Yes absolutely. That happens, but usually it is not quite so at the point it is going to print it but it could be like i said feedback from the retailer or there is another coverage that has the same they didnt realize that we need to change. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Starting now on booktv, Laurence Tribe argues the Roberts Court is regretting constitutional law in areas such as free speech, privacy, Voting Rights and president ial power. Looks at prominent cases handled by the Supreme Court going back to Citizens United. This is about an hour. [applause] thank you very much, clare. One of the research assistance, i should say thank you all for coming here on this gorgeous day when you could be outside and enjoying the weather. I am glad something drove you all here. I am glad to be talking to you and appreciative of your being here. One of the research assistance, a terrific kid named max went home to New Hampshire in late spring and spent some time talking with his High School Music teacher. She knew that he went to Harvard Law School but didnt know that he was working with me and she kind of unloaded on him about her great disillusionment with the Supreme Court. She had been looking at the headlines, how partisan the divisions seemed to be. A lot of the people whose journalism she respects, people like linda greenehouse were saying this is a very partisan, very polarized court. Why arent they just a bunch of politicians in robes . Why should i trust these guys . And my student tried to reassure her is that it is not as bad as all that. She wasnt convinced. She told him she had listened to the confirmation hearings when john roberts was going to become chief justice. Made an analogy to umpires. She was a baseball fan and found the analogy persuasive, she said the new chief justice, only going to be an umpire calling balls and strikes, it is all neutral, all objective, people dont go to a ball game to see the umpire, they go to see the batters. The catcher, the pitcher, he was only going to be neutral. She didnt find it convincing. She realized there is judgment involved. Judgment about the strike zone, one umpire famously described it as a living, breathing document the way some people like to describe the Supreme Courts constitution. She was a lot more convinced by what a elena kagan said during her confirmation hearing. She said it is nowhere near that robotic or mechanical especially in close cases, the only ones that reach the court. Judgment is involved. We bring a lot of ourselves to the process of deciding cases. That is as it should be, max told her and she responded, she was very bright, did know a lot of law but said if it is not what roberts claimed, he could make it not just an umpire calling balls and strikes, why isnt it just a matter of unelected judges serving for life, and max is a very loyal Research Assistant. His reply was read Laurence Tribes book. Good for you, max. The umpire analogy, he told her, was great pr and it did contain a germ of truth, namely good judges, a ploy philosophies consistently. And some flak for their favorite players or teams, to hold those they like to bring home the pennant or to hurt their political adversaries. That much is true. The umpire analogy is a vast oversimplification. It suggests personal judgment, personal understanding of what the constitution is about, when its ambiguous terms mean, what our National History commits us to, have nothing to do with it, ambiguous language like liberty, equality, ambiguous principles like what the role of the court should be, how active a role it should play in american life, all of those things dont come down from on high, they are not written in stone, they are not objectively decipherable and we shouldnt expect justices not to bring their personal philosophies to bear, nor should we always expect their philosophy striking us as right or as neutral when we might be coming from a different world view. Elections have consequences and the election of justices by a series of increasingly conservative republican president s with a certain perspective on the world and on the constitution is among those consequences. The umpire analogy is off base, pun intended, to the extent that it pretends that the system expects judges to be blank slates, to bring nothing of their views of the worlds or the law to the table. So max did urge his music teacher to read the book, that it would teach even legal experts some important lessons but it would also be fun, he said but, for her and other non lawyers. Is filled with great stories, from fascinating cases to the justicess personal obsessions with things like baseball. One story he mentioned to her that features in the book, justice stewarts devotion to the Cincinnati Reds which extended to making sure his law clerks were watching this small tv he set up in his chambers when he sat on the bench during the 1973 playoffs between the mets and the reds. The clerk knew his bosss priorities and in mid argument on some technical preemption case he sent stewart a note, this is what the note said. Flies to write, agnew resigned as. In that order. My Research Assistant explained reading on certain justice which he hasnt read, yelled to with a couple footnotes he saw the elephant, reading it taught him the standard story about the increasing number of 54 splits along political and partisan lines made good press, but shouldnt disillusion her because it was more misleading than informative. Only a fifth of the cases since Robert Justice in 2005 have been divided 54 and at least the third of the 54 split involve unlikely bedfellows. One of the liberals like him prior or sotomayor create a 54 alignment in which the dissenters are the other three liberals plus scalia who is more protective of privacy rights from the government and more liberal than any other justice. You wouldnt know that from the refutations the lee has nurtured as a radical uncompromising conservative. Just yesterday for example elena kagan led a 54 decisions that ruled against immigrant children who had the bad luck to turn 21 before their parents who had green cards got to the head of the slowmoving waiting line for an immigrant visa. Fracking and was joined by anthony kennedy, a republican, ruth ginsburg, a democrat, and elena kagans elena kagans conclusion was joined by sculley a. The dissenting justices ruled in favor of the boy who turns 21 after his mom who immigrated from oil salvador in 1998 had waited in line for eight years. It was his misfortune he turned 21 and had to go to the end of the line. They were unlikely bedfellows. Clarence thomas, samuel paulino, steven briar and Sonia Sotomayor. That was not that a typical in lots of difficult and divisive cases we get these unusual alignments. There was a decision the book deals with in some detail where kennedy led a 53 majority, and elena kagan was recused, striking down most of arizonas show me your papers antiimmigrant law. Scalia wrote a dissent fat called the courts decision mindboggling. He went out of his way and outside the record of the case to attack obama for something unrelated to the case. Is use of executive power to favor the immigrant children known as dreamers. The washington post, which usually selects the president or a senator or cabinet member for the honor bestowed on scully at its worst week in washington prize, partly because he was outvoted in the Obamacare Decision that came down three days later. Those are some examples, the book deals with them, explains them, gives you a way to understand them. Not just the unusual alignment in cases decided by a bare majority that expose the fallacy of the increasingly common description of the Roberts Court as a gain of right wing political hacks and roads. There are plenty of 90 rulings which account for nearly half the decisions in 201213 in which the nine justices are divided among themselves. It looks unanimous but in fact there pointing and lots of Different Directions and if you study the directions and you dont have to be a legal maven to understand them, you just have to speak plain english and decipher what the court is doing. What is really going on and where the court is likely to go next, then the numbers alone suggest. Among the most intriguing and eliminating divisions within the ranks of the five justices appointed by republican president s are those between scully and the lido alitali. They thought he would be a clone of scalia. Nothing could be further from the truth. They battle one another previously about free speech, privacy, the need to stick to the original meaning of various parts of the contradiction. In the argument about interactive video games to kids without the consent of their parents it looked like all be no alito, the original constitution didnt treat violence speech lately, and alito told one of the lawyers with Justice Scalia want to know is James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them . What if they were violent . What about the opinions involving the governments use of gps to track somebodys car for a month without a warrant. In that case there was a more fascinating back and forth in the opinions between alito and scalia. There are analogies from the 79s. He said like what . Scalia said a constable could hide in a coach for weeks to monitor the owners movements and alito in his concurring opinion that all nine justices thought following somebody with a gps for a month without a warrant was impermissible. Alito wrote Something Like this might have occurred in 79 b1 but would have required either a gigantic coach, a very tiny constable, or both. Not to mention a constable with incredible 42 and patience. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Over and over again, justices come from the same wing of the ideological spectrum have been different take on the constitution. They will sometimes agree on the bottom line but their disagreements tell you a lot about things like the pending case about cellphone privacy and lots of other cases where if you just count noses and do arithmetic you will be completely misled. After exploring similar patterns and contradictions on topics, gun rights, the book which people across the spectrum like ted olson, the guy that beat me and david boyd in the bearish the george bush versus al gore case, described his superbly evenhanded. Makes me feel good when people across the spectrum say this is fair treatment of deeply divisive issues. After exploring those patterns and contradictions, the book shows that the court is in the business of undertaking not only scary but promising and innovative inquiries into how governments powers to coerce and to bribe with offers short of coercion might be limited by the constitution in areas ranging from obamacares individual purchase mandate and its medicaid mandates to the states, please bargaining in criminal cases to laws that condition federal subsidies on the recipients agreement to have seen the governments to and even when doing so means undermining the recipientss integrity and its ability to pursue its social mission. Let me say another word about that example. In a decision that i think is overwhelmingly important but got very little attention last year, roberts, writing for the court, said that the government had no authority to tell nongovernmental organizations that were fighting hivaids around the world that it could get government money supplement its private resources only if it promised to join the governments anti prostitution and anti sex trade campaign. A lot of these characters said if we do that we wont get the trust of the workers. Sculley and thomas, descending from the robbers opinion striking down that condition, said too bad, they can just say no, turn down money and roberts says freedom to turn down the governments offer is not always a sufficient answer. When the offer uses government leverage over private resources to get people to sing the governments tune. So the court is moving in lots of intriguing directions that the book deals with. The book identifies powerful trends in various justices use of coercion and marginal as asian that connect important aspects of decisions discussed in the book. Like for example the 54 ruling upholding the core of obamacare, the 72 ruling striking down the medicaid part of obamacare. The 54 ruling striking down one Campaign Finance regulation after another. Those may not seem like they have a lot to do with each other but i show in the book that in fact they are born of similar views and are subject to similar contradictions and there are decisions i dont discuss in the books that were handed down since it was finished and like the decision in greece versus galloway, holding sectarian town meeting prayers, terrible discussion in my view over four powerful dissents, the most brilliant of which was that of elena kagan, maybe i am biased, she was a student of mine but that is balanced by the fact the chief justice was a student of mine and i see a few of my students in the room. I have had a great time teaching and that given me a kind of look into the approaches various people are likely to take. One of the things about the case that distressed me most was all nine justices including the suppose the liberals went out of their way to say the Supreme Court had been right 31 years ago when it upheld legislative for errors in march versus chambers. That is the beginning of difficulty for separation of church and state so they were counting angels on the head of the pin when they should have been saying the pin was rusty to begin with. So the more i read from the book or give away its insights in advance the less you will be tempted to read it yourself. This was advertised as a reading from the book. Let me read a couple of paragraphs from the chapter called freedom of speech sex, lies and video games. And area where almost press about the court is wrong. Lots of people, distinguished people like floyd abrams say it is the most speech protective court ever. There are other people like in the New York Times is a what is really going on is the justices vote for the speakers they agree with and not the other way around. The book shows that both of those positions are absolutely untenable. Let me begin and end with these two paragraphs from the freedom of speech chapter and take your questions. Throughout the 1960s the justices of the Supreme Court spent a day in the basement watching porn together. By all accounts it was fantastically awkward. Unable to define obscenity but convinced that the First Amendment couldnt possibly protect the newly dangerous and morally corrupting expressions the court was forced to create constitutional law one 6 seen at a time. The films ranged from scientific documentarys to the improbable likes the paid of lesbian nymphomaniacs. Justice thurgood marshall, civil rights hero, took merciless pleasure in narrating the clips for the benefit of Justice John Marshall harlan ii, an elegant former wall street lawyer who was by then losing his eyesight so marshall would basically say look what is happening now. Look what he is doing, look what she is doing. Mocking justice stewarts insistence that i know it when i see it clerks would call out in the dark eyes see it i see it in 1968, 20 years after serving in the u. S. Navy, a still youthful stewart reflected on more adventuress times and confided in a particular the curious quirk. You might wonder who that was but i think you will all guess. That he had indeed seen it. I said mr. Justice, have you seen it . He said just once, off the coast of algiers. That is all i was ever able to learn about what it was that he saw. So that is all i want to say about the books and welcome your questions. Thank you for your attention. [applause] you had your hand up . Make sure you have the mike. Justice marshall in the 300s, the traditional role to say what the law is. That is not thurgood marshall, that is john marshall. Ten years ago. If this is the case my question is about the case, tantalizing in jerusalem and citizenship. You, quote a case that the court decided judicially has the right to intervene. The congress which voted to enable the person to claim is really citizenship but dont give the outcome. The case is still pending. Was in the court twice just like the case of the woman, carol and bond, who poisoned her best friend, or tried to, a botched job, she put this arsenic compounds on doorknobs but all she did was turn her best friends fingers read. The question was whether she was prosecuted by the u. S. Government for violating the law passed to enforce the chemical weapons treaty which is a little bit odd day. This is an Agatha Christie domestic dispute. That question was whether she could challenge congresss law on the ground that it violated states rights and the Obama Administration said she has no stand even though shes a friend with imprisonment. The Supreme Court unanimously said that is wrong. This is a case where she does have standing and the court decided in round 2 this year that congress had exceeded its authority or at least we should interpret its law not to apply this way. In the case you mentioned, there was this guy who wanted his place of birth on his passport to be designated jerusalem. Congress had said was born in israel but he wanted wanted to be designated as a citizen of israel whose capital was jerusalem. Obviously a politically very volatile issue. The Clinton Administration was involved in it and barack obama and his Justice Department took the position that the court had no business resolving anything about this. It was a matter between congress and the president. If Congress Told the president and the state department what to put on the passport, let them fight it out. The Supreme Court said it is our job to say what the law is and whether congress was invading the president s Foreign Policy prerogatives. It is our job and your attempt to keep it away from us is impermissible and now they heard arguments on a very difficult question, on the one Hand Congress has the power to impose constraints on the president just as it has tried to do with respect to the exchange of guantanamo prisoners saying you have got to give us 30 days notice. The presence in that case and the case of israel and jerusalem has said it is none of your damn business how i conduct my job as commander in chief, sounds like geuafficr w 3 c1 theso make the final call. The press was indifferent to george w. Bush would nominate as Supreme Court justices. Do you see this as an ongoing concern, whether people are on the right or the left . It is enormously important concern because the choice of president s determines a lot of things including choice of justices and even though a president cant always get his or perhaps some day her way as we saw when reagan nominated bork who was soundly defeated nonetheless the president carries huge weight, but people are more concerned with the cost of living, whether they can get a job, who they can marry, but in the end the Supreme Court will have a lot to say about it. So far, most people have put the impact of their vote on the selection of justices on the back burner low on the list of issues. One of my objectives is to nudge people toward paying more attention to that. I dont do it by buying into the idea that it is all politics but i do try to show the way justices look at the world makes a difference. Take for example racial e shoes and affirmativeaction. In that area of the court is deeply divided. There are four justices you have the strong view that the country has pretty much gotten where it needs to go on issues of race so if the chief justice says the way to stop race discrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Lets not Pay Attention to raise, the problem will take care of itself. There are four other justices to think that is profoundly misguided, to think any nation with as deeply problematic racial history as ours cant simply like an ostrich put its life in the sand and of the problem will sweep itself away. Justice kennedy is in the middle on that issue and he is often criticized for being indecisive but i think in fact theres something to be said for each point of view and in particular probably given the demographics, not many people in this room are fans of Clarence Thomas but the fact is the deep debate between Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor about affirmativeaction is incredibly informative. They both recognize that they have been the beneficiaries, of race sensitive by universities and to some extent by government. Thomas says it made me feel inferior, everywhere i go people say he is an affirmativeaction, he is there only because he is black. I feel excluded. Sonia sotomayor says i understand that but i feel differently. I know that i wouldnt be where i am today but for the benefits of affirmative action. I dont want anyone to be denied that opportunity. It doesnt undermine my sense of self. My ego is intact. When you look at that you say what is the personal experience have to do with the constitution, written on parchment in the National Archives under glass, it has everything to do with it. What does it mean to deny people but equal protection of the loss . That is a concept you cant define al gore rhythmically, mathematically through some robotic computer program, you have to give it meaning and the only way to give it meaning is in terms of your life lesson justices are a lot better than others and being open and candid about what it is in there and experience that brings them where they are. I tend to appreciate that candor. I think the people of the United States are smart enough not to equate it with these judges are not being judicious. Back there. You mentioned we would be surprised, the quality of any decisions where we would think conservative justice would go one way and liberals the other way. For me, Citizens United, i wonder, to me that is for the money basically, being the same as a soul and i am wondering if there are other cases where theres a trend when it comes to that issue, whether that is also surprising if you look at that. The question is whether the Supreme Courts dismantling of Campaign Finance reform and its rejection of every congressional effort that now comes before it to limit the influence of wealth and of Corporate Power but also of unions on elections weather is that set of decisions which do tend to split in partisan way is, weather that somehow, a refutation of my view that people are trying their best to give vent to their beliefs about the constitution. I dont think so. You can agree or disagree with Citizens United but the fundamental philosophy of the majority in those cases is not contrary to what lots of people seem to think, that corporations are just human beings in drag, or that money is speech. They are not saying that. They are saying we dont trust the government to decide what speakers should be heard and how much money various interests should spend on speech. As it happened Citizens United was an anti Hillary Clinton documentary but if it had been an anti mitt romney documentary or anti john mccain documentary, that suspicion of government playing the role, orchestrating the Playing Field for speech would have been exactly the same. Another way to look at it is however much we worry, and i do a great deal, about the injury to Representative Democracy of having great wealth play so huge a role, we may be less than confident that the solution of the problem is to take the very people we believe were paid and bought for bought and paid for, sorry, the very people who were bought and paid for in positions of power and hand them a blank check and say you write out the scheme for Campaign Finance reform and dont gimmick it up so that it will reassure your reelection, dont favor incumbents, something that the court is not able to police. Giving that power to the very people we are afraid are too influenced by money, by reversing the Supreme Courts understanding of the First Amendment doesnt seem like much of a solution to me so that is one of the most serious paradoxes that confront us, the paradox of speech and money and power. Yes . The constitutional amendment, the way to reform Campaign Finance . I tried to help adam schiff and a few members of the house and senate. Adam is a democratic congressman from california who was once a student of mine to draft an amendment on the premise that an amendment would be a good idea. I tried to help write it in the best way possible but what i ended up with was not something i could particularly support because all it would do is give these guys who frankly got there as a result of financial influence as well as Everything Else the power to write their own ticket for reelection. The amendments that people have proposed, many of them are just, to be candid, ridiculous, saying corporations are not people. That is one of them. What good would that do . The First Amendment doesnt protect only 7 speakers. It protect speech and listeners. If bt were to suddenly walked into the Harvard Book Store and e t i think is not a person, if each he started speaking and the mayor of cambridge and the city council of cambridge said we dont want et who doesnt get to vote to have a lot of influence in cambridge, we are going to gag the tea or prevent et from spending money circulating pts views, that will violate the First Amendment in saying et is not a person wouldnt help. Constitutional amendment, i dont want to leave people with a despairing feelings. On Citizens United i dont really know how to work my way out of that box. If you read the treatment you will say at least i understand how they were coming from. Doesnt seem so crazy the Simple Solutions dont seem so workable. Knowledge is power. Being able to understand why you shouldnt let people pool will over your eyes and say heres a simple solution should make you feel little bit better. It makes me feel better. I am an academic and to some extent that is a strange breed. Were you surprised at robertss vote in obamacare . Not only was i not surprised by went on television on in this nbc elsewhere before the oral argument and after saying roberts would cast the decisive vote to uphold the individual purchase mandate on the basis of the taxing power, not the commerce power because i knew robertss basic views are quite libertarian. He thinks taxes are not as coercive. Coercion is a big team. As a direct regulation because if government has the power to make you buy insurance, it could throw you in jail for not doing it. Hear all they are doing is raising your taxes a bit and not to degrees that actually makes you do it. In fact the tax add on if you dont buy the insurance is typically less dollars fan the Insurance Premium would be. I made those statements. Rush limbaughs then said this guy should be committed, he is crazy. There is no way roberts will vote that way especially on the basis of taxing power. So i wasnt surprised. I was a little surprised elena kagan and breyer joined alito, and thomas to make a 72 decision striking down congresss ruled that those states that dont accept the broad and Medicaid Program which is almost entirely paid for by the federal government would lose all their medicaid dollars. That was quite a departure from their liberal colleagues like Sonia Sotomayor. I was a little surprised. I have a fear in the book why they did it. One of the reasons is they fought since roberts is doing a moderate thing in upholding the purchase mandate we can go along with him on this. It wont make much difference because they mistakenly believed essentially every state would go along. They didnt realize how many states would say no, ideologically based know, hurting their people severely and undermining how workable obamawouldbe. I think they also got some benefits from how they voted. They presented roberts from going further still Land Holdings that you cant use money to influence, federal money to influence state decisions. That would be a more radical decision and was possible but by offering to join him on the basis a gun to the head of every state, it would hurt them to pay the penalty to get rid of all medicaid, they prevented it from being more drastic. He had five votes. You partially answered something that was on my mind as you talked, too a lay person you see the forum, one part of obamacare and 72 on the other looks like horsetrading. I wonder to what degree you see horsetrading as being a common part of the decisions of the making. I dont think it was straight out horsetrading because the chief justice already had five votes to strike down the medicaid mandates. He didnt need the other two. Is nicer to be the author of a 72 decision. If he had needed them that would be more plausible but there are very few cases in which justices seem to do that. Party because they care not only about the bottom line in this case but they care about their legacy. They know they are laying down precedent. It is the only branch of the National Government that has an obligation not imposed by the constitution but by tradition of writing opinions in which each justice either by saying something or joining an opinion or dissent explains what he or she is reasoning that leads them to that conclusion. No other branch does that. Members of congress can vote and then go home. They can take action or not action. Because they have to rationalize their opinions and live with them for all these years, people like alito and roberts are still young, elena kagan younger still, they dont want to lay down a land mine that will blow up under their feet. And discrepancies of state law and federal law, legalization recently happened. Not enforcing federal law is not a longterm solution. Is not a longterm solution but right now with a Paralyzed Congress it might be the best thing available. It is not a matter of not enforcing federal law but prioritizing some enforcement over others, deporting people with serious criminal records rather urgent people who have been here, abided by the rules and the law, came here innocently when they were children, who were brought here by their parents, deciding not to deport them until you get to the end of the line and that will be decades away. I think it was within the president s prerogative. It might not be a longterm solution but it is better than a totally brutal exercise of mechanical power. Yes . I know that not long ago justice kennedy, one of the decisions breaking down dont ask dont tell, the decision was seemed like it was doing some serious work there but is there anything to know about that . One of the possibilities in the defense of marriage act which says even if you are a married couple in a state that allows samesex couples to marry, the federal government which usually defers to the state definitions of family relationships will treat you as unmarried and you will lose tax benefits, Social Security benefits, thousand Different Things you lose. When the Supreme Court stock that data was not clear it would, it was quite clear that four justices, the four nominated by democrats, would regard that law as completely inconsistent with principles of liberty and equality and dignity. He would invalidate doma on the basis that the feds have no business telling the states that the people that they think are legitimately married or unmarried federal purposes. And that would we purely a federalism decision. But he went further than that and said that once the state, lets say the state of massachusetts and the fed, but ill and john arent legally married or that nancy and linda are legally married, for the federal government to say anything other than that is to insult their dignity and theres no possible rationale for that other than to say that they are secondclass citizens and their union does not count as much as other people and that is what kennedy said. He used it as a hook and then he will the way across the stage and made everything on liberty equality and dignity. And he has said that regardless of any federal state element, they have decided that two people cannot marry even though they love each other, every lower court has said that we cannot rationalize the windsor opinion if we dont go all the way here. And it he did everyone a favor saying that now that you said this, youre bound to take the next step. So that will come back to bite him. Can you tell us if you have the opportunity to rewrite one of the amendment, could you tell us which one would you explain why . [laughter] the question is if i had an opportunity to rewrite one of the amendments. That before that, i have a publisher who sent me the final galley and he said if you make changes to make this is the time to make them and human if there are any corrections that you have in your text, this is the time to make it. The Second Amendment, although its not something that i am a great fan of because i am not a believer in the importance importance of guns protecting people care that the Second Amendment is not among my favorite. It didnt shock me that court had more muscle as Justice Stevens proposes we do, the idea that all of a sudden we have universal registration and safety requirements with severe restrictions on gun ownership, thats a fantasy. The thing that prevents powerful restrictions on gun ownership in this country is not the Second Amendment but the First Amendment and the ability of the National Rifle association and others to exert powerful influence in the fact that for many people in this country, like it or not, this is a voting issue when they are on the progun side. Its not so much a voting issue when they are on the progun safety side. So getting rid of the Second Amendment would have very little, i think, positive effects in terms of those who favor stronger efforts for gun safety and to reduce the carnage. And there would be lots of negative effects. A lot of people would say now that youve gotten rid of the Second Amendment, we have some stuff we would like to do with the first maybe the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. So one of the reasons the so dangerous to tinker with the bill of rights and this goes to your question of an amendment, by changing the understanding of the First Amendment, is that once you start from, its hard to know where youre going to stop. I sort of know how to sell it, but i dont know how far to go or how long to go on. I just have a question. Im from australia. You managed on their to eliminate huge gun violence episodes. Yes, thats right. About the constitution getting in the way. Yes, my question is about see this then you worry about the political alliances [inaudible] okay, so we have a lot of this with a the modern democratic nations, the Supreme Court uses the usual nashville analogy. And its quite visible in america. And i wonder whether that may have arisen about the time when the constitution was written that it was such a radical experiment with democracy but in that process of developing a constitutional structure, it was the fear about the people and their representatives and there was a consideration to the earlier approach of patricians being in control ruling the masses, if you like. And so i wonder if they reflected that same concern with much more power as a kind of attrition that we to control the people and therefore underlying all of this is a basic mistrust. I think the constitution as a whole manifests lots of distrust. People distrust the masses, that they would somehow cancel all their dead and injured the stability of the financial system. People like antics Alexander Hamilton are part of this. The marshall court, though many people regard what they did in 1803 in 1805, muckraking and the like, its quite radical in the moved rather cautiously and that is even though it invalidated one narrow provision of the judiciary act of 1789, the next time the court invalidated any part of the act of congress was 1857 in the justly kate of dred scott. So the court was really keeping this over the political branches and getting them to take their oath more seriously by threatening that if they didnt, it might come down upon them. But it wasnt really exercising that power with the kind of frequency or vigor that it has in years cents. Then in the time in the 1890s to 1937, the court really ramped quite wild, striking down social economic regulations and there was a constitutional revolution at that point and not because of Court Packing the because of debts. We had a core that was much more deferential to politics except for certain areas where there has been since the 1940s a pervasive distrust of majority of the people, that they were getting up on minorities and racial and gender and other minorities and they would not treat fundamental rights seriously. But what we have done a strike abounds in which there are areas where some are active in others or less. In the sort of a long process engaging in the full debate in the Current Court is moving again rather frighteningly in the direction of reviewing laws that affect the economy in a serious way. And laws that were passed in vermont to make it harder for pharmaceutical companies to jack up the drugs about getting these up certain doctors so that they would prescribe more costly to drugs. The court struck that down on the basis of the First Amendment and Sonja Sotomayor joined a conservative on this and prior said this is the return of the locker air a comment at period from the 1890s to 1937 when the court was striking down economic regulation rather loosely. And simply because it deals with speech in one way or another, it deals with information in our society come at the heart of almost everything. And some people think that that is exactly what was right because the ability of government to interfere in our economic lives is incompatible with the premises of liberty. Other people think that meaningful liberty requires government interference in the safety net. But i think that this, if it had one or two more people like scalia, it might go rather dangerously in the direction that in 1937 we abandon. You just mentioned that information in our society is crucial in article. What is your view of the Supreme Court justices who have change this after their opinions are issued, you being an academic,. Yes, and i have found some real doozies. It does bother me. But what happens is it is not just part of the current insatiable instantaneous news cycle. But theres been a lot of demand from decades ago know exactly what the court decided to do the very moment it decided it. So the Printing Office as it used to be, it is to come out with what is called slip opinions within minutes of the decision. Because they were produced so quickly there often was a slip of the pen and they would sometimes reveal something that the justice tried to fix. The one thing that i noticed is that when the Supreme Court reaffirmed roe versus wade and the place called planned parenthood of pennsylvania against kc, if you read this rank, you can tell from the very first opinion that it was a majority opinion that was going to be over ruling roe versus wade. But that got patched up one kennedy and oconnor as a group decided that it was important for stability in society and for the equal status of women that they not be overruled. And they patched it up and so a lot of students, it turns out that none of my colleagues and to have known him. I thought everyone knew it. The people study this old position is that was preordained. But it came within inches of doing exactly that. And how to solve that problem, im not really certain. You can make the country wait before court announces an opinion. But that is rather difficult when the country is hanging by its fingernails on a conflict obamacare or some other case. See you announce it in the new queen of the opinion. But i think that there should be much more journalistic integrity about not making changes sub rosa. It actually changes the meaning of what initially announced and it should have an obligation to make that clear with some kind of supplement. Will that be the last question . Just come and i will be the last question. Thank you for your vote and your presentation and all of your work. [inaudible] i would like to talk most of all for freedom is the age in deposition of the court with Citizens United and i believe that all the criticism, it raises a more profound wisdom and that is that the american democracy extends into a plutocracy if they are a reflection of the kind of change. Some say it is a partial change, i do think its a reflection. And its more complicated than that. The reason the court rules, as it does with Citizens United, is not a belief that Corporate Power and wealth should dominate our society but a belief that government cannot be trusted to decide whose voices should carry weight. Its an antigovernment decision much more than a procorporation or a Good Practice session. Somewhere between anarchy and libertarianism. Similarly, many of the courts Decision Making it easy for businesses to prevail reflect, as i try to show in the book, not so much a bias in favor of big business as a mistrust of litigation and end of the trial process as a way of solving problems. So when you focus on what it is that drives the justices, that may give us a better idea of what kinds of questions to ask and things to look for for those who come around when some of those who are aging out leave the court. Is a more than mistrust of the corporations . Democratic its much more than mistrust of the Corporate Power. You can make corporations disclose fully all of their contributions online and instantaneously and you can reform the structure of corporations to hold him accountable and you can do all kinds of things to corporations. At some point it out, it is the momandpop corporations and the tiny ones, the subchapter, closely held corporations, not the giant publicly traded corporations that benefit from decisions like citizens