At the tenure of justins clarion thomas by his many written opinions. [applause] good evening, everyone and welcome to the New York Historical society. I am louise New York Historical president and ceo and im thrilled to see all of you and her beautiful auditorium this evening. Tonights program the life and Turbulent Times of chief Justice John Roberts of the speaker series. Ias always i like to think is tremendous support which is enabled us to bring so many fine speakers to the stage. [applause] i would also like to recognize and take a number of trustees who have joined us this evening, barry barnett, judy berkowitz, susan, pat, suzanne, joe, jean inside. I would like to think each and every one of you and michael westberg, how to do not appear on a list. In any event, i would like to thank each and every one of you for joining us this evening and for all the work that you do on behalf of New York Historical. And i should say leading up to our we can with history in just a couple of weeks that i want to give special recognition to susan who is the chair of a chairmans counsel and Michael Weissberg who is the deputy cochair along with suzanne pack of a chairman counsel. Thank you especially in thank you to other chairman counsel members who are here with us tonight. Tonights Program Allows about an hour and it will include a question answer session. The q a will be conducted via written notecards, you shouldve gotten a written no card at no card in pencil when you enter the auditorium. If not my colleagues are going up and down the aisle with no cards and pencils, your questions are notecards will be collected later on in the program. There will be a book signing this evening following the program and copies of jones book will be available for purchase in our ny history story. We are thrilled to welcome Joan Biskupic to New York Historical this evening, she is a legal analyst, cnn and previously served as an editor for large Legal Affairs minister prepared correspondent for the Washington Post and for usa today. She has also appeared surprised analyst and author of books on Sandra Day Oconnor and Sonia Sotomayor more, her most recent book is achieved, internet connectiointernationalchain. Its available for purchase. We are also very pleased indeed to welcome Marcia Quayle back to New York Historical as our moderator this evening, she said chief washington correspondent for the National Law Journal and she covered the u. S. Supreme court for more than 30 years. She is a regular contributor inches written for publications such as vogue, ms. Magazine in the new york times, she is also the author of the roberts court, the struggle for the constitution. As always before we begin i want to ask that you please make sure anything that makes noise like a cell phone is switched off and now please join me in welcoming our guests this evening. Thank you. [applause] good evening, it is wonderful to be back with all of you here tonight. An especially wonderful to be here with my friend, my colleague, my Supreme Court watcher as a. M. To talk about jones terrific new book about the chief justice of the United States. John roberts junior. Im going to start tonight by trying to give all of us a sense ive john roberts the man before we talk about john roberts the justice on the Supreme Court. So joan i want to start with the letter that you reprinted in your book. This was a letter that john roberts wrote when he was 13 years old to the head of the allmale Catholic High School that he wanted to attend is a short letter, dear mr. Moore, the main reason i would like to attend the school is to get a better education, my boys wanted to stay ahead of the crowd and i feel that the competition will force me too work as hard as i can. At an ordinary high school it would probably be easy to save it. I realize that going there will be a lot of study and hard work. But i feel confident that these laborers will pay off in large amounts when it comes time to apply for admission to college. I am sure that by attending a doing my best i will assure myself of a fine teacher, i will not be content to get a job by getting a good education, i want to get the best job by getting the best education sincerely yours. [sirens] okay we need a little guidance here. So joan was telling me this is why she loves new yorkers. Fire alarm goes off, you get up, walk out no complaints, nobody has to tell you what to do. Your real pros. [applause] wow, did you hold that thought about that letter. I hope so. I have to tell you i read it to my husband and the first thing out of his mouth, he did not write it, his mother dead. [laughter] okay but joan i have a feeling this was all john roberts and i wanted to ask you do we see in the letter the mere of the man he would become and where does this come from, when your sources said he was hardwired for success. John roberts probably did write that letter entirely himself and i did talk to him about it, from an intimate young age and whether the antidotes i got from an answer his was how she went over to the Roberts House for dinner and the first thing the mother said was he got all as on his report card and the uncle pulled out a dollar bill. This was in the early 60s well before he wrote the letter. I think he was ready to write that kind of letter when he was 13 and you do see him today standing up on the crowd and the school that he ended up in with quickly character forming, it had open a Northern Indiana just a few years before he was high school age, it was Perfect Timing and of course he gets in andys first in his class, i think the letter reveals his determination, his focus, the line about i dont want to get a job i want to get a great job, i dont want to be an associate justice, i want to be the chief. So you can feel some of that and of course he did not get society gets to be chief, a lot of factors went into him becoming chief but he certainly was on the trajectory straight up since law the mayor. Thats right he has, i want to ask you were going to jump forward to john roberts the adult and john roberts the father, he gave a very interesting speech at his sons school in this speech got fairly wide coverage of the media because it was different, he basically which entry which the student that they would encounter throughout their lives bad things. Not terrible things but disappointment and they would learn from those and they wondered, here is somebody as you said was on a trajectory of success does not appear to have had any of those but did he. When you look to his life, either character forming disappointment in his own life that make them who he is today. I asked people in his family, his friends, was ever anything he was bad at, kenny think of setbacks and some of his friends would say he wasnt a fast runner. [laughter] and i would say can you give me a little bit more so he wasnt great at all the sports but he basically did everything intact can start referred to him as mrw the influence and john roberts continued to talk about that. There was one setback that ended up being reversed in the end and when he was nominated by george h. W. Bush to the district of columbia u. S. Appeals court, the u. S. A part of it kills to the d. C. Circuit as it was done back in 1992 he was only 37, and he did not get because the democrats controlled the senate at the time but arguably if he had gone on then in 1992 he would not be sitting at the Supreme Court now because he would had so much more of a record that mightve been dissected and prevented him. Those kinds of things with a few little instances that folks mentioned because i was looking for something that did not go right for him. You situated us in his boyhood where he was one of four children, the only boy with three sisters, he had his fathers name, don roberts junior, he really looked up to his father he was a Steel Industry executive andy always had high hopes for himself. In the speech that marsha refers to that he gave it his sons graduation is still with the idea that you should have setbacks see you continue to be persistent by his setbacks were not major. I think it was maybe can start in your book you also said that the roots of roberts character were not only his time there or his deeply catholic upbringing, can you talk a little bit about that. He grew up in Northern Indiana in long beach that had started as a vacation area from people from chicago back in the early part of the century trying to escape the heat and congestion of the city during the summers in a lovely place, a lovely place to growl up and a lot of the same kind of people, very white, very catholic, very tight and communities and i think that was very much character for me for him when he went to harvard, he graduated first in his class and then he goes to harvard any finishes in three years and he was a little bit turned out by the liberalism at harvard as an undergrad and for law school betty continue to practice his faith and he maintained and him and his wife jane very strong practitioner and we do have a lot of catholics on the court but there have been catholics who have not been conservative such as William Brennan and sonya. I dont want to define that so much with him but his face is been very important to him and the one thing i want to mention, even though he bristled against the liberalism at harvard just because his graduating and when he finishes his two clerkships, Ronald Reagan has just been elected. I think you mention what did he hear and Ronald Reagan. The call. There he was working for then associate justice at the Supreme Court in a very super tedious courtship, hes wondering what to do next and he listens to Ronald Reagan in january of 1981 and he hears him speak about his agenda, economic and social and john roberts says i heard the call, i wanted to be part of that and going back to can start again, throughout this entire book strangely, at the time he was already working for Ronald Reagan and Justice Rehnquist at the time called up can start and said i have a young man who i think it would be important if he did summer Government Service before coming a private practitioner and they hired john roberts on the spot and the rest is history. I was curious if you can describe everybody what the chambers are like at the Supreme Court. Because as you and i know that justice chambers are often a reflection of who they are, what their background is, what their interest has been, you going to Justice Ginsburg chambers, there is bart rodarte from all over the world, there is opera playing in the background other justices have shown southwestern roots, what about roberts, woody c. He has a Large Chamber any of the couple different sitting rooms, in the room that we ran most, there is a notre dame football. [laughter] if you grow up in Northern Indiana and you dont end up at harvard, you might have ended up in notre dame, hes always been an notre dame football fan any choice maintained by coupled even coaches over time, the art that he has chosen is landscape from indiana and from maine where they have a Vacation Home, he has pictures of himself with william when crist we work for as i mentioned, and he has a picture of henley friendly he was a u. S. A part of a rails for the second court of judge and he had very high regard for, pictures of his children, and of course all the u. S. Reports, the bound books eithe are there. You can see different parts of his life play out. But the one thing in his chambers, he has a lot of people coming, about a gas come into his chambers but back when he was a young lawyer, his offices were known for being the devoid between his pictures. We had a colleague by the name david pike, remember david, he would work for illegal trade newspaper and he often said it was so hard to get a feel on john roberts when you dealt with him oneonone and he interviewed him several times and one thing that struck him, you go into his office and it would be piled with papers and not a sign of anything personal but there were no photos, nothing that would reveal his extracurricular interest even if it was notre dame football. That is really interesting. The one thing that i did not get a sense of from your book was whether he has any closer trusted friends among the other justices. As you know and as Everybody Knows the Justice Scalia and ginsburg friendship and justice prior and stevens and souter were close, what about robert. I dont think theres another justice i would read and to describe as a close pal of his, i think his family with all of them. I think he felt a certain closeness with Justice Scalia and part of their background were similar even though he was a generation ahead of him. And i think alayna kagan is trying to become more of a partner to work on things together and i have to say his background is similar to brett kavanaugh, they knew each other and they know each other from certain activities predate play poker together at times. There is a bit of a pal ship thereto. Does he like beer. I cannot resist. [laughter] im sorry. Its been a long day there was a fire alarm. [laughter] if you had to pick some adjectives to describe john roberts to somebody that does not watch court or go to oral arguments, how would you describe it. Determined, focused, smart, strategizing, controlling, and real history bug, devoted to his family, always prepared. Always prepared. He was an excellent oral advocate and he shows up at the bench always prepared for cases, most of them do but not all the time. He likes things to be predictable, he likes to know its going to happen, hes not naturally spontaneous, when we heard him say in november to rebuke president trump, there are no obama, trump, bush or clinton judges, he was waiting for his moment to say that, he does not speak offthecuff, he still loves his history. Before he went to law school, he was going to get a phd in history. So is Justice Kagan, he thought he would teach history before he went to law school. Theres a lot in common in terms of extracurricular activities, he still reads a lot of history, he reads biographies, he likes to golf and for a while he actually was a writer and he ran a couple of marathons. When he was a young man. There is a reference that shows a side of him within the court i think he was called king john. Can you tell us how they develop. He came in when he was 50 years old, he had a mere two Years Experience on the d. C. Circuit and had not been on the Supreme Court where William Rehnquist was elevated to chief in 1986 and already had 14 years and an associate justice, he knew the personality and how to work with his colleagues. As Justice Scalia told me, they had enough time and to toughen his high. Here comes Young John Roberts and didnt have much managerial experience to speak up, someone who is reserved and even shy, those are two other adjectives, i think he initially had trouble navigating among the justices and i think its a constant work in progress of how to persuade them, how to work with them, theyre all appointed for life. Theyre all set in their ways and i think the way for better or worse to have tight court community, when you talk about office space and perks in the running of the building and the chief can be quite controlling and some of the staffers there had taken a whispery way calling him king john in there had been resentment that build up over time and i suddenly get it, im glad you asked about this because i wasnt sure how to handle this. Even though as i chose chief Justice Roberts as a subject emerged in some research when i was rainy about Justice Scalia in the murray probe data the more i found elements of distrust, a little bit of elements of resentment, frankly to set himself above the others as you read in the letter. I didnt know how much to make of it so i mentioned it at little point in the book but what i end up saying is that it doesnt really affect the law in the end. It might affect how they navigate, and might affect who picks up the phone to work on a compromise, and like back enough of a concurrence that the chief might not want to have stated but in the end it is more than a human dynamic element that affects the law we all live under. One time i was interviewing Justice Ginsburg and roberts had been chief for a little while at that point and i asked her, has a chief justice changed at all since he became chief justice. And she said he has not changed since law school. And i sort of assumed she met his ideological views. Im wondering has a changed john roberts in any way . I will just mention her daughter jane knew john roberts at harvard and she had gotten a glimpse of the chief and mentioned that to me and she referred to him being born conservative just like nino with Justice Ginsburg. I think the court has changed him. Being chief justice comes with great advantages and benefits because you preside over these cases, you start the discussion in a conference you can hear the conference in the private meeting. He has control to steer things in many ways but he also has a way of the institution on him and he has to deal with this personality, its a little bit of a personal job too, he was not accustomed to that. I think in the beginning he wanted to try to make sure everyone got along were, he wanted to build more consensus and thats been a bit of a bumpy road for him. To think chief Justice Rehnquist went told us at psych herding cats. Chief Justice Rehnquist would just blow it off for shoulders and say whatever. They liked him, that was one thing they realized, he was a tough chief to follow. Not in terms of the law but in the terms of personality, he was quite beloved by ruth bader ginsburg. She really liked him and she still would refer to as my chief. The current chief would be like stop that. [laughter] lets switch gears and talk about the justice and the judge, if you had to pick three decisions that he has written or if its not a majority opinion or dissent and three that define him and his tenure this far, which three would you pick. In order of importance but not the order i want to discuss because i want to end up with a healthcare. The Affordable Care act case in 2012 will devote a little more time to the Shelby County versus holder in 2013 which cut back pretty dramatically in 1965. And then the opinion he wrote in the parents involved School Integration case where he interpreted the board of education in a way that we encounter to the advocates behind him enter most into the warren court and just about every liberal saw his interpretation of being offkilter, he felt really strongly about that so i would say those three. Which one would you like to start with. Shelby county. That is something we are continuing, thats a decision that has not died it had huge ramifications. 5 4 the justices eliminate what was known as section five in section four formula for the preclearance i have been built into the Voting Rights act that required certain states administer polities that had a history of discrimination to have any change cleared by the Justice Department kids went discriminate against africanamericans or any other racial minority in the idea is that certain places especially in the south had these histories of biased in the federal government wanted to make sure that they werent continuing the contracting the franchise for minority voters. And john roberts had a preclearance for a long time back to his years in the Reagan Administration or at least felt that locality should be able to set their own policies and the federal government should not be meddling. This has been a pretty strong project of his along the way and what we saw in 2009 case where he laid the groundwork for what he did in 2013 when he wrote the majority opinion to say this is no longer needed, he famously said in these two cases, things have changed in the south, we no longer have these kinds of problems, he pointed to the fact that barack obama had won the presidency and theres problems in the north just like problems in the south in the south should not be singled out anymore. Would you say the culmination of his views on race. Definitely and we saw certain indications of those views when you work for Ronald Reagan impositions he took when he was deputy general for president george h. W. Bush and he gets on the court in 2005 in 2006 was a texas Voting Rights case where he refers to line drawing thats going to maximize the strength of black voters that had previously been deleted and he refers to a quote sort of business, giving us up on the basis of race, he does not like any racial classification. He feels that they are debilitating to racial minority, stigmatizing and as he wrote in the parents involved case i referred to in 2007 that they actually are as bad as the discrimination that led to racial remedies in the first place. This is sort of typical and exemplifies what you said about the strategic aspects of robbers. He go stepbystep, he starts in the texas case, its assorted business by race, he gets the parents involved, the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race and then we get to Shelby County. There is almost a progression and how he moves. That is right, very steady on the same track and what will he be like, will he be the swing vote, what i say on race, hes giving us a very consistent pattern. Just to move to healthcare, you came up with some original reporting and they didnt think it was possible after all was written in healthcare but you did in terms of behind the scenes, tell us about roberts behind the scene. Ill bring you back to 2012, electionyear, every republican candidate for president is speaking out against barack obama signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care act, its challenged and lower court and theres many provisions to the healthcare law but the two main that are before the Supreme Court in the case involves what we all refer to as an individual mandate. That was the requirement that all individuals have insurance at once were another and the other was expansion of the Medicaid Program to help people near the poverty line nationwide. The medicaid element did not get much attention, we in the court were mainly focused on the individual mandate and challenged as a violation of Congress Power to regulate interstate commerce. So we have three days of world arguments. Usually cases get one hour of oriole argument, this is a really big deal and im sure every Single Person in this room followed it one way or another. When the justices take their first private boat, the friday of this week after the days of arguments, its 5 Fourth District on the individual insurance requirement, what i found out as they had voted to uphold the Medicaid Expansion as every lower court did, this was not in the public eye but it was very important consequential part and everybody is focused on the individual mandate its 5 4 with five conservatives saving the chief justice ready to strike down as a violation of the congress of power to regulate interstate commerce, the only question remaining when they walked out of the conference, what would fall with her. In the chief starts to have second thoughts of where the rest of his conservative would want to go on this, they want to strike down, this is nearly a thousand pages of provision, many remember the thing that your children can stand the Health Policy and tether 26 and insurers can cut off people because of cancer and other preexisting conditions, so many other things that were important to many people and again, businesses were very mixed, we remember the controversy in the political nature. So the chief starts to have second thoughts of taking down the hall as the other conservatives that voted against it. And he star shading with two of the liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and elena kagan his sense and have become partners on other cases. He decides essentially to find new grounds to uphold it under the taxing power. We all know that part because we know in the end when he announced the opinion from the bench he said it could not stand under the Congress Party but it could stand under the taxing power, everyone many people were surprised, i did predict from all the time that he was going to vote that way but i was actually wrong because he did not vote that way first, first he voted to strike it down and then he changed his mind but not only did he change his mind and upholding the requirement that we all have to buy health insurance, he then flipped his boat on whether the expansion for medicaid was constitutional and he instead said that should be struck down and there were cuba justices elena kagan and Stephen Breyer and they switch their votes and that could struck down. That was one of the oddest part of that decision was to see kagan and briar to strike down the Medicaid Expansion. It seems so out of character and why would they do that, they were given covered to roberts or trying to show that it was bipartisan and they basically threw under the bus the poor, the elderly would benefit from the Medicaid Expansion. But at the time everybody said the states were going to take the Medicaid Expansion and round mother. It did not happen. It was at the discretion of the state and people thought the states are going to get free money to expand but because a lot of republican led states did not want to do what obama was giving them, they did not. Heres the thing, at the time i look back and take why did i not probed that medicaid vote more when Justice Kagan and briar suddenly were against expansion because i written a story about how vigorously they challenged paul clement the former solicitor general under president bush who would argue that the Medicaid Expansion was unconstitutional and they flipped the other way i believe in speaking with other justices about this as they fell over time since john roberts was moving in another direction and believe it or not they do not feel confident until almost the end when the decision was announced that he was going to stick with them, thats how much they were and fox behind the scenes because they thought they should give him a little bit of something. So i was really surprised when i found out i suspected one flip vote because our colleague had known about that one in britain about it and nobody else had been able to match it at the time although i found out from justices that indeed had happened but when i found out about the second switch i remember calling, this is as a reporter you need to double check and make sure that you find out this correctly but you dont want to take too many people because you dont want to report it before your booking will come out. I thought it was amazing and it goes to show that kind of compromises that go on behind the scenes. You said something that really struck me, you said in the healthcare act robert acted insured like a politician and i would assume usa today soda kagan and briar. Using a politician in the broader sense of cutting a deal, getting a little, giving up a little to get a result that a majority will accept and what i read in the end as it was not pretty, the decision was criticized in many ways for lacking coherent and a real strong legal grounding but the law ended up being upheld, he brought together competing factions and people not on the extremes, many people in the middle gave him credit. I think that action has continued to define him in the public eye as more moderate than the conservative he is on many issues. Did you ask him at all if he had any regrets about any of his decisions. Im thinking in particular about Shelby County because after that decision was issued we saw almost immediately states in the south implementing Voter Suppression measures were making a harder for voters to register and also for Citizens United he did not write the majority opinion in Citizens United by hereof very strong concurring opinion and certainly hes pretty much identified with that as well. Did you ask him if he has any regrets. I cant tell you exactly how he characterizes certain things, so much of our conversations were off the record and we were constantly negotiating what will go on the record. But i can tell you from everything he has written and what i observed is that he feels the court itself is right to leave it to elected officials that the court should not be in the business of policing some of the voting violations in the locality should be in charge of that and in terms of the feet, Citizens United he believes more money and more speech, speech has money, the better. He does not see the practical consequences the way many people do and when you talk about dividing my situation, after the Shelby County ruling in 2013, almost immediately in texas and North Carolina the state Legislature Passed restrictions, the implemented voter id laws, they redistrict in a way that were immediately challenged as hurting minority voters. I dont want to do what i always do, i never get to a lot of your questions. Im going to ask you one more. That is, how did he compare in terms of interviewing and reporting to the other justices that you have written about, oconnor and scalia. He was my toughest subject start to finish. And just to remind everyone, i know marsha knows, when i did the buckeye justice cochlea he sat with me for 12 sessions all on the record, he talked and talked and talked. Id be exhausted and i would be like i have to go now. There were so many times when i was speaking with the chief and mine would say i wish you were justice coley. It was so hard, first apply do not like dealing with subjects who only want to speak off the record or background because i cannot take the material out to double check and test the way i want to and its harder all around, he had his reasons, he definitely did not want to give me much in any way, even from things like trying to find out more about his family he was raised in the early 60s, was your mother making jello and cooking with campbell soup, things were happening then, it was very hard to get that information out of him let alone what he regrets about Shelby County. I understand. Lets take some questions. When appointing robert as chief justice, did president bush ever consider elevating one of the existing associate justices to the position. This is a great question because he owes his job to where he was first appointed to the associate justice enter here enter in Hurricane Katrina. It is july 1, 2005, Justice Oconnor announced that hes going to retire. Its a huge deal as we all know and we can talk at length. Another time. But the president george w. Bush is looking for a moderate individual to replace Sandra Day Oconnor and at this point john roberts, his name from the rob and jim reagan years had not become public any built up a reputation as a moderate to rest on the d. C. Circuit and had represented all manner of clients in private practice and he was an ideal candidate for an associate judge and he was only 50. He gets name to that but everybody is thinking chief justice has Thyroid Cancer and he will probably have to step down soon and president bush was thinking maybe possibly elevate justice coley, possibly look for and more seasoned jurors for that position. What happens in the interim before justice cleo does die on september 3 is Hurricane Katrina happens in many of you will remember that we have hundreds, more than a thousand people end up dying in the gulf region, president bush is criticized for the federal government involvement in trying to solve the problems many blacks who were dying suddenly without their homes so the administration was in battle when the chief justice dies. By this point john roberts put on a really nice chauffeur senators, not in any confirmation hearing but in the courtesy visit and all great reviews and on the morning after chief Justice Rehnquist death, it was a saturday night you probably member where you were when you got the news and the next morning president bush because everybody to his office and he says to cheney who is a real booster for justice coley l possibly getting elevated he says im going my john roberts. There was not much discussion. It was john roberts and he was going to be chief justice of the United States of age 50. Amazing. Can you speak to Robert Spears on the Fourth Amendment visavis the new technologies and how that fits into his overall. This is an area where he carves out a special role in terms of south linnaeus in the digital age. In traditional Fourth Amendment cases i would say he is quite conservative in terms of car searches, searches of the traditional defendant rates question but Cell Phone Technology he wrote the opinion for the court in terms of protecting more within our iphones and there is a great q a among the justices that showed him not to be enlightened and the answer between Justice Ginsburg and the chief where Justice Roberts thought why would anybody carry two iphones, when it revealed that you are a criminal and he obviously was not like some of his colleagues like one for work one for the family. But his clerks and others certainly educated him on that and he has been quite generous and protecting the Fourth Amendment rights in the digital age. I think privacy is very big with him. Didnt he give a speech at his Daughters School about technology in the harms that might cause if you get to wrapped up in it. Absolutely right it did not take off her guards viral as a son speech, the daughter speech was last year and shes a freshman in college and that speech was last for her High School Graduation is suburban d. C. But he talks about that and trying to pull oneself away from the hightech world just allow your thoughts to sit for a while rather than look at the screen. Did roberts react when president obama criticism him over the decision. Is very angry about that. This is at the state of the union as many of you remember, it was just a couple days after the ruling in january 2010 when again by a 5 4 vote the conservative majority lifts regulations on labor unions and political campaigns and president obama criticizes the decision in front of them into the entire chamber in the house that they are the justice is sitting there with their hands on their lap, they hate being there, the hate being part of the political spectacle and suddenly there decision is being criticized and you might remember samuel mouth, not true and that went viral and the chief hated that, he hated that all eyes were on them and a few weeks after that incident he spoke at the university of alabama and said when people getting invited to our place, we dont hold them up to ridicule, we dont do that its like a pep rally. He said i dont know why we have to go, but he fears obligation hes gone every year sense. Sam alito has not. What past justices does roberts admire. Chief Justice Hughes and chief justice marshall, the fundamental founding, he was not our first chief justice but he was the first one who wrote harbor versus madison who gave the Supreme Court as power to decide what the constitution means. He has a lot of regard for John Marshall and he said he thought about how history will think of him and he said no not be John Marshall but you dont want to be but chief Justice Hughes who studied the court during the Court Packing era i was to hughes and marshall. Would you comment on roberts health and how this will impact his longevity on the court. Thats only thing that i know and we know so little. He had to epileptic seizures that made public and from what i can tell, its very hard to get information on the justices help situation, he has not had one since 2007 when he was up at the Vacation Home in maine and hit his head and then it was revealed that he had a seizure in the early 90s on a golf course and as a matter of fact there were two instances and i have not seen anything or heard anything that would suggest that this is a deep and serious problem from doing his job and people related various aches and pains and cant golf as well. How about if you cant golf. But you know, nothing serious and the court has the court always had on its top floor in the places known as the highest court in the land, the court up there but now the justices have another place where they can work out with weights and i see Justice Ginsburg did some work down there at another place and i think he said that he worked out with breyer at times. Yes Justice Breyer works out all the time to but the chief works out and tries to stay healthy. He is pretty thick, i say in the book he was a high school wrestler, that was his sport, wrestling in a use as a metaphor for him to leverage things. How do you anticipate roberts will vote on the gerrymandering issue now before the court. I will tell you, i am one person who thinks that he has shut the door on partisan gerrymandering and from everything i have observed of him, his toys dangerous to make predictions and we can be wrong that he does not want federal judges in the business on this extreme partisan gerrymandering and its a problem for so many states, my sense is he would rather leave to elected officials, hes not crazy about Bipartisan Commission because he voted against arizona legislation of that type. But he did not tip his hand during the case that was heard this week but from what he wrote last year gerrymandering case from wisconsin, i would suspect that he is not going to budge on that. By the way later this month did you say the tribeca film festival, there is a documentary that is going to premiere called slave dragon and its all about gerrymandering. I was able to prescreen it and its fascinating that goes into that for an wisconsin that came to the Supreme Court last term and also tells a story of the grassroots effort in michigan to get onto the ballot a question about having redistricting done by an independent Bipartisan Commission. This people could complaipeoplet judges and what happens. Are they effectively policing their own. One thing i discovered is the de minute a lower court judge who is under scrutiny steps down, he or she is no longer subject to any kind of subject investigation. The judge can go off and earn his full pension at the other way somebody can make any kind of scrutiny the Supreme Court justices are not covered by the code of ethics. The there were complaints lodged and in the end there were scores of complaints lodged and they went to the dc circuit where they had been sitting and the chief justice transferred them to the tenth circuit. The transfer itself is meaningless because the justices are not covered. Then that was appealed to the higher committee. Still in the tenth circuit. They expanded the commission before 81 appeals feingold and just recently the commission rejected all of the appeals on the same grounds. There was the dissenting vote and also one of the judges recused himself for the reason the judge had said we shouldnt be doing this. We shouldnt be giving the appeals of our own decision. Now, at least two of the people who brought the appeals say and the judge then dissented said this should go to the judicial conference in the United States. Thats the next step. And two of those that has their appeals rejected they were taking it to the judicial conference. So this may end up back. What the judicial conference is is a body of federal judges. Essentially it is an inhouse review and the initial panel said we dont have jurisdiction, and i cannot imagine yet another panel of federal judges saying suddenly they have jurisdiction. We are trying to force the issue and congress, as part of hr one which was the first bill that House Democrats were able to pass has a provision thats kind of a soft position that the Supreme Court should adopt a code of ethics, and i believe when they testified recently on the Supreme Court budget is that the chief justice was actually looking at a. Whatever that actually means because at the very end she said something to the effect of the chief justices thinking of possibly proposing the Supreme Court have its own code of ethics but he hasnt talked to the other justices about it. I went to the Court Spokesperson afterwards and said what can you tell us about this and there was nothing to be told. One last question do you know if roberts has read orwell read through the . It just came out this week. I made sure that his Close Friends from harvard who asked me for an early copy, i made sure the court had an early copy is so i do not think that hes read the final version. Do you think that he would tell you. [laughter] you know, its interesting. He is generally someone that keeps a lot to himself that i will hear differently. I have heard from him in many ways. Theres lots more to this book. Take your opportunity its really worthwhile reading. [applause] love having you tonight. Thank you so much. This was great. The two live wires that may have set off the alarm. 77th street, Joan Biskupic join us in the museum and thank you all so much. [applause] its about the role and the importance of the work that it engages. The former Trump Administration National Security advisor against the efforts of the party for free market economic systems and our democratic form of government. The fact that most people believe prison do a little bit of analysis that we could be closing prisons already if we were just called for two weeks in three weeks and four weeks with the kind of sentence as people are serving
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