Transcripts For CSPAN Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Discusses Role Of The Court 20240712

At cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. Next, Justice Stephen breyer talks about the role of the Supreme Court with msnbc chief Legal Correspondent ari melber in a discussion presented by the Kennedy Institute for the u. S. Senate. On behalf of the edward m Kennedy Institute for the United States tenant, i am a very pleased to welcome all of you to this very special addition of our getting to the point series. The Kennedy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan place envisioned and planned by my late husband senator edward kennedy. It is a place where visitors come now virtually as well as in person to experience democracy. Through handson learning about the United States senate. And then use that knowledge as a touchstone to understand the branches of our government. It is also a place where we encourage participatory democracy. In fact, we just started a nonpartisan effort called just about and i encourage you to go to our new website called important, but most i encourage you on november 3 two just about. It is the most important thing we can do as citizens. This is a place where we want to invigorate civil discourse and inspire the next generation of leaders. I can think of no program and no speaker who meets every one of the goals that my husband had for this place more than todays special guest, Justice Stephen breyer. Without question, Justice Breyer is a man for our time and a man for all times. Here in boston, we are proud to claim him as one of our own. A graduate of stanford, oxford, and harvard law. He went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur goldberg. He served for many years as a professor at Harvard Law School and taught at the Kennedy School of government. He was a lawyer in the antitrust division of the Justice Department and was an assistant special counsel on the watergate proceedings. He was chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary committee and that has achieved something that is very special around this place, he is a kennedy staff alumnus. He told me that more than anyone he ever knew, steve briar had the ability to explain the most complex issues in the most understandable way and i do think that one of the keys to his and normas power is persuasion enormous power is persuasion. From the in the United States Supreme Court, Justice Breyer has made history and been part of the most momentous issues of our time. We are faced with momentous issues again and i think it is fair to say without exaggeration, that we are in unprecedented times. We are still grieving the death of Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg and we offer our deepest sympathies to all of her family and friends and to all of the members of the court. Ginsburgstice understood what happened, her loss created a vacancy and now there is a battle for a nomination for a new justice in the midst of a hotly contested for anntial election and election for control of the United States senate. Yes, these are indeed momentous times. Todays a reason that speaker has attracted the single largest audience ever signed up for one of our programs. In the middle of the day, on a thursday, more than 2000 people are eager to hear what the justice has to say to the extent he is able. I, too, cant wait. To facilitate the conversation this morning, we are so delighted to welcome our ari anber, annexed outstanding lawyer in his own right. Received an emmy award for his reporting on the Supreme Court, so we know we will have a lively informative discussion this morning. I think you all for logging on, i know you are as eager as i am to get started, so i am going to turn the program over to ari, thank you. Thank you so much, thanks to everyone for being here, it is a great honor. As we say, we will get right to it. By introducing Justice Breyer, we will do many things, but i wanted to ask some reflect as you wanted to share about the passing of your colleague, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. And i am taking a look at i think we have Justice Breyer who i spoke to moment ago, so i know he is here for us, but i think he has stepped in or out of the zoom. What we will do then is i will speak for a few minutes a little bit about as well what we are thinking about today with so much on the table for of course the country, voting has begun in the Supreme Court which currently we mentioned with Justice Ginsburgs passing is a fourforecourt. Let me speak on the first units and i will let you know when Justice Breyer is back. As i mentioned, we saw marcel and i know he is excited to be with us. A few points on the court which is we aree striking in a time where the court is now eight justices instead of nine, but its work continues. Indeed, there are a slew of cases that come up across the country and as always in our system, there are appeals and requests made by litigants to the court to be taken up on an emergency basis. Just recently there was a request that the court denied through Justice Breyer for example to hear a case regarding whether or not to allow a new form of voting in a particular state where you would do ranked choice of boarding voting as opposed to more traditional first pass to pull voting. The Supreme Court declined to hear that case, just as their mind or something we have heard from people who are keeping track of all these elections. That is that a court one justice down can still be al both in the rulings or whether or not there are any big cases that could resolve or address any potential collect contested elections. It is a very interesting time in that respect, there is also talk which i want to ask Justice Breyer about regarding honoring president and how and when the court does depart from that. Regarding these relatively arcane issue of when and how states can or cant be sued, prompting a larger discussion that several justices signed onto about what is the higher bar for overturning precedent. That is something we heard about in Supreme Court confirmation proceedings, it is something lawyers and nonlawyers alike discussed because it is that basic question of ok, we have rules, we have precedents, and yet sometimes they change. How and why . That is something we want to discuss. More broadly, generally to nonlawyers as well, i think we Justice Breyers link to the kennedys having been counsel to senator kennedy as we are obviously here at the Kennedy Institute. Thinking about that, this has been a time where the recent era has had i think Many National conversations among citizens in law, in the press about the different branches of government. That we havean these certain expectations . I believe we have Justice Breyer back in, i was just speaking briefly, thank you for doing this. [no audio] wonders ofe technology, that was a very nice introduction, but obviously i am so modest that my did machine decided to break down. Technological and constitutional in i was speaking a bit about some of the things we can get to, i will bring that back up with you, i did want to make sure we reflected briefly and gave you a chance to speak for anything you did want to share about the passing of someone who is a Dear Colleague to every member of the court, Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. Friend. She was a good enough, i was standing via service sh new in the evening with my daughter and grandchildren and at the end of the service, there is the prepare for morning, the for the dead. There is dancing and with an emergency i got in and [indiscernible] the thought ran through my mind [indiscernible] and my good friend, when she decided that is the way it goes, that is it. [no audio] [indiscernible] hello . I can hear the justice but im having a little trouble you are better now. Take it downstairs, it might work better. Workwill say this, we all through 20 20 together, is already better this moment than it was two moments ago. So we will give you a reset and we appreciate you. I was going to say, she was a really nice person. Just a few weeks ago, my son, we had a new grandchild and he sent him a present and the present futureshirt which said law clerk for our bg. Bg for grand. Yousaid is probably too big for you, so want to give it to you grandchild. I go into my office for the service for her and there on my desk is a birthday card from her which she sent a few weeks before and it says to my younger colleague. Underlined. You know, sitting next to her at dinner, she might not say very much. Say, shehas nothing to does not say anything, she thinks. Then, when she is speaking, she is thinking. I thought there is a comparison there that she was making because she told me, you know, not every silence needs to be filled. [laughter] rude. Oint, but reared she understood that, and she was the kind of person, the more you know her, the more you like her. My goodness, i will miss her. I called herra, about three weeks ago and said for some reason you are talking of some upper that takes place in boston, do you have any idea yes, she said Everybody Knows that. I did not know that. Oh dear. I appreciate that, i want to thank you for working with us to the technology. I will reiterate we can see you now and that is something we appreciate. Somece ginsburg drew attention here even after her passing through sharing through her family her thoughts about how to fill the vacancy. There is a time where there is a process ongoing without, do you think the justices do or should think about who will replace them and their retirement process while they are on the court . What are your views on that . If you say think about it, sure people think about it. Of course, from time to time you think about it. It is part of the aging process. It is inevitable. Politics andf sometimes it is hard to just stay out, but the more the hot, intense, is and so forth, the more it is we stay out of it. Of course we have to stay out of we areuse the decisions making are the decisions for 330 million americans. Some of them affect quite a few. The people on both sides have to have the confidence that you, the judge, is a fair person. So stay out of unnecessary controversy and particularly political controversy. I will remind listeners and viewers that the justice has been on the court for 26 years and a legal scholar as mentioned long before that, so we cannot possibly go through even a portion of your work or opinions. You would be asleep. I want to read a bit of one that i think lawyers and nonlawyers alike can learn from and i would love for you to walk us through some of your thinking because this is a treat yonder the written word beyond the written word. The case on the issue of when or how states can be sued. That i thinkething is an education in the larger themes of how decisions work. Legal stability allows lawyers to give citizens sound advice, each time the Court Overrules the case, the court produces increased uncertainty. And you went on to write with your colleagues supporting you about why, in this dissent, you did not think the president president should be overruled. Every opportunity to overrule cases they think has been wrongly decided, but, a lot can retain the necessary stability only if this court resists that 10 tatian overruling prior precedent, only when the circumstances demanded and he went on to quote some of the progeny of roe v. Wade. What should we take from this dissent . What is import for people to understand about the law . That you have to stay pretty stable. If you overrule a case joined opinions that did not overrule a case, and ive if ive been deciding the case initially i might have decided to really. The 10 tatian comes from the fact that after a certain time, i say that because for three or four or five years, you vote on that building and you are fighting to death. You may not reveal it, but you are. How do i know i really can do this . I thought i could, but can i . After a while you come down and say maybe i wont do it perfectly, but i will do the best i can. That is just a uniform attitude that happens. Yourcomes with that as realization that your predecessors were just human beings and they can make mistakes to. If you find an opinion that you think is totally wrong and you say, well, here i am. He was wrong, i think i am right, lets overrule it. You do that very often and you will see what happens. The lawyers will say hey, lets try a few others and before you know it they will be telling their clients, lets get this overruled or that one or the other one and clients will say what is the law here . Others who have not even gone to euler will say im not sure what im supposed to do and there will be a mess, so do not overrule cases. What about Plessy V Ferguson . What about brown v. Board of education . What about the cases that correctly said that a law is no good . , ofit right to overrule it course they were right. It was bringing injustice, it was bringing justice into an area where there was no justice and that is what the court is about. That is unusual. Dont generalize from the fact you can do it once then they can do it all the time, rare, and that is why you have to use the word rare. We do therules, sure, cases you will find 50 rules and the problem is they do not tell you. Ultimately, like many things, it is up to your own conscience, just be sure it is very rare. My goodness, when you realize what happened when they did overturn plessy and ferguson, it took 10 years more before that legal segregation was actually dismantled. And it was not the court that did it, the court may have started it, it may have been a , but it took Martin Luther king. It took the freedom riders. It took 1000 paratroopers sent to little carolina rock where they took those brave black students by the hand and walked with them into that high school in little rock where the governor was standing in the door effectively. It took a lot. Was it worth it . Of course it was worth it. Of course it was worth it. Back to theting very basic idea of america. But do not generalize from that case, that you should start overturning things all the time. Rare is the keyword. Legal andciate the american historical view, this is something i genuinely want to know. I think other people do, too, when we read a case like this see and people may take from that or wants to take from that that it is a warning about issues on abortion, is that the right way to read that precedent . Or could you decide a number of cases regarding you mean what was in my mind when i put that particular case . You know what is interesting . What is in the judges mind does not really matter. What matters are the words on the paper and it is important for the judge not to forget that , because it is those words on the paper that will be the guide to the future. You have to admit, that was a fairly interesting way of avoiding her question. [laughter] i will mention for everyone we got some of the questions that participants have sent in and some are probably things that a sitting justice would not spirits of in the transparency i will read some of them and some hopefully you can answer. I want to thank everyone, weve got several questions people have submitted. Is about the process and especially with a vacancy right now, one person right in, do you believe the confirmation process is appropriate and effective, do you have ideas for changes . Have youerson asking, seen anything change or evolve and how the Supreme Court provides checks and balances . Do you have any thoughts on president trumps release . Almond tential nominees for the future, and should President Biden released a list . I will mention most president ial candidates have not done that, candidate trump did release a list in 2016, that is an active discussion. More broadly because this is something i imagine you can declined you recently on behalf of the court to hear basically a question or an apeal about a state using certain type of voting mechanism as opposed to a different type. I think many people are curious what the actual way the Supreme Court and other courts do or do these kinds of voting cases as we get closer to an election. We call that may dealers choice as far as is there anything you want to say on any of the above . I will say a couple of things, one, the confirmation process. It is important to keep this in mind. I have said it probably 5000 times, 5001 is ok. That is a political process insofar as nominating and confirming the judges concerned, i was another person who nominated me. It was the president and i was not the person who confirmed me. I was the confirmed person. That, the senate that did and so asking me about that process, i say, it is like asking for the recipe for chicken a la king from the point of view of the chicken. Saying im notf going to get in that political thing, but i will Say Something because i say this to the students and i say this to High School Students to College Students who are cynical from time to time and i dont want them to be. That is why love the Kennedy Institute, it is trying to get people to understand and participate. I will say to them, look, i i understand, i worked for senator kennedy. I loved that job, the best job i ever had come at to tell you the truth. Had, to tell you the truth. I learned, watching confirmations, that senators by and large will ask the questions , that they think their constituents want asked. They have a tie with those constituents and if they go too far afield, they wont be senators very long, are they . There is too much hostility, and you think there wrong word right there, etc. I would say maybe there is. You know how to stop that . The senators are going to reflect what you want, so you had better stop it. The way you stop it is when you disagree with somebody, you talk to them about it. You talk to them about it. You try to convince them. You participate. You vote. And you do it yourself, and maybe it will be catching. And maybe others will do it. But that is the system that the constitution sets forth. That is why the First Amendment is there. So i mean it. If i want to be tough and say a mean thing to them, i will say, you know where to look to begin . Look in the mirror. Look in the mirror. And start. Involved andt participate and practice cooperation and compromise. I mean, i could go on at length. But i think that is the key. The key is not going to be in washington. They key is going to be in every town and city and state, when people come to the inclusion the conclusion they dont want this hostility, it wont be there. Thats my view of it. Interesting. With regard to when and how courts should or should not how does the court work . Five minutes if you would like, what do we actually do . First, by remembering this. We deal with questions of federal law. That is, what is this word in the federal statute or in the constitution . How does that apply . What does it mean . Those are the kinds of questions, and i emphasize federal, which means congress, or the constitution. But most law in the United States is not federal. Almost all of it is made in cities, towns, states, and it is up to state courts. Keep in mind the fact, and i say this deliberately to the students, you want to help your friends and neighbors . You go to the city council and you get involved in the school board or the Arts Commission or something local and statewide, because that is the law that is going to affect them. Im not saying the senate and the congress are unimportant. But dont jump to the conclusion because you read more about them in the newspaper that everything they do is more important than what goes on in the states. It is very often the contrary. In our court we are only considering federal law almost 100 . How many cases are there . Cases involve people having arguments, and the first place they go is they try to get over it. Get over your dispute. In 99 of the problems they do. But sometimes they cant and they go to a lawyer. The lawyer is supposed to help them get over it. Find a settlement, do something, bring them together, and 80 of the time they succeed. Then they get into court but there are quite a few cases in court that go to the state level and most of them settled. There are a few that dont settle, go to trial, get appeals and have a federal question. How many . Maybe 80, 100,000 in a year are in the Top Appeals Court and they involve federal questions and about 8000 of those come to us because they didnt like the fact that they lost. Remember, losing come of the losing lawyer thinks the judge is an idiot. He doesnt say the judge is an idiot but he says, that is terrible. You know what the winning lawyer says about the judge . Nothing. He says nothing. He thinks he is a good lawyer. That is why judging is you got the point. They come to us, the losing lawyers, 8000, 7 thousand per year, 150 per week, and they say please hear our case. The law clerks do 150 per week, there are 30 in the building and they right these little memos and i will receive a stack like this on my desk every weekend i go through them pretty quickly and i can go through them quickly because of what i am looking for, and this is the point. I am not looking for, what fun it would be to decide this case. People think i do that. I dont. What am i looking for . Entirely to almost see if Lower Court Judges have come to different conclusions on the same question of federal law. If they have all come to the same conclusion, why us . They are good judges. Why us . Sometimes there is an answer, maybe somebody held the law of congress unconstitutional. Suppose they have reached different conclusions. This is what president howard taft said when he was chief justice. If they reach different conclusions on the same question we had better hear the case, because federal law should be uniform. Inwe could hear a case like the Internal Revenue code, section blah blah, there is a comma and the next word should be read as this or that. We heard that case. I liked it. Nobody else liked it. Split, because different conclusions by different judges on the same question or we could hear guantanamo bay. Probably 99 of the time i am looking to see if there is a split. Other reasons possible, could be an issue of such importance that you have to hear it because the country needs an answer, but here is a case. What happens . Shall i continue the process . Each side writes these little booklets. They are called briefs. They arent brief but they are called briefs. We get them and we read them. Then, every two weeks or so we have oral arguments where we ask questions. In a day or two we meet around a conference table by ourselves and we go through the cases we just heard in order. Chief justice, justice a followup on the org the oral arguments that get so much attention, can you think of a time where you are another justice had your mind changed when you had already done the research . Does that that really happen and doesnt need to happen . Yes. This is two different things. Happens, but not very often, 5 . Case, whatook at the i think is important, that changes a lot more frequently. 30 , 15 , 20 , and that matters because it is how the opinion is written. It is how the issues that are discussed, how they are approached, how they are analyzed, and how they are decided in words is often the key part of an opinion. Not the results. Sometimes the results, of course, but very often it is that, and that does change your mind. It does. It is a chance for us to ask questions of it is a chance for us to hear what our colleagues tonk, it is a chance for us go into the conference, i have never heard a voice raised in anger at that conference, by the way. People dont say good things about each other, or make jokes at each others expense. It is professional. We go around the room, write down what the others think in our book on each case, and no one speaks twice until everyone has spoken once. Very good rule for a small group. Then, there is some back and forth. There we are. Custom, it is the custom. Another thing you are uniquely situated to educate us is which is at a level that not about specific ending cases of which justices dont speak, is, what are we, in the public and in the press, getting wrong or oversimplifying as compared to your unique experience being on the court . We hear talk of not only whether People Project their own ideologies onto the court, as i think you alluded to earlier, but we also hear talk of quote quoteunquote swing votes, that you know from the evidence and lived experience we are getting a little off or wrong. I think that is a huge problem. Huge. , we are probably unanimous 40 of the time. Are probably 15 , 20 . Not the same five and the same four. I looked it up a couple years ago, and discovered, i think there were 18 54 cases out of all of them, a little high but that is what it was. 12 of them were not what the press would call liberalconservative. It was more mixed up. Eight of the more. Eight of them were. But eight of those 12, it would have been written in the newspaper, in an unusual lineup, how could it be an unusual lineup when most of those 54 cases are unusual lineups . Is whatlem is, and this students ask, arent those the most important . I cant say yes or no. I can say they are the ones the public has the most interest in. And so since the newspapers are out there to be sold, and since they want to appeal to their public, they will write about those cases as if those are the whole thing. And then, they will say conservative and liberal. But my goodness. If that is what the job was, why in heavens name would you want it . I mean, if you want to be a politician, go into politics. Judging is a different job. You are influenced by your background when you are interpreting these big words like liberty, freedom of speech, what is the freedom of speech, and you are influenced, but there is the text and there is the history and there are the purposes and there is the value and there are the traditions and the precedents and the consequences. All those things come in in some way or another when you are deciding the case. So it is important to remember that maybe it may be a political process that leads to the nomination of a judge, and a president may think i have someone who will always agree with me, that is what Teddy Roosevelt thought when he nominated all over Wendell Holmes. And within three months all over Wendell Holmes decided something Teddy Roosevelt didnt like. He was furious. But holmes was doing his job. Do you think every president comes to learn that . I do. President s,what the there are Big Questions in law, in journalism, in any discipline. By the time you are 50 years old, you begin to have views of what i call in law, jurisprudential views. What is this constitution about . , thats this country about this constitution can work in this country . Those are Big Questions, and you cant often articulate an answer. But that doesnt mean your jurisprudential view isnt there. If a president wants someone who holds views on these Big Questions somewhat like he does, he is probably luckier than Theodore Roosevelt but he can be wrong there, too. Judge, and there is no point, and i havent seen it, deciding things on political grounds. Justice breyer, in law school, we are taught fairly firmly that this is a battle on the merits and ideas and that is how it will be adjudicated. And there is plenty of evidence for that and you walked us through the many cases that are on the merits by which i mean, not some of the other things the public may assume or imagine motivate the outcome. On the other hand, i was always wondering, well, there is the cost of litigation. There are the powers that be outside the courtroom, and it would seem certain issues, i will give two examples, get more support, get more litigating, get more at bats, if you will, than others. Im thinking of issues of high ideological support, where there are motivated funding and constituency to keep pushing it. Im thinking of issues with business or corporate support, where individual companies and the chamber of commerce, i think it is a measurable matter, can go to more courts and more atbats and eventually, arguably get more legitimate potential avenues for appeals that ultimately the Supreme Court to see their case. Not commenting on pending cases, but is that true or am i missing something . And to the extent you can say so, is that a potential in equity, if other issues that might be potentially valid jurisprudential he dont jurisprudentially dont have that support to get through the system the same way . There are loads of inequities in our system. It is pretty tough for a person without any money or only a little money to get into court at all. They might have nothing to get in. In the criminal system, there is a system right now where the prosecutor in effect, 90 of the cases, makes the sentencing decision. He recommends it, but there is an agreement and the agreement in part is because the defendant, who we certainly hope he doesnt plead guilty he might get charged with a higher offense. I mean, these are filled with problems of equity, the law is far from a perfect system. The particular one you mention, i would say i dont know. It may well be that what you say is something that lawyers say, who might like certain business, say or othersence say. My job is to sit there, read those briefs, and the Interest Groups will file briefs, and what they dont really see is, i dont, the name on the brief, please. It is what is said in the brief about the law that will have the effect. T could matter in this way we had a case about right to die. Really a tough case. Do you have a right to assisted suicide if you are very ill . We got about 80 briefs. There were nurses associations on both sides. Doctors, health care workers, andrded people, hospices, what they were telling us that i wanted to see is, how would this decision affect the hospice . How would it affect those who are mentally ill . How would it affect this or that . I think that is relevant to the legal issue. That is what i am trying to give you a picture of what the job looks like. They are trying to decide the case and what the lawyers have told the clients and, it is free speech, they can say what they want. What the clients have told the lawyers and what the newspapers say about what you are going to say, that is not so easy to get over, but get over it. They can say anything they want. About this decision or that decision or something that i do, that is the right. My job is to sit there and be the best judge i can be. This is not computer science. Law is not where there is some kind of answer written on this great computer that you press the right buttons and get it. Law is an effort to allow, and i see that every day, to allow 330 Million People in this country to live together harmoniously and productively. Cases, tough in many knowing that that is the purpose , looking at consequences sometimes, sometimes looking at purposes, etc. But that is the legal job. It is a fact, i taught andy for having competitive competition in the market, having competitive markets is most more important than other things. Breyer, we know you think that, calm down. You try to do the job as best you can. Really fascinating. I will mention for the justices benefit and our viewers, we have five minutes for closing and final thoughts. Another issue percolating through the nation, you mentioned the work that has to be done on civil rights cases even beyond the ruling. We listed this as a country as an original sin. In your position on the court im curious your thoughts on the movement and the term we have heard, black lives matter. While it is partly about things that happened even before something gets to court about Police Interaction and other systemic inequities, there is also a view, as you know and everyone listening knows, that an argument about whether the law also values black and other lives equally. By the way, there is a constitution that says all people are titled entitled to equal protection of the law. There is a statute that says people arent higher than any race. On the basis of when you see a Movement Like that right now, is your job more to be aware but not have it overly affect anything as you rule because you are inside the record or are you and other oftices inherently aware what is going on . Of course you are aware of it, but be careful. Be careful not to substitute exactly what you would like or igencies ofink the ex the moment are for what is basically a system of law. It is not computer science. Can you be unaffected . You try to be unaffected by the fact that the demonstration itself or the fact of the article itself, that isnt going to affect you. But the importance of having equal protection of the law, which is in the law, i would say yes. I always thought that was important. Other people think that. But the most important thing to me, the thing i have seen on that court, which has impressed me the most, i see in front of people of every race, every. Eligion, every point of view my mother used to say that, no point of view is so crazy that there isnt somebody in this country who doesnt hold it. The courts deciding their difference in court, it has taken 200 years before people are willing to accept decisions that they really disagree with. I could name a few. When i talk to students about this, some say, i heard senator in bush versus gore, there were no riots. There were no paving stones was no slingshots, it they accepted it. I say, i know what you are thinking. There are 30 of you in this audience who think, too bad there werent a few riots. The decision was wrong. I thought it was wrong, i die scented. That affected us a lot. We disagreed with it. Terrible. Too bad there werent a few riots. I understand what you are thinking. But before you come to that as a final conclusion, i would like you to turn on your Television Sets and see what happens in countries who resolve their differences that way. So it is this document that somehow held 330 million deal ofa very great differences of view, together and it says you resolve your differences if you can under law, not through force, and it into the courtroom or participate. You decide them in the senate, you decide them in the house. You understand that. You decide them by participating in your community life. And that has preserved us, not perfectly, we had a civil war, we had slavery, god knows what has happened, but we have survived. But i believemism those 330 million will continue to run a country under law, and there will be a lot of ups and downs, a lot of them, but senator kennedy used to say there are ups and downs. The country goes over here, then over there. That is right, there are differences. You see the point. We see it but i think it is edifying to have you walk through all of this, especially walk us through what we may misperceive, especially i think as we turn to the closing, reminding us really how narrow and at times parochial, i wont speak for anyone else but i will speak to those of us in the press sometimes, going towards the conflict of the narrower version when you walked us through how it really works and everything that is perhaps out of the view sometimes. I think we all really appreciate it. This is fascinating to sit down with you, especially at a busy time. So i did want to give you the option before we bring in caroline, because we talked about so much, anything in closing that you wanted to say . Senator i learned a lot from senator kennedy, a lot. I have told my law clerks this. With the you way mug words of senator kennedy. Like to repeatd to the students, and i saw it so often, it was, listen. That is what you do when you grow around the table. It is not, i have a better argument than you, because that leads to, i have a better argument than you. Forget that. Listen to what the other person says. When you listen, you might think you are totally opposed, but maybe he says something, we can work with that. And maybe something will come out of it. And then, he told us, which is right there, credit is a weapon. Dont try to get the credit. If the thing works, there will be credit to go around and if it doesnt work, who wants the credit . I cant tell you how many times i saw him, when something would work and it would work with the help of those who disagreed with him and the press conference would come along and he would jump out and say no. He would push the other senator in front. Orrin really helped bring this together. And that is called working with people. I learned that in the senate. I learned working for senator kennedy, and i learned that in from my teacher who used to have us write a project about san franciscos history and she would have four or five of us in a group and the group would get one grade for all five people. And they cooperated. And they compromised because they were interested in working together. So i saw it. I saw it. And i say that to the students, because it is trite but true. Cooperation, compromise, participation, practice of all of those things and learning about the government, well, that was senator kennedy, that is the Kennedy Institute and i think that is worth passing on. I appreciate that. Thoughts from senator kennedy at the Kennedy Institute. I want to thank everyone and Justice Breyer. Thank you, Justice Breyer. I turn it over to caroline. Thank you. On behalf of the Kennedy Institute, a most sincere thank you to Justice Stephen breyer and ari melbourne for sharing your unique perspectives on the vital role the Supreme Court plays as the seat of perhaps are released publicly understood branch of government. As we head into what looks to be an unusual confirmation process for the next justice it is critical that we all realize what is at stake and how our voices play a part to Impact Outcomes through democratic processes. Institute we are proud to produce important discussions like this one with Justice Breyer and mr. Melbourne, to ensure that as many people as possible are able to understand the intricacies of our democracy, and engage in the civic life of our communities. Contributions from our generous members and supporters allow us to continue offering free programming, and keep these critical conversations going. Lees consider joining us and becoming a member today to make sure that we can continue to bring Civic Education and engagement to people across the country. You can find out more at tute. Org membership. Dont forget to check out just vote. Org, as misses kennedy mentioned at the top of the program, to learn about your fundamental democratic rights and make sure your voices heard. Again, on behalf of us all at the edward [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching cspan. It is brought to you today by your television provider. And start go ahead calling and now, as we show you some of the headlines this morning from political media on the internet, from the right and left of the side. Debate was dominated by scowls and awkward eye roles. This was the headline. Pence defends trumps record. Repealingo claim that tax cuts will not raise taxes. This is how it played on the left. There headline was that there was no way for mike pence to defend trumps record. This is the headline from the huffington post. Nearly two1, with dead, the pandemic was the number one topic at the debate. Heres part of what senator harris had to say. Vp pence