participating in a challenge to the health-care overhaul constitutionality. republicans submitted a letter asking for additional clarification about whether she participated in any constitutionality. like that she have to respond to that letter? >> sought -- so far the white house spokesman has not indicated whether or not there will be some kind of response before next tuesday. >> what can you tell us about the timetable from there on out? >> the expectation is that she will be voted out of the committee and to t

there was a lot of talk that social -- sotomayor, because of her back as a prosecutor, would be toughern criminal defendants then perhaps souter was. i do not think we saw any evidence of that at all during this term, and we throw in the usual disclaimer that the first year does not mean you can predict that, but i do not think we saw that anywhere. as far as how the court changes it changes a lot.tevens, i sink- he really was the leader of that side of the justices, and it is sort of inside baseball to a great extent, but who gets to a sign the opinions that are risen -- written? -- i think it changes the dynamic of the conference, what some people have talked about an order in which the justices speak and lay out the cases, so exactly how to changes i think depends a lot on the cases they take, but i certainly think it is a big change. >> i will -- because of the convenient scheduling of the confirmation hearings to the conflict with the last date of the supreme court term, i missed the first two days because i was covering what the court decided, so i cannot say i know everything tha

host: on the front page below the fold, justice sotomayor, " her first term on the court was like many that came before her. she worked constantly, turned down interview requests and most speaking engagements for and glamorous and largely not controversial opinions. she voted with but justice ruth baker ginsberg more than any other colleagues on the court." there is a pace here -- a piece here on elena kagan, jeffrey smith riding "beginning this week on the supreme court nomination of elena kagan, skeptical lawmakers could not resist the opportunity to search for a weak point that might -- that might provoke controversy. six republican senators submitted questions that produce 74 pages of written responses. her answers, released friday, more finely sanded to avoid any clamor. elena kagan carefully hewed to the themes he struck at last month's hearings. in cases in which she was the opinion, she said, it was that the supreme court's justice thurgood marshall." jerrick is joining us from maine, good morning. caller: good morning. myself, i am a moderate fiscal conservative. happening at

there was a lot of talk that social -- sotomayor, because of her back as a prosecutor, would be tougher on criminal defendants then perhaps souter was. i do not think we saw any evidence of that at all during this term, and we throw in the usual disclaimer that the first year does not mean you can predict that, but i do not think we saw that anywhere. as far as how the court changes it changes a lot.tevens, i sink- he really was the leader of that side othe justices, and it is sort o inside baseball to a great extent, but who gets to a sign the opinions that are risen -- written? -- i think it changes the dynamic of the conference, what some people have talked about an order in whh the justices speak and lay out the cases, so exactly how to changes i think depends a lot on e cases they take, but i certainly think it is a big change. >> i will -- because of the convenient scheduling of the confirmation hearings to the conflict with e last date of the supreme court term, i missed the first two days because i was covering what the cour decided, so i cannot say i know everything that elena

one, there was a lot of talk that sown sown -- ddsonson that sonia sotomayor.l throw in the usual disclaimer that the first year, doesn't mean you can predict that. but i don't think we saw that anywhere. but as far as how the court changes without justice steven, it changes a lot. he really was the leader of that side of the justices. and it sort of -- inside baseball to a great extent, but who gets to assign the opinions will change greatly with justice stevens gone. he won't be the senior member there making the decision when the chief justice is not in the majority. i think it changes the dynamic of the conference, which some people have talked about, about the order in which the justices speak and lay out the cases. exactly how it changes depends on the cases they take, but i certainly think it is a big change. >> well, i'll -- because of the convenient scheduling of the confirmation hearings to conflict with the last day of the supreme court term, i missed the first two days, because i was covering what the court decided, so i can't say i know everything

this is -- will be almost as fast as sotomayor or faster, and we don't have quite at time crunk we had last time. so i think we are moving this nomination in an expeditious manner. and i think one week is appropriate and i ask that we put it over one week. >> i respect your right to do that. and i note for the record, we have senators cole, fine gold, senator specter, and senator whitewhite house, senator franken in the room so we have the appropriate number. and you have your number to make the arrest and it will be granted. >> today, the executive session, include of thursday that will put us on normal schedule to have the -- i guess the vote next tuesday. would that be your plan? >> it would be my plan. i don't -- i don't want her to be -- have to take too much longer than the two gentlemen who were in on her before. i would like to keep her some what close to her time. i think everybody's made up their mind. and we will come back tuesday on this issue. and we will have whatever debate we want. i hope we complete the vote that day. >> all right. i would further say that i do think t

but i i remember -- it was hard for me to vote against sonia sotomayor, but her comments to us have not been lived up to with regard to this issue alone and there may be others, as well. the things we were so worried about turned out to be proper worries. so this s always a difficult thing for us, especially when you have a nice, intelligent person. you want to support. all i can say is this, mr. chairman, i understand there are differing points of view and differing feelings about these matters, but we are talking about one of the most important positions in the world. one of nine in the greatest court in the world. it's something i really take seriously. i'm anguishing over this, without question. mr. chairman, thank you for being kind to me. >> thank you, senator. senator sessions, do you want to ask questions? >> i have one question. >> i read a recent op-ed article in "national review" online concerning general kagan's abortion history or analysis of that. >> without objection. >> miss young, one thing that bothered me was i had indicated in my opening statement that it appeared th