administration it took three nominees to fill the seat that ultimately went to harry blackman. ronald reagan had to nominate three people before anthony kennedy was confirmed. what s unprecedented if it happens is simply not voting. that has never been done as a mode of obstruction. you can vote down nominees. that s been done many times. i think that would be politically difficult, simply not to vote on any of hillary clinton s nominees, but voting no is certainly an appropriate function of what senators can do. david, can we say it, eight justices? we can t because you have got tied. well, you can. that s the ted cruz argument. i heard jeffrey toobin, who as we both know is a supreme court scholar, screaming in disgust when ted cruz made that statement. functionally, he jumped on one of the justices saying things
0 and nobody seems to complain.that. in fact there s much more intrusive the argue wouldn t be made, that s not the government. they don t have police powers. amazon and american express don t have police power. the issue is not just the government doing it. people worry about what will we done with the information, and given the story of target stores, you re information is in more danger in the private sector. the nsa has no police powers. just gathering reames of information, for possible clues that they would pass on say, someone is calling from pakistan a known terrorist is calling a number in utah, ten times, in a span of two weeks. they pass that on to the fbi which would look into it. get awater to have to get a warrant to do that. yes, police gathering tips. what best this report by the president s appointed panel, with basically came out and soil. why wouldn t he mention that? we haven t had another attack. other than the tsarnaev. he has not been able
they are going. i agree with that. do any of you put that in your articles or is that something that is such an insight audience your generally readership doesn t care? i said it was hard to locate the constitutional at work in the doma decision. it was federalism with equal protection and dash of due process. [laughter] don t you think the same thing could be said about the voting rights case. my gosh. the votes rights case, if you ask the average person why was it part of the voting rights unconstitutional. usually you point to some provision in the constitution that said the law john roberts made a vague reference to the tenth amendment which says, you know, if things are not part of federal power, there s the 15th amendment that says right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the count of race and congress should have the power to enforce this to appropriate legislation. well, congress decided how could that be unconstitutional? and i thought john robert
this week legal journalist john jenkins and his book the partisan: the life of william rehnquist. in it, the publisher of cq press details the early career and the 33-year supreme court tenure of the former chief justice. he talks with supreme court reporter and the biographer for justices o connor and scalia, joan biskupic. host: welcome, john jenkins. guest: thank you. host: we re here to talk about the partisan: the life of william rehnquist. i m going to start with one general question just to give our viewers a sense of who the chief justice is and why william rehnquist was important. there have only been 17 chiefs, correct? guest: correct, that s right. host: tell us about the position, what does a chief justice of the united states do and the importance of william rehnquist, and then we ll go into his chronology. guest: well, the chief is really, he has two roles in the judicial system. he s, first, kind of the chief among equals on the court. he assign
u.s. sanctions which had an influence on changing the regime in south africa. in that case it certainly worked in that case. we know what happened in south africa. we have to wrap it up quickly. one thing you want to leave to the young audience and people out there. let s start with tonya. closing words. find something you re passionate about and do it responsibly. abigail. be part of decision making and realize your voice matters in this process. i think holding politicians accountable is important as well as speaking up. sometimes you have to stand from the back of the room, but you can also vote with your dollars, vote with your vote and any action that you take will be heard. i agree with everything they both said. i think if you re committed the a cause, don t let anyone stop you. don t let anything stop you. if you don t what you want to do, then maybe no one else will. in a lot of ways, you have that kind of power and exercise it. we have to end it there. tha