If you can keep it. This is just over one hour. Good evening. Welcome to the theater here at the National Archives. I am the archivist of the United States. I am pleased you could join us for tonights program. Whether you are here in the theater or joining us via facebook or youtube. A special welcome to our cspan audience this evening. Tomorrow is Constitution Day. In 1787ating that day with the delegates of the Constitutional Convention signed the document establishing a new government for the United States of america. At the National Archives we have celebrated Constitution Day since 1956. Four years after installing the original parchment document in its place of honor in the rotunda. Over the decades we have celebrated the constitution in many ways. Tomorrow we host one of my favorite events naturalization ceremony for new citizens. Always a moving experience to witness people from all parts of the world stand in front of the parchment signed by our founders. 232 years ago and swear to support and defend the constitution. We also invite notable guest speakers to help reflect on and understand the constitution and its Central Place in our nations history. Honored to have with us this evening the seating justice of the Supreme Court, neil gorsuch. He is recently brought his reflections on the constitution and that separation of powers into one volume. A republic if you can keep it. We are pleased to welcome. He was born in Denver Colorado and received a ba from columbia university. Hap from Harvard Law School and a doctors from harvard. Judge David Sentelle in the district of columbia. He also served by red white and justice and kennedy of the United States. He was in private practice. From 20052006 he was associate ateral associate general the department of justice. He was appointed to the court of appeals for the 10th circuit in 2006. He served on the Standing Committee on rules and practice and procedure of the u. S. Judicial commit conference and chairman of the combined three of the advisory committee. He taught at colorado loss compared President Trump nominated him as the associate justice of the Supreme Court. He took his seat on april 10, 2017. Please welcome the honorable neil gorsuch, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. [applause] thank you. It is wonderful to have you back. You werere just after seated. In 150 National Intelligence center staff. Always nice to be here. It is a wonderful place. I encourage all young people to come visit. It is across the mall from the space museum. Not the bar where everyone is. [laughter] kids get to spend a night camping out the constitution. How cool is that . [no audio] [laughter] i have had a lot of friends have done that and it is really touch them. Take us back to september 2016. As you do in the beginning of the book. What happened . My life more or less changed in every way overnight. Quiet and happy life. I had been a judge in boulder for a decade. All of a sudden, everything changed. If you asked me to give me a story that was emblematic it would be this, so we had a sneak out. We had to sneak into the white house. [laughter] the president was committed to it being a surprise. We wanted to honor his wishes. Get into the white house unnoticed . It is pretty tricky. You have to go in through the kitchen. We went in through the kitchen of the white house. [laughter] that turned out to be neat. Im a history buff. Down there you can see there are still scar marks from the fires in the war of 1812. There are still bullet indentations. Kitchen ando the the president was graciously allowing me to use the lincoln bedroom as an office. That is why i remote i wrote for my remarks. A table and desk in which there is a copy of the gettysburg address. Written in lincolns hand. Wow. The president knew my wife was british. Shes american now. He gave her use of the queens bedroom for the day across the hall. Where churchill state, the queens day. Stayed, therchill queen state. Stayed. They had no problem her calling her parents back in england. They will never tell anybody. [laughter] louise calls her father. She says dad, youre never going to believe it. It is going to be neil. My fatherinlaw had stayed up to watch the news. He said, darling, i am watching your american news. There is another fellow. He is driving and at a gas station. He is on his way to washington. I am pretty sure it will be him. [laughter] inlaws. [laughter] louise says, dad, i am pretty sure it is neil. Im sitting in the lincoln bedroom. [laughter] honey,kly replied, yes but President Trump the other guy might be down the hall. [laughter] everything changed. Even your milk delivery. Yeah. That is a story in the book. Marshals who were guarding our home and family i o a huge debt to their people. They are very brave. Night, a truck apparently came up. Sped up to the house and a man jumped out and started running for the house carrying containers with white substance inside. Louise got a cold a call the next morning and it was the Company Delivers the milk. [laughter] that our usuals milkman who had been serving us for years would no longer be coming to the house. [laughter] somebody else would be doing it. Louise said, did something happen . Show out to the marshals ask. To which there was a terse reply, there was an incident, maam. [laughter] it took some cross examination before it came out what had happened. Maam,al answer was yes, he ended up in prone position. [laughter] the waste being louise took one of the chocolate towers as an apology. I am not sure he got over it. [laughter] vein ofin the identification let me remind you of the role that the National Archives played in your confirmation process. We were asked by the Senate Judiciary committee to deliver everything we could, that we had about you. 13,285ed out to be electronic assets. Related, 2700 specifically to her nomination for the 10th circuit court. 19,438ecords contained pages, 522 microsoft xl spreadsheet, and eight databases. One along had 156 attachments. My apologies. [laughter] my friendss to all and family and coworkers during this process. It was my law firm producing every document. A lawyer i signed or filed might eighth grade teacher got assaulted by press corps coming out of school. On and on it went. Some of you here tonight, thank you. Family justnd emerged from the woodwork. Talk about your loss of anonymity. Yeah. It was something. One day i am living quietly colorado and the next day everybody and america knows who i am. I think i was photographed more in one minute then my whole life. That is a little disconcerting at first. You are slurping your noodles at a restaurant and someone at the other end is videoing you. [laughter] that takes some getting used to. God take that when something away, he gives you something in return. If you look for it hard enough. Was i got in return david an opportunity to see firsthand how much the American People love this country. How much they love our constitution. How good and kind they are. The deep reservoir of goodness in the American People. Letters and support from all cars the country. Even a package of socks. [laughter] from someone who had seen me on television and thought i needed my socks fell down too often. [laughter] say come up to me and im early in the morning and a coffee shop and say i think you need a joke. They tell me a joke. People come up and say i am a huge supporter or i do not support this president but i wish you well. Im praying for your family. Process, i waszy on a flight between denver and washington. It was one of those moments when i was feeling frazzled from it all. I was seated next to a little girl. Probably about six. The plane started doing counter turbulence along the way. She leaned over to me and said, would you mind if i held your hand . So we held hands for about 20 minutes. Said, now of it she would you like to draw . [laughter] we spent the next two and a half hours with her coloring book. Moment forwonderful me of just being normal. Of course at the end of the flight her mother who was seated behind his recognized me. Two weeks i got my favorite thank you note ever. It was a drawing. The little girl had done of an airplane with two stick figures standing in front saying, thank you for holding my hand. The two stick figures or holding hands. That is the American People to me. That is what i got to see. I get to see day in and day out. It is a privilege. Tell us about the inspiration for the book. Well, it came during the confirmation process. Predecessor smoked a pipe at his confirmation hearing. I dont think we are likely to see that again. [laughter] my old boss, byron white, his confirmation hearing lasted 15 minutes. So did mine for the 10th circuit. [laughter] things were a little different the next time around. Process,e confirmation i was truly surprised at how isy people thought a judge just a politician. Who wears a row. Should promise to do certain things and will certain ways in cases they have not heard. Everybody has their favorite, you must abide precedent. Then they tell me their favorite. They tellhe express, me what they dont like. With the other it is the exact opposite. I came to think it is one thing to think the judges occasionally , mistakenly, humanly air and follow their personal preferences over honest use of the laws demands. It is another thing entirely to think that is the way it should be. That is the way it is routinely. There is no difference between a politician and a judge. Then i got to learning and thinking about the subject. Where were where are we on separation of powers . I was truly shocked. Only about one third of americans can name the three branches of government. Another one third can only name one branch of government. 10 of americans apparently believe that judge judy served on the Supreme Court. I happen to like her. [laughter] she is not one of my colleagues. The archives does wonderful work. I have visited the president ial library. All sorts of wonderful organizations that are working in this area. But i thought i owed something down ad i wanted to put few thoughts on paper about the subjects. Let us get into the meat of the book. As this is so well written. It is a terrific job in writing this for a general public. Let us talk about separation of powers. Where are we . , it canation of powers sound pretty dry. Everybody understands that the First Amendment contribute to your liberty. We all get that. But i dont think we understand or appreciate every day maybe as much as we might how separation of powers contribute to liberty and the gees of it. Madison wrote the constitution. He did not want to write a bill of rights. He thought if we got the structure right, we would not need a bill of rights. He thought the bill of rights was just a list of promises. Promises are only as good as the enforcement mechanism behind them. Here is how to test madison in the real world. Bills of rights. Which one is your favorite . The United States bill of rights is pretty good. My favorite is north koreas. Yes i said north korea. It promises everything our bill promises. And more. Get a free education, free health care, the right to relaxation. [laughter] sounds pretty good. Im not sure how that compares with Political Prisoners but there you are. That bill of rights is not with the paper it is written on because all power is concentrated in the hands of one person a tyrant. That was madisons genius. What am i . Third of ourne federal government which is one half of the government and our federal system. Divide power. That was the wisdom of medicine. All that was the wisdom of madison. That is what i learned that in civics. I am old enough that i had to take it is not pretty. As a judge, i came to realize and see in the real world the impact leveling off separation of powers has under liberty. Let me give you a few examples. Judges act ashen legislators . Law,ad of following the they begin to make things up. Well, maybe the first real departure of the United StatesSupreme Court from the constitution as it was written was dred scott. Held that white persons had the right to own black persons in the territories of the United States. They said that right could be found in the fifth amendment due process clause. Processarantees you due before your life, liberty, or property could be taken. Scour the fit them, as long as you want, it is not there. Dred scott made it up. The judges who did that thought they were doing so for a good reason. Something more important. They thought they were helping a for a civil war. Making it up was worthwhile. They act as legislatures. Judges make rotten politicians. They guess wrong. Instead of averting the civil war, they contributed to it. That is one angle. The happens when legislature gives up its power to make the laws and assigns it instead to the executive branch . Madison new lawmaking would be the greatest threat to liberty. He wanted it to be hard. Deliberative, slow, careful, and involve all people. Two houses of congress, are just process, there must be a vote or veto override. Demanding public involvement of the peoples representatives elected by two constituencies at separate times. It is supposed to be hard. It is supposed to involve everybody. A lot of Political Science establishes a puts minorities at the fulcrum of power. Their votes are often essential. Effectively a super majority requirement because of the legislative structure. That is what madison thought would protect your rights. When you were a minority and unpopular. What happens when you take that process and stick it into the executive branch . President is elected once or twice. Does not have to be public. It is going to be a lot faster. You are going to get more of it arent you . Youre going to have less say in the process. Minorities are going to play a very small role. The president just needs to in the majority. You have elected yourself a king. Worse. Ven some of the agencies dont really respond to the president. You are having law made by a bureaucracy. Unless you think im exaggerating let me give you a case. This is the sort of thing that persuaded me rather than academic theory. Real facts with real people. A Company CalledCaring Hearts located in colorado. All of this is in the books. Caring hearts versus burwell. Careprovided home nursing or medicare. They were accused of Medicare Fraud by the government. They were fined 800,000. Being accused of fraud by the government is pretty serious. It can be a business ending proposition. Life ending proposition for people and their livelihoods. Years of litigation go by. What are we finding out . Caring hearts had abided all of the rules. All of them. All the executive branch had made for them to abide at the time. The government was accusing them of violating rules it had not yet created at the time. Fasts making up rules so that even the government became confused. The second branch. What happens when the executive branch plays judge . I see cases in which a veterans and immigrants are all in the book. They have a winning legal argument. Veterans seeking benefits for ptsd, edit grants immigrants seeking lawful entries to the country. I think they should win. They have a winning argument under the law. We have doctrines now that that independent judges dont get to interpret the law. A bureaucrat does. Justice,Supreme Court have to defer to a bureaucrats interpretation of the law. You have a right youre supposed to have a right to an independent judge to determine your right under the law. That is lost. Separation of powers. I think it is vital to your freedoms. Those are three examples. Like the rest of the constitution, separation of powers is only as good as the people. The people have to want it. The people have to protect it. Only one generation away from tyranny. Say the three branches are equal . Are they in balance . I would like to say yes. They are supposed to be. I think some of the examples i gave make me wonder sometimes whether we are transferring a lot of legislative and judicial power whether it is running to the executive. I worry about that. To pointamiliar today about the number of people who dont know the three branches. To add to that, three quarters of americans can name all three stooges. [laughter] is that right . That is the truth. From the annenberg study. You talk very cogently about originals and and textualism. Andus talk aboutoriginalism where that and interpretation did or did not work. Might one to start with what is originalism. It is a boring term. Judgeshe idea that should interpret written laws according to their original public meaning. Those terms on the page should be respected as written. It is really an ancient idea. If you look at the Supreme Courts, you will seat 100 cases if you see one. Thats a when it comes to a statute, or contract, we interpret that document according to its original public meaning. The question originalism proposes is what would is different when it comes to written constitution . Our founders rejected an unwritten constitution. They knew it well. They came from an english system. No written constitution. The framers decided to put certain things down. Not many. There are many things in the constitution. Thought put what they was vitally important to let the rest to the they also allowed the people to amend the constitution. Originalism tries to honor that. It says judges should not be in the business of making things up. Adding to or taking away from the constitution. That was what originalism is. I