Transcripts For CSPAN Neil Gorsuch A Republic If You Can Keep It 20240713

If you can keep it. This is just over one hour. Good evening. Welcome to the theater here at the National Archives. I am the archivist of the United States. I am pleased you could join us for tonights program. Whether you are here in the theater or joining us via facebook or youtube. A special welcome to our cspan audience this evening. Tomorrow is Constitution Day. In 1787ating that day with the delegates of the Constitutional Convention signed the document establishing a new government for the United States of america. At the National Archives we have celebrated Constitution Day since 1956. Four years after installing the original parchment document in its place of honor in the rotunda. Over the decades we have celebrated the constitution in many ways. Tomorrow we host one of my favorite events naturalization ceremony for new citizens. Always a moving experience to witness people from all parts of the world stand in front of the parchment signed by our founders. 232 years ago and swear to support and defend the constitution. We also invite notable guest speakers to help reflect on and understand the constitution and its Central Place in our nations history. Honored to have with us this evening the seating justice of the Supreme Court, neil gorsuch. He is recently brought his reflections on the constitution and that separation of powers into one volume. A republic if you can keep it. We are pleased to welcome. He was born in Denver Colorado and received a ba from columbia university. Hap from Harvard Law School and a doctors from harvard. Judge David Sentelle in the district of columbia. He also served by red white and justice and kennedy of the United States. He was in private practice. From 20052006 he was associate ateral associate general the department of justice. He was appointed to the court of appeals for the 10th circuit in 2006. He served on the Standing Committee on rules and practice and procedure of the u. S. Judicial commit conference and chairman of the combined three of the advisory committee. He taught at colorado loss compared President Trump nominated him as the associate justice of the Supreme Court. He took his seat on april 10, 2017. Please welcome the honorable neil gorsuch, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. [applause] thank you. It is wonderful to have you back. You werere just after seated. In 150 National Intelligence center staff. Always nice to be here. It is a wonderful place. I encourage all young people to come visit. It is across the mall from the space museum. Not the bar where everyone is. [laughter] kids get to spend a night camping out the constitution. How cool is that . [no audio] [laughter] i have had a lot of friends have done that and it is really touch them. Take us back to september 2016. As you do in the beginning of the book. What happened . My life more or less changed in every way overnight. Quiet and happy life. I had been a judge in boulder for a decade. All of a sudden, everything changed. If you asked me to give me a story that was emblematic it would be this, so we had a sneak out. We had to sneak into the white house. [laughter] the president was committed to it being a surprise. We wanted to honor his wishes. Get into the white house unnoticed . It is pretty tricky. You have to go in through the kitchen. We went in through the kitchen of the white house. [laughter] that turned out to be neat. Im a history buff. Down there you can see there are still scar marks from the fires in the war of 1812. There are still bullet indentations. Kitchen ando the the president was graciously allowing me to use the lincoln bedroom as an office. That is why i remote i wrote for my remarks. A table and desk in which there is a copy of the gettysburg address. Written in lincolns hand. Wow. The president knew my wife was british. Shes american now. He gave her use of the queens bedroom for the day across the hall. Where churchill state, the queens day. Stayed, therchill queen state. Stayed. They had no problem her calling her parents back in england. They will never tell anybody. [laughter] louise calls her father. She says dad, youre never going to believe it. It is going to be neil. My fatherinlaw had stayed up to watch the news. He said, darling, i am watching your american news. There is another fellow. He is driving and at a gas station. He is on his way to washington. I am pretty sure it will be him. [laughter] inlaws. [laughter] louise says, dad, i am pretty sure it is neil. Im sitting in the lincoln bedroom. [laughter] honey,kly replied, yes but President Trump the other guy might be down the hall. [laughter] everything changed. Even your milk delivery. Yeah. That is a story in the book. Marshals who were guarding our home and family i o a huge debt to their people. They are very brave. Night, a truck apparently came up. Sped up to the house and a man jumped out and started running for the house carrying containers with white substance inside. Louise got a cold a call the next morning and it was the Company Delivers the milk. [laughter] that our usuals milkman who had been serving us for years would no longer be coming to the house. [laughter] somebody else would be doing it. Louise said, did something happen . Show out to the marshals ask. To which there was a terse reply, there was an incident, maam. [laughter] it took some cross examination before it came out what had happened. Maam,al answer was yes, he ended up in prone position. [laughter] the waste being louise took one of the chocolate towers as an apology. I am not sure he got over it. [laughter] vein ofin the identification let me remind you of the role that the National Archives played in your confirmation process. We were asked by the Senate Judiciary committee to deliver everything we could, that we had about you. 13,285ed out to be electronic assets. Related, 2700 specifically to her nomination for the 10th circuit court. 19,438ecords contained pages, 522 microsoft xl spreadsheet, and eight databases. One along had 156 attachments. My apologies. [laughter] my friendss to all and family and coworkers during this process. It was my law firm producing every document. A lawyer i signed or filed might eighth grade teacher got assaulted by press corps coming out of school. On and on it went. Some of you here tonight, thank you. Family justnd emerged from the woodwork. Talk about your loss of anonymity. Yeah. It was something. One day i am living quietly colorado and the next day everybody and america knows who i am. I think i was photographed more in one minute then my whole life. That is a little disconcerting at first. You are slurping your noodles at a restaurant and someone at the other end is videoing you. [laughter] that takes some getting used to. God take that when something away, he gives you something in return. If you look for it hard enough. Was i got in return david an opportunity to see firsthand how much the American People love this country. How much they love our constitution. How good and kind they are. The deep reservoir of goodness in the American People. Letters and support from all cars the country. Even a package of socks. [laughter] from someone who had seen me on television and thought i needed my socks fell down too often. [laughter] say come up to me and im early in the morning and a coffee shop and say i think you need a joke. They tell me a joke. People come up and say i am a huge supporter or i do not support this president but i wish you well. Im praying for your family. Process, i waszy on a flight between denver and washington. It was one of those moments when i was feeling frazzled from it all. I was seated next to a little girl. Probably about six. The plane started doing counter turbulence along the way. She leaned over to me and said, would you mind if i held your hand . So we held hands for about 20 minutes. Said, now of it she would you like to draw . [laughter] we spent the next two and a half hours with her coloring book. Moment forwonderful me of just being normal. Of course at the end of the flight her mother who was seated behind his recognized me. Two weeks i got my favorite thank you note ever. It was a drawing. The little girl had done of an airplane with two stick figures standing in front saying, thank you for holding my hand. The two stick figures or holding hands. That is the American People to me. That is what i got to see. I get to see day in and day out. It is a privilege. Tell us about the inspiration for the book. Well, it came during the confirmation process. Predecessor smoked a pipe at his confirmation hearing. I dont think we are likely to see that again. [laughter] my old boss, byron white, his confirmation hearing lasted 15 minutes. So did mine for the 10th circuit. [laughter] things were a little different the next time around. Process,e confirmation i was truly surprised at how isy people thought a judge just a politician. Who wears a row. Should promise to do certain things and will certain ways in cases they have not heard. Everybody has their favorite, you must abide precedent. Then they tell me their favorite. They tellhe express, me what they dont like. With the other it is the exact opposite. I came to think it is one thing to think the judges occasionally , mistakenly, humanly air and follow their personal preferences over honest use of the laws demands. It is another thing entirely to think that is the way it should be. That is the way it is routinely. There is no difference between a politician and a judge. Then i got to learning and thinking about the subject. Where were where are we on separation of powers . I was truly shocked. Only about one third of americans can name the three branches of government. Another one third can only name one branch of government. 10 of americans apparently believe that judge judy served on the Supreme Court. I happen to like her. [laughter] she is not one of my colleagues. The archives does wonderful work. I have visited the president ial library. All sorts of wonderful organizations that are working in this area. But i thought i owed something down ad i wanted to put few thoughts on paper about the subjects. Let us get into the meat of the book. As this is so well written. It is a terrific job in writing this for a general public. Let us talk about separation of powers. Where are we . , it canation of powers sound pretty dry. Everybody understands that the First Amendment contribute to your liberty. We all get that. But i dont think we understand or appreciate every day maybe as much as we might how separation of powers contribute to liberty and the gees of it. Madison wrote the constitution. He did not want to write a bill of rights. He thought if we got the structure right, we would not need a bill of rights. He thought the bill of rights was just a list of promises. Promises are only as good as the enforcement mechanism behind them. Here is how to test madison in the real world. Bills of rights. Which one is your favorite . The United States bill of rights is pretty good. My favorite is north koreas. Yes i said north korea. It promises everything our bill promises. And more. Get a free education, free health care, the right to relaxation. [laughter] sounds pretty good. Im not sure how that compares with Political Prisoners but there you are. That bill of rights is not with the paper it is written on because all power is concentrated in the hands of one person a tyrant. That was madisons genius. What am i . Third of ourne federal government which is one half of the government and our federal system. Divide power. That was the wisdom of medicine. All that was the wisdom of madison. That is what i learned that in civics. I am old enough that i had to take it is not pretty. As a judge, i came to realize and see in the real world the impact leveling off separation of powers has under liberty. Let me give you a few examples. Judges act ashen legislators . Law,ad of following the they begin to make things up. Well, maybe the first real departure of the United States Supreme Court from the constitution as it was written was dred scott. Held that white persons had the right to own black persons in the territories of the United States. They said that right could be found in the fifth amendment due process clause. Processarantees you due before your life, liberty, or property could be taken. Scour the fit them, as long as you want, it is not there. Dred scott made it up. The judges who did that thought they were doing so for a good reason. Something more important. They thought they were helping a for a civil war. Making it up was worthwhile. They act as legislatures. Judges make rotten politicians. They guess wrong. Instead of averting the civil war, they contributed to it. That is one angle. The happens when legislature gives up its power to make the laws and assigns it instead to the executive branch . Madison new lawmaking would be the greatest threat to liberty. He wanted it to be hard. Deliberative, slow, careful, and involve all people. Two houses of congress, are just process, there must be a vote or veto override. Demanding public involvement of the peoples representatives elected by two constituencies at separate times. It is supposed to be hard. It is supposed to involve everybody. A lot of Political Science establishes a puts minorities at the fulcrum of power. Their votes are often essential. Effectively a super majority requirement because of the legislative structure. That is what madison thought would protect your rights. When you were a minority and unpopular. What happens when you take that process and stick it into the executive branch . President is elected once or twice. Does not have to be public. It is going to be a lot faster. You are going to get more of it arent you . Youre going to have less say in the process. Minorities are going to play a very small role. The president just needs to in the majority. You have elected yourself a king. Worse. Ven some of the agencies dont really respond to the president. You are having law made by a bureaucracy. Unless you think im exaggerating let me give you a case. This is the sort of thing that persuaded me rather than academic theory. Real facts with real people. A Company Called Caring Hearts located in colorado. All of this is in the books. Caring hearts versus burwell. Careprovided home nursing or medicare. They were accused of Medicare Fraud by the government. They were fined 800,000. Being accused of fraud by the government is pretty serious. It can be a business ending proposition. Life ending proposition for people and their livelihoods. Years of litigation go by. What are we finding out . Caring hearts had abided all of the rules. All of them. All the executive branch had made for them to abide at the time. The government was accusing them of violating rules it had not yet created at the time. Fasts making up rules so that even the government became confused. The second branch. What happens when the executive branch plays judge . I see cases in which a veterans and immigrants are all in the book. They have a winning legal argument. Veterans seeking benefits for ptsd, edit grants immigrants seeking lawful entries to the country. I think they should win. They have a winning argument under the law. We have doctrines now that that independent judges dont get to interpret the law. A bureaucrat does. Justice,Supreme Court have to defer to a bureaucrats interpretation of the law. You have a right youre supposed to have a right to an independent judge to determine your right under the law. That is lost. Separation of powers. I think it is vital to your freedoms. Those are three examples. Like the rest of the constitution, separation of powers is only as good as the people. The people have to want it. The people have to protect it. Only one generation away from tyranny. Say the three branches are equal . Are they in balance . I would like to say yes. They are supposed to be. I think some of the examples i gave make me wonder sometimes whether we are transferring a lot of legislative and judicial power whether it is running to the executive. I worry about that. To pointamiliar today about the number of people who dont know the three branches. To add to that, three quarters of americans can name all three stooges. [laughter] is that right . That is the truth. From the annenberg study. You talk very cogently about originals and and textualism. Andus talk aboutoriginalism where that and interpretation did or did not work. Might one to start with what is originalism. It is a boring term. Judgeshe idea that should interpret written laws according to their original public meaning. Those terms on the page should be respected as written. It is really an ancient idea. If you look at the Supreme Courts, you will seat 100 cases if you see one. Thats a when it comes to a statute, or contract, we interpret that document according to its original public meaning. The question originalism proposes is what would is different when it comes to written constitution . Our founders rejected an unwritten constitution. They knew it well. They came from an english system. No written constitution. The framers decided to put certain things down. Not many. There are many things in the constitution. Thought put what they was vitally important to let the rest to the they also allowed the people to amend the constitution. Originalism tries to honor that. It says judges should not be in the business of making things up. Adding to or taking away from the constitution. That was what originalism is. I had not heard that in law school from a professor. Isnt that shocking . The first time i heard originalism was when Justice Scalia came to visit my law school. When he was a young justice. About my tenure now. He gave a speech that opened my mind. Course harvard did not publish the speech. It had to be published by another schools lawyer. Yearsas where we were 30 ago. Come a long way. Why does originalism matter . That soundedeory pretty dry and academic at the time. As a judge i have come to see how it affects your rights. Let me give you examples. What happens when we depart from the original public meaning . The alternative is something people like to call a living constitution. That actually sounds pretty good. Who wants a dead constitution . How about an enduring constitution . I like that. A lasting constitution. Your constitution, not mine. Living who does living . Here is what happens when judges do the living. They evolve your rights and some go away and new ones appear. If you doubt me, here are the examples. Take the six them,. Thesix them, says take sixth amendment. The right toave confront the witnesses against you. The Supreme Court, in living constitution decisions, has said sometimes you do not have a right. Some things are more important and we will give you a judge. Your rights are balanced away. How about the right to confrontation . You usually get it. Other oppressive business. We need to move on. That piece of paper written by a Police Officer outofcourt, you cannot crossexamine. It might beed sufficient evidence to send away for 20 years or more. Your rights taken away. Korematsu, a japaneseamerican citizens were rounded up and detained. How do you square that with the original meaning of due process . That is due process. Orore your life, liberty, property can be taken you get to go before a judge. Some kind, somewhere. None of that was provided. They thought Something Else was more important the war effort. Equal protection clause . Uarantee we will ignore that too. To help the war effort. Something else we think is more important. Some of your rights getting taken away. There is more. They add stuff that is not there. Dred scott is my example. We have talked about. Where do you find the right to own persons in the due process clause . It is not there. Originalism, it is not political. It is not conservative or any of those conservative yucca liberal . I think they are constitutional. Originalist it is about preserving the constitution you have written. If you want to change it, you can. We have. Im hardly here to tell you the constitution cannot stand improvement. Terribly important improvements through the amendment process. We make it up, you can fix it and you have. You have giving women the right to vote. And 15thed the 13th and 15th amendment. Ending slavery. Judges did not do that. Why ask somebody else to do what you can do for yourself . The constitution starts with three words and they are not we the judges. They are we the people. Intend andt you should not want nine can say that because ive had a birthday. [laughter] people sitting in washington, d. C. Trying to rule a continental country of 330 million people. Scalia is lecture was rule of law and the rule of laws. What is your assessment of the rule of law in this country . If you cannot tell i am an optimist. I want to share a few facts on this one. If you figures. Bear with me. People say to me, i meet pessimistic people. The courts this, the Supreme Court that. I say we can quibble about this or that case. But should we step back just a minute and look at the forest . Let us stop focusing on the tree. I will get to the tree i promise. But let us look at the forest first. In this country, every year there are 50 million lawsuits filed. We are a litigious bunch. Im not talking about your parking tickets. [laughter] im not counting your traffic speeding tickets. That is another 50 million. Just 50 million lawsuits every year. Im going to move to the federal court system because i know that system better. The numbers in that system are probably even more impressive. Of all of those cases that went into the federal court, 95 are resolved by a trial court, judge, and jury. Done. That is the end. I represented many losing parties. Anybody who is a lawyer will say if they have it, they are trying to sell you something. [laughter] there are not always happy with the decision of court. They are upset by it. But they accepted it 95 of the time. They were heard. Knew it was reasonable. They could accept it. 95 of the time. That is pretty powerful. Evidence of rule of law. Lets talk about what goes to appeal. I served on the 10th circuit. 20 at the continental United States. Two time zones. I served with judges who are obama to from lyndon johnson. One was appointed the year after i was born. The 10th circuit is the most Diverse Group of judges as you will ever encounter. And whatever metric you assess diversity. It is a wonderful collegiate court. I model collegiality in the judiciary and across the country for that. We sit in panels of three. We have to convince our colleagues of the outcomes. We hear 5 of those cases. We managed to reach unanimous agreement 95 of the time. Now we are moving through a forest to a little cove. Let us talk about the tree. The United States Supreme Court. Year, iars 70 cases a have colleagues at west who hears 70 cases in the morning. [laughter] and another 70 after lunch. That is an easy day. These are the hardest cases in the country. They are tough. We take these cases when there have been disagreements between the circuits. To make sure the lot we try and make sure the law is the same across the country. The same statute should not be interpreted to provide different rights and response abilities and one part of the country than the other. That is what we do. Year . Es every think about that. That is incredible. It is incredible. Only 70. What about the 70 ech announcer . We are getting down to the needles. There are nine of us. Not three anymore nine. Not from 20 of the country but all over the country. Appointed by five different president s of the course of 25 years. Citye to admit new york may be heavily represented. [laughter] that is a whole other discussion. I asked people, how do you think we are doing . 40 of the time in those 70 cases we reach unanimous agreement. On the cases the lower Court Colleagues disagreed on. That does not happen by magic. That is hard work. That is collegiality, mutual respect. Tried to get nine people to agree on where to go to lunch. [laughter] needlewill get to the you want me to talk about. They represent only 25 to 33 of the docket. That is it. They say there are more now. No. Are about 25 ges to 33 and have her the same since 1945. More or less. Back then, you history buffs will remember. Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed eight of the nine justices of the Supreme Court. If we are doing as well as they did, eight of them appointed by the same president , i think we are doing ok. The truth is, the only thing that has changed is that nothing has changed. Decisions but they dont tell you this. There were 10 different combinations of justice deciding those decisions. The rule of law and this country is one of the wonders of the world. It is the envy of much of the world. Im not here to tell you it is perfect. I am here to tell you we have a wonderful inheritance. A blessing. We should appreciate that. Here. E, fixed of the entrance of the Supreme Court are equal justice under law. Book, few your americans can afford a lawyer. I could not afford my own services when i was in private practice. I really cant now. [laughter] comment on access to justices. Not i think we have a lot of good reason to be optimistic about america. Do have a discussion about access to justice issues. I think we should look with clear eyes at areas we can improve. Worry when nobody can afford a lawyer. Long to get too a trial. If you are lucky enough to get into court. When you get there, you do not get a jury. Just look at how many things are now criminalized. Clerks, humpty federal criminal laws are there . They came back and told me there 4000 4500 steno 4500. All the authority over to the agencies are making criminal laws. Like Caring Hearts. How many of those criminal laws are there . They scratched their heads. They went to the library. I had to ask them a few times. They stopped counting. [laughter] they stopped counting. I think they stopped counting in the 19 eyes. Academics cannot keep up. Over 300,000it was federal criminal laws. Are important. But some of them . Old meter. K consist if you do not label it as substandard that is a problem. [laughter] if you sell mattresses and tear oh. The tag, you are a federal criminal. [laughter] i had law professor friends who said they think everybody over the age of 18 has probably committed a federal crime. [laughter] i worry about access to justice. I worry about over criminalization. Canrry when the prosecutor pick his victim. Rather than pursue crime. What do we do about it . That is a long discussion. Let me rattle through a couple ideas. I do not have all the answers. These are things i think we all need to think about. Need a lawyer to do every little thing . Write a will. Help you with an uncontested divorce. Lawyers regular themselves the only profession. We have to ask ourselves, to all regulations help our clients . Do some of them only help us . Take three years of law school to become competent enough to become to give legal advice . In england, you can get a law degree in three years as an undergrad. Need three years on top of four years undergraduate education . A love of young people i know come out so with debt so high they cannot be lawyers. They have to go to work for big firms. Us judges should look to ourselves. Our rules. We had something called discovery, civil discovery. It is supposed to people figure out what the case is about before trial. It turns out civil discovery often yields very little discovery and is sometimes anything but civil. It takes a long time. It costs an awful appeared i know people who call themselves cobblers have not seen a case in use. They can write and entered interrogatory and iambic pentameter. They are very good at it. We have to ask ourselves, why should you not be able to get to trial . Some of the things i think about. There are more in the book. It sounds like it is a very serious environment. I know better having read the book. You have a lot of fun up there. Wei think people have live in a world where everybody wants to create enemies and divides. We are subject to click bait. Court,th is, the supreme like most courts, is a wonderful place to come to work. It is a tiny place. Only a couple hundred people work there. Maybe a few hundred now. You get to know people. Your kids trickortreat in the office. We flip hamburgers at the cookout. People make fun of us at the end of year. They do. [laughter] that is a whole other story. Do we disagree . Yes. You get the 70 hardest cases in america. Of course we are going to disagree. But we do it civilly when we do. We do it collegially. We have fun doing it. We sang happy birthday to one another. Poorly. [laughter] but enthusiastically. We sing together at the holidays. We eat lunch together. An awful lot. Every day we have conference or argument, lunch is available in the lunchroom. You have to bring your own. We work for the government. [laughter] justice breyer, we dont talk shop. Breyers grandchildren there are practical jokes. One day, we are all lined up in our robes as we go out to the courtroom. We shake hands every time we gather. 36 hand shakes, no matter how tensee and what is going on, 36 handshakes, has been going on for years. We are lining up and justice a a new r is wearing stripes on and pin across her chest. The yankees had done well. A few of my colleagues were nervous and lining to go up to the croum and said are you really going to wear it on the bench, she said no, but im just waiting for someone to ask. [laughter] when the new justice arrives, the most junior justice, everything is done by seniority in the courts. The most junior justice has to throw a party and Justice Kagan treated us to a wonderful evening in which she made sure we had indian food because she knows my wife loves indian food and she got a chef to come and cook for us and it was magnificent. When Justice Cavanaugh arrived, i knew he is a meat and potatoes uy and dinners was going to be boring and i had to come up with something to lifen up the evening. After dinner, follow me. We went down to the great hall of the United States states and i handed the chief justice a checkered flag. Justice cavanaugh is a huge baseball fan and nationals and he mascots are the president s. They have giant stone heads and run around and the justice who is here tonight and my assistant and dear friend and found out you can rent them. [laughter] she went online and rented two of the president s and we had a race in the hall of the Supreme Court of the United States. [laughter] that is one where i thought it would be better to ask for forgiveness, but i think it went over pretty well. We have been here in the rotunda and i have a wonderful photograph of Abraham Lincoln looking at his autopsy report. [laughter] were all just people. Here. Here. For me the most important part of the book personally and professionally is your section on citizenship and civility. And talk to us about citizenship. So, civility and citizenship. I dont know when civility became a bad word. Or manners became a word that we dont even use anymore. Now, is our republic supposed to be a little ralkous . You bertscha. You bertscha. An elbow thrown here or there is part of the game. The whole point of a republic, everybody can feel free to speak his or her mind. And know competently that you can. That doesnt happen everywhere in the world. There is a marketplace of ideas and the republic is that the best ideas should emerge. It should be a little ralkous. But we shouldnt forget that everybody in the process is a human being, what is civility owner the recognition of the person im talking with. I do worry when i read and meet young people, the statistics are there, too. 60 to 70 says they dont want to get involved in Public Service because of the nature of our social discourse today. Social media, i think it is much harder for you young people coming up. 25 of parents move children from schools because of cyberbullying. I do think we have to talk about this and have to worry about this. Citizenship, too. A lot of you, maybe. What you know about it, you choose to become americans. And whats special about america is we are bound together by ideas. Most other countries in the world, there is a common culture, a shared history, sometimes quite ancient, here we have ideas to bind us together, about the equality of all rsons, about the unalienable rights of individuals, where the government is to serve us and we are not there to serve the government. All sorts of ideas, a limited government. And i just think we need to think about those things. George washington, when he was a young person, was given 110 rules of civility and decent behavior in company written by 1505. Suits in we used to teach civility. Neighbor to keep alive that conscience. Of thats george washington. Thats a good one. They are not all quite that good. Mething like do not speak so veemently or approach your opponent in debate so closely that you do the other mans face with your spittle. My teenagers would say, say it, dont spray it. I dont know if we need those rules. But the rule that works for me is one louises grandmother taught us after a long and eventful life. She said, you are going to have many regrets in life. I guarantee it. Sorry. I hate to break it to you. There are will be things you say or do that you regret and things that you left unsaid that you didnt do. But the one thing in life that you will never regret is being ind. So you have a wonderful chapter on the art of judging in which you pay whomage to your meantors. Talk a little bit of what it was like to clerk for and then be a peer of one of your meantors. Justice kennedy. Young people, we have a bunch of them in the audience, pick your meantors carefully. Used to teach ethics and one factor that struck me is that you will pattern your professionalism, your ethics on your first bosses. So pick them carefully. You have to find a job, i know. They choose you you, but be careful who you choose. I was very blessed to have Justice Kennedy as one of my first meantors. Id couldnt have been luckier. Heres who Justice Kennedy is to me. First time a justice and his law clerk wound up sitting together. I got that for a year. That was really neat. When i wrote my first opinion for the Supreme Court in the United States in a nonvery important case, i will be honest, the new guy doesnt usually get it, i know, i circulated probably late in the day, 5 00, 6 00 and he works from home late. But he likes to work from home. And he found out that i circulated my opinion and he knew because of the nature of the opinion that it was likely to be joined up by my colleagues but he wanted to be the first. So he said to his law clerk, please, would you fax over, yes, fax over just gorsuchs opinion. I remember that fax machine. I think it was the same one. Wanted the opinion, so he asked the law clerks drive it out to his house. And read it and sent back a hand signed joinder memo. Thats anthony kennedy. Thats who he is. He is a model of civility and deesens si and respect for each person. And byron white. Byron white was my ots boss. He was the first justice from colorado. Ill always be the second. Byron white was for me my absolute childhood hero. Farm w up on a sugar beet poor, in a small town in colorado, small town, worked hard. Went to the university of colorado and graduated first in his class. He also led the ncaa in rushing and took the buffalos, yes, the buffalos and yes they have a live buffalo as a mascot to this day. Its pretty awesome. And only occasionally gets loose. He took the buffalos to the bowl game. After that, he served in the cond world war, bronze star, whodse scholar to oxford and graduated top in his class in law school and was the leading rusher. Jack kennedys friend and helped Bobby Kennedy desegregate the south all before serving 31 years on the United States Supreme Court. Wow you can see why he was my hero. One day during our clerkship, we are walking down the first floor but it is called the basement and the portraits of justices are hung. And Justice White leans over to me and he says, oh, justice gorsuch, he would like to have fun with his law clerks and called us justice gorsuch. Little did he know. [laughter] he said justice gorsuch, how many of these old dogs can you name . And in honesty i had to tell him about half. And he said to me something that really shocked me and depressed me a little bit at the time, and he said me, too. He said, and thats pretty much how it should be and i will be forgotten soon enough. 10 years nobody will know hole i am, Something Like that. And that shocked me down to my socks. I thought nobody would ever forget byron white. I wonder how many of you remember him . And i remember visitors look at his portrait now hung in that ham hallway. And what i realize now and i didnt realize then is the boss is trying to tell me something really important and quite joyful, not at all depressing, the happiness in life has nothing to do with being remembered and we will all be forgotten soon enough and what really matters is this great country and our constitution, those things endure. The joy in life comes in serving something greater than yourself. Which is why in your ethics course you had a very interesting assignment that you gave your students to write obituaries. Justice white was telling me what webster said, miracles dont come in clusters and that what happened here for the first time in 6,000 years of human civilized history, the written constitution, by the people, of the people, for the people isnt something we can take for ranted very often. Toward the end of the semester in my professionalism in ethics class, i would ask students to spend five minutes writing their obituaer and they were saying it was a corny exercise but after five minutes, things got pretty quiet in that room, always. Got pretty serious about that. And i would a few brave souls to read what they had written. I tell you, not once did they ever write about how much money they made, what car they drove, how many clients they brought in or rain maker in their law firm, what their hourly rate was as a lawyer. They always wrote about being kind to their family, their friends and maybe leaving the place a little better or at least no worst off than they found it. And i told them at the end of the commesster, do me one favor, keep that document, stick in your desk drawer and every so often when you are wondering whats it all about or feeling a little blue, take that out and assess it on the metrics that really matter. I do something similar. Epitaph from a lawyer that i found in law school in a burial grouped. Would you read it to us. [laughter] its in the big enough print that i can. Thank you. Hes forgotten as we should be and will be as a judge. President s should be remembered. Maybe the occasional senator, congressman. And judges, our job is to make sure the rule of law is passed down from one generation to the ext, hand you the baton. As a lawyer, he was faithful and able, as a judge, patient and impartial and decisive. As a chief magistrate, accessible, frank and decisive. In private life, he was affectionate and mild. In public life, he was dignified and firm. Party feuds were laid by the correctness of his conduct. Silenced by the weight of his virtues and rankor softened by the ameant of his manners. Thank you very much for being on our stage. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org and be sure to watch all this week starting at 8 00 eastern. On sunday, 2020 democratic president ial candidate joe biden holds a town hall in new hampshire. Watch live on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen free on the cspan radio app. The high cost of raising a family and recommendations for what lawmakers can do. Held by the joint economic hearing, it runs 2 10