that s unfortunate loop so judge, i believe we met in the year 2000. yes. and just to take a little walk down memory lane here, when i was attorney general of texas and had a chance to argue a case in front of the supreme court of the united states, you, ted olsen and paul clement, i believe, helped me get ready. i regret you didn t have better material to work with. it was an honor, senator. it was a great experience, and educational experience, but i got to appreciate your skills as a lawyer from that time and have followed your career closely since. and i m proud to support your nomination based on my personal knowledge of your skills, your temperament and your character. and your fidelity to the rule of law. but i do want to pick one bone with you. i did this this isn t unique
in any direction on the i m a judge. i m just trying to resolve the precedent. let me close by saying this. i am just a judge. i just follow precedent. gosh, we ve heard that so often. and i hope it s the case, but we know there s much more to the to your job than that. i agree. the fact that you were a dissenter and everyone else saw this the other way should give us pause when you say i m just following precedent. i respectfully, senator, that opinion, i m proud of that opinion because i think it carefully details the law in that case. i m following the supreme court precede precedent. and to your point other judges disagree, i ll just there was a case i had about ten years ago called papano where i ruled in favor of a criminal defendantant on a restitution matter. i wrote the opinion. every other court after us disagreed. finally got to the supreme court
to then sit in judgment later on in a case, the hamdan case which you ve alluded to earlier, where the defendant was osama bin laden s personal bodyguard and driver. he was captured by u.s. forces in afghanistan after 9/11 and detained in guantanamo bay. he subsequently went through a military tribunal and then that case was appealed to your court. and just correct me if i m wrong, but notwithstanding the experience you and everybody you cared about having been through this terrible travesty of 9/11, you ruled in favor of osama bin laden s bodyguard and driver, correct? that is correct. i wrote the majority opinion. how could you do that? how could you possibly do that? the rule of law applies to all who come before the courts of the united states.
sometimes the let me allude to something senator sasse was eloquently speaking about yesterday in terms of the separation of powers. very important aspect of our constitutional system and one that i know you have dealt with often on the d.c. circuit court of appeals. and that has to do with what i ve read some judges talk about, some constitutional scholars talk about. a conversation between the branches. in other words, when the d.c. circuit court or supreme court decides a case, they finally decide that case. but they don t finally decide what the policy is. that s right. for the united states or the american people. correct? that s correct, senator. one of the important things that judges can do is adhere, of course, to the laws passed by congress, but then in writing the opinion make clear, and i ve
the majority in agra processors was following supreme court precedent. in shirtan case, the supreme court, a 7-2 decision, said undocumented immigrants are employees under the national labor relations act. since undocumented aliens are not among the few groups of workers expressly exempted by congress, they plainly come within the broad statutory definition of employee. that s a quote from the case. that s part 2a. go to part 2b. let me tell you people that went to both parts. everyone else who looked at this question, the administrative law judge, the national labor relations board, including republican appointees, two appeals court judges, including one republican appointee, followed the supreme court precedent and came to the opposite conclusion that you did. i understand you may have preferred the shirtan dissent, but you failed to follow supreme court precedent. this was a case where the national labor relationsing at, included those who were