Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 442 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him there (Part 23) The Senate (F) The United States Supreme Court Fights

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Episode 442 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him there (Part 23) The Senate (F) The United States Supreme Court Fights · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_20: Let's uh let's move forward to the confirmation process.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_20: About a third of your book has to do with the confirmation process, and that's been twenty-seven years or so.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_20: What how is your view of com being confirmed and the politics involved?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_20: How is all that how has your view changed of it?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_17: You know, I think it's sort of like surgery.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_17: The only minor surgery is on the other guy.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_17: The um I don't think these the process is what it ought to be.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_17: I think that these are serious jobs, and I think they should be serious.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_17: I don't think they should become spectacled.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_17: This is not a Roman Coliseum.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_17: We're not gladiators.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_17: And I think we're going to lose some of our best people who choose not to go through the ordeal.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_17: They don't want to have to fight the lion in order to uh be a judge or to be in government.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_17: And I think it's our own fault for allowing this to happen.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_17: Uh I was confirmed ten five times in ten years, and it got increasingly worse.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_17: And I think that we are uh going to at some point have the leadership we deserve.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_17: Uh, because we allow the selection process to get out of our control and to have very little to do with uh selecting the kind of people we need.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_14: So, what did you think of uh Senator Michael's remarks earlier that this was a quota point?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_14: Well, let me say first, we had a very good uh short initial first meeting with uh Judge Thomas, and we hope to have a number more just planning on strategy, uh things we'll be doing, not just just Judge Thomas, but the rest of us who want the nomination confirmed with a big, big margin, as big as we can achieve.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_14: So I'll start with that.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_14: And what was the question?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_14: What's your response to to what Senator Mitchell said and dugout earlier today that the Thomas appointment essentially was a quota appointment?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_14: Well, I don't share that view.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_14: I think there are a number of factors uh considered by President Bush.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_14: Uh, race may have been one of those factors, but it was not the sole factor.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_14: And I would say that if uh we'd set up a black liberal activist nominee, uh, you wouldn't hear Senator Mitchell or any of the Liberal Democrats uh saying anything about quotas.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_16: Welcome everybody.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_16: This is Randall Wallace, your host for the uh the Randall Wallace podcast, and this is um we're gonna be looking at the Supreme Court fights, and I decided to try to get all of them within reason within in this one episode because I didn't want to be, as we were moving through Bob Dole's timeline, covering you know five or six different fights.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_16: So this one is gonna deal with uh Abe Fortas, uh the Carswell and Haynesworth uh nominations from Richard Nixon, uh, and then of course Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_16: To give you a feel of of this of how contentious these fights have gotten more and more through the years, uh, by these the most controversial ones, and uh I think it's a a really interesting look at the United States States Supreme Court.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_16: And we're gonna start with the situation concerning Abe Fortas in 1968 at the end of the Johnson presidency, and our own strong Thurman's gonna play a big part in that.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_13: In nineteen sixty-eight, when you were running for the Senate, Corsair Warren announces his retirement, and Johnson wants to put Abe Fortas on the court.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_13: That didn't happen.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_13: And then you had this.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_13: What about uh what what did Senator Griffin do?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_14: Well, they couldn't get, you know, they he let a fill an effective filibuster that then Johnson withdrew the nomination.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_14: You're talking about the Abe Fortis nomination?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_13: I mean you think you think basically is that a is that a good idea?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, if you establish the principle that a president in the last year of office in effect cannot put people on the court.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, I don't think that was the reason of the last year of office.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_14: And I don't remember all the details though, and that but there were some I think there were some ethical questions about Forest and maybe even its relationship with the president in some different areas that uh you know pretty good bipartisan support for killing the nomination.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_14: But it doesn't happen very often.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_14: It happened since Bork, but it never got out of it on the Florida.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_13: Right, right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_13: And of course, as it turned out, the next year Fortas resigned from the court because of ethical issues.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_14: So I I think you know, Bob Griffin was not the kind of person to run around looking just for some partisan fight.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, a pretty moderate conservative Republican.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_14: Um, what's this?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_10: I hear about you pulling any horns on Fortas.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_10: I thought we were confirming.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_10: Well, said your staff said that you were meeting on and that you couldn't do much more, and that Fortis wouldn't be confused.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_24: In the hearing this morning, I think it was clear that he answered the questions where he thought the answer would help him.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_24: He refused the answer and placed a screen between him and the questioner on the ones he felt would hurt him.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_24: He went out and spoke at law schools and gave his views and other places.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_24: He wrote a book and gave his views.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_24: I would see no objection why he wouldn't give his views to the Senate Judiciary Committee and to the Senate of the United States.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_24: As you well know, I did not support him when he became an associate justice.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_24: And um I have seen nothing since then to cause me to change my views.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_24: I am strongly opposed to turning loose criminals on technicalities, I am strongly opposed to communists working in defense plants, I am strongly opposed to communists teaching in schools and colleges, I am strongly opposed to the Supreme Court, the federal government invading the rights of the states, and Justice Folters has participated in decisions that do the very things I've just mentioned.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_24: I am familiar with his decisions, I am familiar with his positions, but the reason I'm asking these questions is to build a record so the Senate itself will know his positions, and the public will know his positions, because once the Senate is familiar with his record, and and the senators are so busy they don't have time generally to read all the decisions of the Supreme Court, and once the public is familiarized with his record, I I'm not quite sure but what the majority of the public and maybe a majority of the Senate will take the same position that I do concerning his confirmation.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_16: Strom Thurman makes a very good point in that when he starts talking about not wanting communists to teach in our in the colleges, because that's what a lot of them would do in this period of time after as Vietnam winds down and and we get into the middle seventies, which is a little bit down the road, they start showing up and teaching in colleges.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_16: And so if you've ever wondered why you send your kids off to college and they're they leave good Republicans and come back liberal Democrats, damn near socialists, is because all those old hippies went over and took over the education system and got into teaching college.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_16: And that that's the thing I've learned doing this show is how many of them ended up in colleges.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_16: And I'm not talking about Yale and Harvard and Princeton.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_16: I'm talking about you know, Ori Georgetown Tech, and I'm not I'm just picking on Ori Georgetown Tech, but I mean colleges all around the country that you think of as community and technical colleges.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_16: A lot of these people who were the big hippie anti-government, uh, anti-war uh protesters who embraced uh damn near communist and socialist ideology are teaching your kids, and now you've got two generations of them been teaching your your kids in college.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_16: It's a scary thought.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_16: But I wasn't giving it to Strom Thurman and and Senator uh Griffin.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_16: They stopped Abe Fortas from becoming the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and then a year later he ended up uh in some ethical issues and had to step down from the court.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: You're a pretty good headcounter.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: You really see any faintest chance that Justice Fortas can be confirmed.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I don't believe that there will be any substantial change uh in the vote that was taken today.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: Now the year's second contribution was filed, and in theory at least, it could be called upon for a vote on Thursday.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: Now assuming that you have just as many members of the Sun present, they may, or you will have more, would it be any case of the vote I don't even care for all that?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: About what we were doing with, and what the vote was on with a few questions, and I think that will be made quite free.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: Whether you could do the for the government, whether you would like to end the thoughts, of course, what if you are foresting, all the more than that, more than one, no, one of them.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, there was some feeling that you were the one man who might have saved the other court if you have any regret about letting the president down on it.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: President Nixon's appointments to the court, which garner a great deal of attention at the time, are really a mixture of different types of nominees.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Significantly, in naming four justices to the nation's highest tribunal in the space of two and a half years, President Nixon had an unusual opportunity to affect constitutional doctrine.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: No president had placed four men on the court so soon into his first term since Warren Harding had done so in the 1920s.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Nixon was lucky for another reason.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Three of the departing justices, Chief Justice Earl Warren and Associate Justices Abe Fortas and Hugo Black were liberals of the first order.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: President Nixon ultimately nominates six individuals to the court.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_13: Then uh you come into the Senate in 69, and that's the year that uh Nixon uh obviously takes office and is is eager to remake the court.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_14: Well he had a great uh, let's see, well, it the two nomine nominees who didn't make it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, first was Clement Hainsworth from South Carolina.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_13: Yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_14: Very good man.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_14: He had you know the things that he was well, I I teamed up with Senator Hollings, a Democrat, to try to help get the nomination through.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_14: And Senator Byow, it's on the other side.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_14: The voters I remember is 55-45 against.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_14: Uh but Clement Hainsworth was really a highly, highly qualified judge.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_14: They found a couple of things I can't even say about the country club or something something that just talked.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, stock.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_14: Nothing, you know, nothing that I think should disqualify a person.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_14: So I think that's the the first nomination I think we made a mistake on.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_14: The second nomination was the guy from Harold Curzwell.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_14: From Florida.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_14: As I look back on it, we did the right Senate did the right thing in rejecting Carswell's nomination.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_13: Now, was that something that Dixon did just out of anger?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, he just was determined to have a southerner and sort of stick it in the Senate's eye, or he was pretty upset.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_14: I remember that because I was pretty active in the I'd go to the White House and get in on these little scenes call sessions every morning.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_14: I think Lamar Alexander was in the White House at the time.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_14: And uh Bryce Harlow there, I think he probably was.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_14: So just look at how many votes we had, what would happen, who did uh, who was gonna speak that day.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_13: You now uh uh did did you on on the Hainsworth and Carswell nominations?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: We we were you I voted against both of them.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: You did?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh that that was a that was a tough one because it comes in the summer, as I recall, of 69 for Haynesworth.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_13: Yeah.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Here I am the freshman center.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Bob at least had been in the house and he had a little more grades than I did.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he was a little older than I was, I was only 36.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Even though as a freshman, I'd been down to the White House a couple times to meet with the president, but was in a group and it was usually kind of a pep rally kind of thing.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: I got a call from Bryce Harlow.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Could I come down and see the president about Haynesworth?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: I said, yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm met by a young staffer, Lamar Alexander, and uh takes me in.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just the president and me.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't recall whether Harlow sat over in the corner or not, but if he did, he didn't say a word.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So President, thank you for coming to Bobby.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: I want to talk with you about Haynesworth.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is that people on the Supreme Court are not following the law, they're voting in their own philosophy, and we've got to put and therefore we've got to put people on the court who share our philosophy.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Mr.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: President, I agree with you, but I don't share the philosophy of Judge Ainsworth.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And Nixon goes, let me try a different tack.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: We went for about 45 minutes.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of it, he stands, so I assume I stand if he stands.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we walked to the door and he puts his arm around my shoulder and says, Well, Bobby said, I admire the strength of your arguments, but I would hope as a personal favor to me as your president and as the leader of the party that you could see your way clear to vote for Judge Hainsworth.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, Oh, that's as much pressure as I'm likely to be under.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um I voted I had not announced, and I did not announce until it was quite close.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, there was a lot of pressure on that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Carswell was easy.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Carswell was not qualified.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean in retrospect, you think Haynesworth maybe got a raw deal or yeah, a couple things that were brought up.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he owned a house with a racial covenant in Virginia.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: All the houses had racial covenant.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you bought a house in the 30s or 40s, there was a racial covenant, or he didn't buy a house.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Charges like that are just unfair.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_14: But you know, Senator Bay is pretty effective.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_13: What made Bay effective?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_14: I think his personality.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_14: Good guy and uh smart, worked hard, articulate.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_14: Uh but he felt strongly about these particular judges.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_13: That's interesting because uh to the outsider it looked like kind of an early test of strength with the new president, where particularly you had organized labor and civil rights groups who were in some to some degree calling the shots, weren't they?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_13: I mean Yeah.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_14: But at least in those days you got an up or down vote on the nominee.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_14: You know, you didn't have somebody uh filibuster on the ten of four, you never got a vote on the nominee, or you didn't report out of the committee.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_14: And uh you know, I remember, of course you may want to get to that, but when uh Clinton, of course, appointed two justices, and he called me up with the Republican leader, said he's gonna send up the name of Ginsburg and later Breyer.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_14: And I said, fine.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_14: I appreciate you know expeditious as possible, which happened.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_14: You know, we had the hearings.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_14: We didn't agree with the the philosophy of Ginsburg or Breyer, but I came out of the committee and I think Ginsburg got about 97 votes or something, and Breyer got everybody who was there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_14: He used to work for Sunda Kennedy, both good people.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_14: In fact Ginsburg was right down the hall from me in Watergate.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_14: I remember at the time Clinton saying he had to get somebody close to Bob Dole.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_14: So he picked my neighbor.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_14: But uh now it's changed.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, you you know most people would agree that President at least that was our feeling with Clinton.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_14: We didn't agree with the nominees, but we agreed that he was president.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_14: Unless there were some you know open flaw somewhere that you can see.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_14: But in both cases, these as nominees were qualified.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_23: I do feel, however, that the uh voters of the United States in 1968 indicated by the selection of President Nixon that they wanted some changes, reform in the executive branch of the government, and also clearly uh indicated that they wanted some changes on the Supreme Court.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_23: Now we have a new Chief Justice who I think is going to give us some leadership and some new decisions.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_23: Uh the president hopes to fill the vacancy uh uh with uh Judge Carswell.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_23: Uh I think he will have a different philosophy on the court than his predecessor.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_23: Uh there are other liberal, extremely liberal members of the Supreme Court who I hopefully will retire, and those vacancies, I trust, will be filled by President Nixon on a responsible, constructive, moderate uh group of appointees.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_13: The um Roman Ruska.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_13: Mediocre.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_14: Tell us about Senator Ruska it is.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_14: I think he made an a speech on the floor or something about mediocrity.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_13: There are lots of mediocre people and they they deserve mediocre.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_14: They deserve mediocrity.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_14: I think it was Carswell or one of them.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, it was GR Carswell.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_14: Well, then if they had mediocrity.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_14: He had the right nominee.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_13: Uh but uh did you know then that Carswell was uh well well that he was a kind of third-rate.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, yeah, I don't think I was too disappointed when we lost.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_14: I was with Hainsworth.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_14: It was a Democrat, by the way.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_14: I you know, I don't think politics is conservative Democrat.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_14: But uh Carswell.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_14: But I remember uh Senator Rusk is a very bright lawyer.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_14: I don't know how to keep up with a statement.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_14: I guess he figured it's just a mediocre nominee of probably a lot of mediocre people out there, so he'll fit right in.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_13: I wonder if sometimes protestership to me is too much.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_14: You know, sometimes you kind of have to hold your nose when you make the or or when you're making the speech kind of cross your fingers and and say, I hope nobody's listening.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_14: But you have to carry the flag.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_14: If you're the leader, you have to carry the flag.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_14: Flag.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_14: If you don't have to give the flag to somebody else.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_14: But and I voted for a lot of things just to help somebody out on the at least to have a few votes for their amendments.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_14: And so is Senator Mitchell and others, both parties.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_16: So the leader takes a few hits, but there's a reference in there that in that little piece that if you don't know it, it you may not know what Bob Dole was talking about.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_16: There was a U.S.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_16: Senator Senator named uh Roman uh Ruska, uh H-R-U-S-K-A.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_16: And he had got on the Senate floor.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_16: And I'll read you this quote.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_16: He was talking about the Carswell nomination, which drew a lot of criticism at the time and said, quote, so what if he's mediocre?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_16: There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_16: They're entitled to a little representation, aren't they?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_16: We can't have all Brandeis's Cardozas and Frankfurters and stuff like that there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_16: So that was uh this guy's argument about why uh uh car uh Judge Carswell needed to go on the Supreme Court, which I found to be a fairly clever argument.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_16: To tell you the truth.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_22: President Nixon had ample opportunities to exercise his constitutional authority to reshape the Supreme Court.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_22: He made four appointments approved by the Senate.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_22: That of the Chief Justice, Warren Berger, and Associate Justices Harry Blackman, Lewis Paul, William Rencliffe.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_22: However, the Senate rejected two.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_22: Clement Hainsworth and G.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_22: Harold Carswell.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_22: Uh what happened there?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_22: Has it gone too far in partisan politics?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_15: I had two Titanic uh uh debates, as you know, with the Senate over two of my appointments.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_15: One of which one of which was a poor appointment, the other which was a very good one.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_15: But let me give you a little background here.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_15: I uh when I was attending law school 55 years ago, I remember that the two justices of the Supreme Court who impressed me the most were Brandeis and uh and Holmes.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_15: They were called the great dissenters.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_15: Incidentally, Holmes was favor was famous for writing the shortest opinions, and Brandeis for writing the longest opinions.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_15: Uh but they were both great justices.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_15: Uh at the time, I was shocked to find that Brandeis had had a very difficult time being confirmed.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_15: He was without question qualified, but the American Bar Association didn't approve him because many thought of anti-Semitic views of whoever happened to be the leaders of the American Bar Association at that time.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_15: But what a loss for the country if Brandeis had not been approved.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_15: Clement Hainsworth, who recently died, would have made a great justice.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_15: He lost because of a phony ethical uh charge that some of those who made it later agreed was phony.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_15: Uh but the reason he lost was because he was a conservative, an honest conservative, not a racist, but just a conservative.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_15: And that was a loss.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_15: If the president sends to the Senate for confirmation a judge who is qualified and approved by his peers, the American Bar Association, for example, uh then I think the Senate should confirm that individual.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_15: Uh and not put up these arguments that they're against him for reasons that really aren't the c aren't the real ones.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_15: The real ones being that that they are looking at his views rather than his qualifications.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_13: Now, it you know, there is this kind of popular notion that this all sort of began with Bork, but in fact, it really began with Haynesworth and Carswell.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_14: Haynes, Carnswell.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_14: I mean you could say Fortas, but that was sort of an isolated, unusual case.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_14: Uh and if it were some had it been some mud-slinging partisan, I would, you know, but Senator Griffin was not in that category.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_14: Right.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_14: Very thoughtful, very smart, good lawyer.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_14: In fact, I think his son now serves on the circuit court somewhere.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_13: Now, were you ever uh I mean, during the Nixon administration, when um the president was considering nominees, did anyone ever ask for input?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_14: Oh no, they just asked for output.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_14: Get out there on the floor of it then.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_14: And again, I didn't working with Senator Oddling's was uh talk about a staunch supporter.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_14: Senator Oddling's was really, I thought, very effective and very well, I agreed with him, so you know, but uh kind of developed a friendship there that lasted throughout the Senate because I was uh helping one of his friends.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_13: That raises two other things.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_13: One is w how did he feel about his fellow Democrats?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, the or the what's say the prevailing forces of the Democrats.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_14: Knowing Hollings, I assume if somebody read the record they they would find out about how he felt about his fellow Democrats.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_14: I hope he didn't go over the line, but but he was you know, he he could be rather critical, say the least.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_13: And today there wouldn't be an Ernest Hollings in the Senate, would there?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, that kind of conservative Democrat from the South.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_14: Nope, they're gone.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_14: Uh who was the last?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_14: Well, John Brough, maybe, sort of a but he was more of a moderate.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_14: Um you know, you don't have the Stennises and the Russell's and the oh the Russell Long is pretty conservative and everything, but why are they gone?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_14: Why why are they gone?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_14: Country's changed.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_14: And Republicans appeal to a lot of Southerners.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_14: And I've got to see, I think a lot of us maybe racially motivated too, uh, which is not the right way to capture voters, but the fact of life.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, I think they uh the liberal wing of the Democrats took over the party.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_14: Uh President Johnson, with the help of Uber Humphrey and other liberals, was finally were finally able to get the civil rights bill passed over the objection of Senator Russell, who probably knew more about the Senate than anybody, well, maybe Robert Byrd now.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_14: But I think you can give Johnson credit for doing the right thing, but the result was losing the South.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_14: Remember what he said when he signed the bill?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_14: He said, There goes the South.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_14: Oh, did he say that?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_14: Yes, yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_14: Well, it's about like Bush in Iraq.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_14: There goes the party.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_13: The uh what were the those, I mean, it's fascinating, those are names in a history book to most of us, but I mean, the the Richard Russell's and the um and the John Stennises.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_13: Um apart from their politics, just in terms of what they brought to the Senate.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, well, fortunately I didn't get to serve a Russell that long, but you know, he well one of the buildings, Senate buildings named after Richard Russell.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, he was a maybe segregation was too strong a word, but he was not only supporter of civil rights and and was the leader of the anti-civil rights effort.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_14: Uh but he still had the respect of everybody in his party.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, he's one of those people who can have a point of view and not uh not frustrate everybody else.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_13: Then of course you had the the the Bork nomination, which really is a pivotal moment in this whole history.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, that's sort of the the Nita Hill thing, everything that followed was the Thomas thing, and you know, was even a few new words in the dictionary, I think Borked and uh and Bork was well obviously as you know it everybody knows he's very erudite, intelligent scholar, but is too conservative, I mean.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_16: Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's chief of staff.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, I think he found Bork odd.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_19: Um uh but um I mean his view was, you know, this was the choice, and the choice ought to be heard.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_19: Uh, and I'm gonna do everything I can to position the White House to to get a fair hearing.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_19: But I think he found him odd.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_13: There's also the the suggestion that he really wasn't a very good witness.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, well, I think it you know, he should have gone to charm school somewhere, at least for a day.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_14: Go for a whole week.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_13: But uh he's that candidate, that rarity.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_13: He probably would have been better served if he had never testified.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_19: Exactly.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_19: Exactly.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_14: But I think he felt so strongly about his views, I don't think he I I wouldn't maybe arrogance too strong a word about it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_14: I think he just felt so confident, maybe he's just overconfident, that he was right and that he knew the law better than all these so-and-so's up there in the committee.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_14: And it was a pretty brutal fashion.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_06: Robert Fork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, road police could break down citizens' doors and midnight raids, and school children could not be taught about evolution.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_06: Writers and artists would be censured at the whim of government.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_24: Adverse publicity about the nominee has been unsurpassed.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_24: Advertising on radio, television, and in the press has restored the true character and the exceptional qualities of Judge Bolke.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_24: There were those, however, who felt compelled to count this lobbying campaign against Judge Bolk.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_24: General Ford, former president of the United States, introduced Judge Both and urged favorable action by the committee and confirmation by the full Senate.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_24: During the hearings, we also heard testimony from former Chief Justice Warren Brager who stated, and I quote, I was so concerned about the disinformation in some of these full-page ads, and I felt as a member of the guard, as a citizen, I had an obligation really to say what I believe.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_24: There never was a nominee that I thought had better qualifications.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_24: If Judge Balk is not in the mainstream, neither am I, and neither have I been.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_24: End quote.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_24: Chief Justice Blake also stated, it would astonish me to think that he is an extremist any more than I am an extremist.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_24: Unless the President has a former Chief Justice of the United States talking.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_24: He says if Judge Balk's an extremist, he's an extremist.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_24: Well, everybody knows that Chief Justice Blake was no extremist.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_24: Why would he make that statement?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_24: He had no personal interest in this matter.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_24: He said it for the good of the nation.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_24: He said it because it's the truth.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_24: He said it because he thought he ought to help to set the record straight.
• 34:08
  unknown: Mr.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_24: President, in this same vein, former Attorney General William Frank Smith, in commenting about some adverse public uh advertising, said, and I quote, the thing that is distressing to me is that it really is not just propaganda.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_24: Propaganda you can understand.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_24: That is part of the way we do things.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_24: But in this case, I have never seen such misrepresentation, such distortion, and such outline lying.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_24: I mean, there are people in very important positions in the government who are lying to the American public.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_24: Now, Mr.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_24: President, who said that?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_24: Former tenure general William Faint Smith, man who no one has ever questioned his integrity or his honesty or his truthfulness.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_24: And that was his statement.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_24: As well as Lord Cuddler, former counselor to President Jenny Carter.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_24: Well, nobody would accuse Carla Hill of being an ultra-conservative or probably of even being a conservative.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_24: He came in and testified he thought it was fair, he'd make a great judge, he's not an extremist, and he ought to be confirmed.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_24: Carla Hills.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_24: Now, Mr.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_24: President, who are these organizations?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_24: The National Sheriff's Association, the National Chiefs of Police Association, and other organizations of the same caliber, constituting a membership of 400,000 members in the United States.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_24: Why were they interested?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_24: Because they want a man who believes in law and order.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_24: Judge Believe in law and order.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_24: And they want a spring court walk the streets and again attack other innocent people.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_24: Reading Judge Both exceptionally unqualified when he was nominated to the Second Court.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_24: Mr.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_24: President, this is American Bar Association's highest rating.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_24: And that's the big organization of lawyers in the whole nation.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_24: American Bar Association.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_24: And that committee studied him.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to Supreme Court justices.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to other judges.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to law professors.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to law deans.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to factory attorneys.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_24: They talked to every segment of justice and the ball.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_24: And they gave them the highest rating that they could give anyone.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_24: Isn't that worth something?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_18: No civilized person wants to live in a society without a lot of privacy in it.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_18: And the framers, in fact, of the Constitution protected privacy in a variety of ways.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_18: The First Amendment protects free exercise of religion.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_18: The free speech provision of the First Amendment has been held to protect the privacy and membership lists of persons associations in order to make the free speech right effective.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_18: The Fourth Amendment protects the individual's home and offers from other reasons researchers and teachers in particular parts of war.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_18: The Fifth Amendment has a right against self-incrimination.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_18: There's much more, there's a lot of privacy in the Constitution.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_18: Uh Briswald, in which we were talking about a Connecticut statute, which was unenforced against any individual except the birth control clinic.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_18: There was no and and Justice Douglas entered uh ended that opinion with a rather uh eloquent statement of how awful it would be to have the police pounding into the marital bedroom.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_18: And and it would be awful, and it would never happen, because there is a Fourth Amendment.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_18: And the police nobody ever tried to enforce that statute, but the police simply could not get into the bedroom without a warrant.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_18: And what magistrate's gonna give the police a warrant to go into search for for signs of use of contraceptives?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_18: I mean, it's a wholly it's a wholly bizarre and uh imaginary case.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_07: Now let me say this.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_07: You know that that point, just to for clarification if they had evidence that a crime was being committed.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_07: How are they gonna get evidence that a couple are using a wiretap?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_07: Wiretap?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_07: Wiretap.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_18: You mean to say that a magistrate is gonna authorize a wiretap to find out if a couple is using contraceptives?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_18: They could, could not.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_18: No, it's all unbelievable.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_18: Unbelievable.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_07: But now I understand that, but under the law, Judge, could they not have it was a crime, correct?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_18: It was a it was a crime in on the statute books, which was never prosecuted.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_07: Never well, the fact that it wasn't prosecuted did not mean it wasn't a crime, doesn't it?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_07: I have more to say about that, whether it was a crime or not.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_07: Let's assume they were drug dealers.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_07: They were also accused of there uh there was evidence that they uh um that they're involved in some other illegal activity, and there was a wiretap.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_18: Can they hear discussion of contraceptives?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_18: Yeah.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_18: There's nobody is going to get a warrant for that, and nobody, no prosecution is gonna be upheld for that.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_18: I'll I'd like to go on to that point because thank you, sir.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_18: I think the law was an utterly silly law.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_18: Uh, but my objection is simply to the undefined nature of what the court did there, and I've tried to illustrate that for you by asking you whether you would vote for a statute that said nothing more than that everybody has a right of privacy.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_18: And the court shall enforce it.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_23: There was no legal underpinning for Senator.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_18: Uh I uh I think there was, and let me say two things about it.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_18: One is that I have recently been told.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_18: I I uh have never read the briefs in the Supreme Court, but I know some folks of folks who have in Brown.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_18: And there is, it begins to look as if there is historical argument that the framers of the 14th Amendment did not like segregation and may have intended to do away with it.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_18: But that as the when the and the and the black coats and the segregation didn't begin to come into the south until the uh I think until the troops left after left the south, the northern troops left the south, and then later the Supreme Court changed Plessy Against Ferguson after all was an 1896 case, which is fairly long after the 14th Amendment.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_18: Uh Plessy Against Ferguson being the case that said separate but equal is alright.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_18: Uh but passing that, passing that historical evidence, which I think casts some doubt on the flat assumption that the 14th Amendment really meant separate but equal, let me say this.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_18: They wrote a clause that doesn't say anything about separation.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_18: They wrote a clause that says equal protection of the laws.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_18: I think it may well be true as you suggest, Senator, that they had an assumption, which is not an act, but they had an assumption that equality could be achieved with separation.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_18: Over the years it became clear that that assumption would not be borne out in reality.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_18: Ever.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_18: Separation would never produce equality.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_18: I think when the background assumption proved false, it was entirely proper for the court to say, well, if we we will carry out the rule they wrote, and if if they're if they would have been a little surprised that we that uh it worked out this way, that's too bad.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_18: That's the rule they wrote, and they assume something that is not true.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_18: And in that way, I don't think any damage is done.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_18: You can even look at it more severely.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_18: You could say, suppose they had written a clause that said, we want equality, and that can be achieved by separation, and we want that too.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_18: By 1954, it was perfectly apparent that you could not have both equality and separation.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_18: Now the court has to violate one aspect or the other of that clause, as I have framed it hypothetically.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_18: Uh, it seems to me that the way the actual amendment was written, it was natural to choose the equality segment.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_18: And the court did so.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_18: I think it was proper constitutional law, and I think we're all better off for it.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_16: I gave you a big dose there from my second episode.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_16: That actual clip came from a second episode when we covered some of this about Robert Bork.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_16: Uh, so you can see I fell in love with uh background music not too well, but uh I I let it play perhaps longer than I should have because I wanted you to have a feel for that hearing because it was contentious, it was very divisive, and at the end of the day, you're gonna hear a lot of people say that Robert Borg was a misogynist, that he was a racist, uh all the usual attacks against the conservative, and as you can hear, uh at least I hope you can hear underneath that music.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_16: Um he gave reasonable answers to questions, including one of the dumbest I've ever heard.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_16: And I I I have a little bit of a soft spot for Joe Biden, but you know, are you really gonna bug somebody to listen to them and see if they got you if they're using contraceptors?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_16: That's just kind of ridiculous.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_16: And I thought Bork handled that fine.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_16: And uh I I just I've always felt like this hearing was one of the travesties of justice, and really it was all about, in my opinion, uh the fact that Bork can fire Archie Baldcock because Ted Kennedy was getting even.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_16: That's really what it was about.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_16: But uh, it has led us down a horrible road um in politics because uh it it has degenerated this this system, and you're gonna hear them talk about it as we move on from here to Clarence Thomas, but this system of how Supreme Court justices are picked.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_16: And uh it's it's sad, and this is where it may start a little bit with Hainsworth and Carswell, but this is where it got vicious with Robert Bork.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_13: Go back to Bork, uh because at that point you were obviously in a leadership position.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_13: Um And I assume Judge Bork came and sat down and talked with his wife too.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_14: She was there.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_14: In fact, she went, I think, to every office with him.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_14: She a lawyer, too.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_14: Uh do what do you I think there are some I don't think Judge Bork, but there was some little rumor at the time that I wasn't working hard enough on the nomination or something.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_14: I mean something got back to me that somehow Bob Dole was lukewarm on this nomination, which wasn't the case.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_14: But uh I don't think I don't know whether Bork ever felt that way or not.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_13: But you wonder who didn't someone sit down and say, Judge Bork, maybe you want to, you know, take this into consideration.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_19: Yeah, but that wouldn't have been his um role.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_19: Yeah.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_19: Uh that would have been either the White House role or the handlers.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_19: Um whether it was I don't know if it was Tom did that one or not.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_19: Um Tom certainly helped with with Thomas and some others, but um that really wasn't Dole's role.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_19: Uh that was really someone else's.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, in part it could have been the Judiciary Committee Republicans in some respects.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_19: Um, but more than anything else, it's the that's the White House responsibility.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: The president himself said that Judge Thomas and Grace had absolutely nothing to do with his nomination.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_14: Well, I wasn't uh privy to any of that, and I know Judge Thomas was high on the president's list uh at the time Judge Souter was nominated, so no doubt about it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_14: Clarence Thomas uh was on the short list for the Supreme Court and has been for some time.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_14: Now, whether or not it was not a factor at all, the president said that.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_14: Boy, I'll accept that.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_25: But Senator Dole, the president said that Judge Thomas was absolutely the best qualified man in America for the job.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_25: Would you go along with that?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_25: Would you go that far?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_14: Well, I I think uh I think the question of experience would probably uh pop up.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_14: I think uh that as I said to Judge Thomas in my office, uh certainly they're gonna go after experience.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_14: Uh and I think that's an appropriate place for inquiry.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_14: But again, uh he's had substantial experience, he's had a lifetime of experience, so to speak.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_14: My view is that he's an outstanding nominee.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_14: Uh he'll have tough hearings, sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_14: I don't see any reason to wait until September.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_14: That'll be left for the majority party.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_14: But uh, my view is he'll be confirmed unless there's something unforeseen that nobody knows about uh and he'll be a good Supreme Court judge.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_25: You know, rock solid endorsement that this is the best qualified man for the job.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_14: No, I'm just saying that he is the nominee, and uh my view is an outstanding nominee, and I think he'll be confirmed with a very large majority.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_21: Other than his life experience, what makes him outstanding?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_21: What qualifies him as an authority on law?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_14: Well, he's not uh, you know, he he worked for uh Jack Danforth and his assistant attorney general uh for a number of years.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_14: He's worked with Senator Danforth and his staff, uh Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, chairman of that for eight years.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_14: He's had a lot of experience, doesn't all have to come from the courtroom, plus he's been on the appellate court for over a year.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_14: So you add it all up, it's fairly broad experience for a young man of 43.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_14: And I think along with it, he brings a sensitivity and a background that's very important uh for all Americans.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_23: Thank you.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_23: Senator, what is your strategy?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_22: What is your strategy?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_22: Can you talk to Cameron?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_14: Strategy, well, obviously the first thing he'll do is contact everyone on the Judiciary Committee, and he'll be meeting with as many senators as he can depending on when the hearings start.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_14: I think he plans on contacting uh the Georgia senators very soon.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_14: Uh that's that's his place of his birth.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_14: So, you know, he's gonna be doing the the things you'd expect him to do.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_14: In addition, he's gonna have some time to take a look at some of the potential questions that may be asked.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_14: Now, whether or not he's gonna be meeting with every constituent group in America has not yet been resolved because I think if he starts down that track, there's certain pitfalls.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_14: You can't meet with everyone, and somebody might not like what you said at a meeting or whatever, but he'll make that decision, whether he meets the other.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_12: I don't know.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, that's that's a judgment he has to make.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_14: We didn't bore with the questions.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_12: I I understand that, but is in your view, does the Senate have a right to expect Judge Thomas to address the abortion issue or the uh privacy issue?
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_14: Well, my view is that he shouldn't make any statement, any specific statement on that issue, but without having all the facts before him, and I don't see how a nominee for the Supreme Court knows precisely what the facts would be.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_14: So my advice would be stay out of it.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_13: Thank you, Senator.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_13: Thank you.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_13: What do you talk about in those meetings?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, we see those meetings, and I mean, do you sort of give them advice about the confirmation process?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_14: Yep.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_14: That's what I would do, is I'd generally be the first one the the nominee would see when I was the leader.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_14: And uh generally they'd send an escort, Tom Corlogus, somebody in the White House picked who knew the ropes and knew the senators.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_14: But you know, I couldn't lecture him on the law.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, this guy's a these are experts.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_14: But I could tell him a little about the Senate and what I thought about who we ought to obviously see first, and when if I knew something that might sort of give him an end with a certain senator about where you're from, anything like that.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_14: But most of it just happy talk, you know.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_14: Congratulations.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_14: Good luck.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_14: Well now uh now with Clarence.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_14: Kennedy, I remember Kennedy too, who's turned out to be the swing person on the court.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_14: And uh I know never could quite figure out where he came from, how his name bubbled to the top.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_13: Well, remember, people forget Reagan had two failed nominees because there was Judge Douglas Ginsburg in between.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_13: That's right, yeah.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_13: And he went literally, he went up in smoke, literally.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_14: Cocaine.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_13: Uh marijuana, yeah.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_13: Marijuana, as you know, and and so he disappeared.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_13: I think they needed to find someone fast.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_13: Yeah, and that's how Kennedy was the third choice, Californian, so maybe that helped.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_13: Yep.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_13: Sconier couldn't be confirmed today, could he?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_14: Today?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_14: I doubt it.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_14: Oh, today, no.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, it it might have not since the election.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_13: But if it's a mate, you go back and look.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_13: He was he was confirmed unanimously.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_14: And where?
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_13: He was confirmed unanimously.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_13: Scalia.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_13: Oh, yeah.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_13: I mean, can you imagine nominating a scalia?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, but I mean the point is that you know, if the if the man or woman is well qualified, he can have a different philosophy.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_14: And the fact that I don't agree with your philosophy doesn't mean you're not qualified.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_14: So apparently that was because Scalia could dazzle people with his knowledge, you know.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_14: So I had a pretty good sense of you.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_08: Finding out what you mean when you say that you would apply the natural law philosophy to the Constitution is, in my view, the single most important task of this committee.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_08: Senator Biden was very focused on natural law.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_08: How did that go?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_17: Who knows?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_17: And I have no idea what he was talking about.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_08: I just want to make sure we all know what we're talking about here.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_08: You and I know at least what we're talking about here.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_08: There's a fervent and aggressive school of thought that wishes to see natural law further inform the constitution.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_17: You know, and I know we're talking about you.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_17: I just said no idea.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_17: Oh no, he was asking me these questions.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_08: You may have flying away and leading a direction or you may like many are you never flying at all?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_08: Fundamental question is going to be almost impossible for non-lawyers to grab and an exchange.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_08: You know, and I know it is a big, big deal.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_17: And in conclusion, one of the things you do in hearing is you have to sit there and look attentively at people you know have no idea what you're talking about.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_17: And it was fine.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_17: I understood what he was trying to do.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_17: I didn't really appreciate it.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_17: Natural law was nothing more than a way of tricking me into talking about abortion.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_17: Since many Catholic moral philosophers saw the two things as intimately related.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_14: And Thomas wouldn't have made it had it not been for Senator Danforth, because he had worked for Dan Forth, and then Dan Forth was there for every minute of the hearing.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_14: There was Senator Danforth seated right behind Thomas when he was uh when he when Anita Hill was up there, he was there every day.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_14: And Danforth was a moderate conservative, yet you know, he had friends on the Democratic side, which I mean we wouldn't have sued her without Senator Rudmund.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_19: Did uh Jack Danforth save Clarence Thomas's.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_19: He certainly made a difference, no question.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, people held Jack and Gate in great uh regard.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_19: And um Jack's views and Jack's standing, I think, clearly had an enormous impact.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_14: I mean uh I think there are the two good examples, uh probably other than trying to think of.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_14: But certainly Danforth.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_14: Uh and I think Sununu and Rudman, the two of them picked Suter, and turned out to be a big, big mistake.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_14: Although Rudman still argues with me that he's a conservative.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_14: I said, boy, I'm waiting.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_14: But uh was that a but Rudman brought him around to your office, and Sununo was at the White House, and this is a great guy, and they known him for years, and he had a flawless record, and he was a strict constructionist, not getting into details.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_14: And you know, Senator Rudman was a one of our outstanding senators, bright, good friend.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_14: Take his word for it.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_13: So there are still members of the Senate who have an outsized influence based on the perceptions of their what?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_19: Character, the credibility.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_19: Um whether they're viewed as having been fair and balanced and honest in their dealings, um you know, uh I think individual members can make an enormous difference in cases like that, where um essentially people view their having said I uh or I support that person or the or that proposal as an imprimatur that is you know quite valuable.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_19: So there's no question that members can play a big role in that respect.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, I think I'm trying to get another case where a Democrat or Republican senator, of course, in Steve Breyer's case, you know, Ted Kennedy, he'd worked for Kennedy, and Kennedy's got a lot of friends on both sides.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, all these people have friends.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_14: It's we read so much about the partisanship.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_14: But uh, yeah, if you got a Ted Kennedy walking around with you or Warren Rudman introducing these different senators, particularly the on a committee where he serves and uh you serve.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_14: It makes a difference.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_13: The Supreme Court process.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_13: Yes, I mean, again, during his time, yes, clearly degenerated.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_19: Yes.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_13: And I suppose I know lots of people dated to the Bork hearings.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_13: Um although actually you go back to Hainsworth and Croswell, yeah, yeah, clearly the court was being politicized.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_13: Yes, yes, as soon as there was a conservative president.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_19: But I mean i i I mean, it was from Bork, Clarence Thomas, uh Clarence Thomas.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, there were a whole series of them that were um uniquely difficult.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_19: How did he approach all that?
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_19: Um you know, in a fairly straightforward fashion.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_19: Um, you know, at that point um in the leadership, it you know, his view was, and I think he t held this view with the Clinton administration, is that it is in the right of every president to have their nominees put forward.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_19: And whether you agree or disagree with them, they deserve to be considered and be deserve to be heard.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_13: Well, that's that raises this large issue, and and uh and that is the supposition on the part of the Senate that a president is in fact entitled, whether it's the court or the cabinet, to have his choice, borrowing some, as you say, overriding.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_13: That was the prevailing view when you arrived in the Senate.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_13: Do you think it's the view today?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_14: No.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_14: Particularly when it comes to the court.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_14: I mean, you know, people have uh maybe the always realize the importance of the court, but with with abortion now, Roe versus Wade, there's more and more focus on that one issue, and uh how important it is, you know, to have Rudy Giuliani or whoever strict constructionist or versus somebody else for the court.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_14: It's gotten the Supreme Court, I think, particularly.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_14: Most other nominees are gonna make it through if they're you know, if they're qualified, if they're not qualified, it shouldn't be up there.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_13: Did you ever have a vote you wish you could take back?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_14: Oh, lots of them.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_14: Uh if you're the leader, sometimes you have to vote with some guy who offers an amendment or lady just to show that they've got a little support because somebody reports that back home and got four votes or something.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah, I've done some of those.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_14: And uh I voted against uh the attorney general from Georgia.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_14: Griffin Bell.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_14: Griffin Bell.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_14: I apologize to him for it because the Secretary of Transportation black guy.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_19: Coleman?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_19: Coleman?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_14: Bill Bill Coleman.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_14: Bill Coleman's a great lawyer, a great guy.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_14: Yes.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_14: Called me up and said, Bob, you know, you're the Republican, you're a Republican leader, you're gonna you can't vote for this guy.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_14: And he gave me all his record, and I think I was one of 19.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_14: And Griffin Bell never holded it held against me.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_14: In fact, he endorsed me in '96 in Atlanta.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_14: So I I kind of regretted that vote because he wasn't a racist, it turned out.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_14: And uh just a good old southern gentleman.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_13: Uh in some ways, like what I think later on people came to have second thoughts about voting against Clement Hainsworth when Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_14: I think they realized that they'd, you know, politics had taken over and uh another vote I shouldn't have voted the way I did.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_14: I voted for him.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_14: But he was a bad nominee.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_13: Hainsworth or Carswell?
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_14: Oh, I voted for Hainsworth.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_14: I voted.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_14: Oh, I worked with Fritz Hollings on Hainsworth.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_14: That was a yeah, Senator Bai made a mistake on Hainsworth.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_14: Little petty things about$24 or something, or I don't know, little tnies.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_14: And he was came from a long line, good family.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_14: Uh oh, I'm thinking of the other two that Nixon set up.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_11: He Harold Carswell.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_11: Carswell.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_11: The mediocre.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_14: Remember when Huska said we need mediocre mediocrity on the bench.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_14: Well, but the vote was 55 to 45.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_14: Birch Bay won it.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_14: So and he won Ainsworth.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_14: So we ended up with uh uh Blackman, Harry Blackman.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_13: Uh the guy from the Chicky Stevens, was he?
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_13: No, that was Ford.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_13: Let's see.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_13: Harry Blackman.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_13: Well, yeah, Harry Blackman and William Rehnquist.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_13: Not bad.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_13: And Bay lost his seat in 80.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_13: And I mean that one of good it did him.