Transcripts For CSPAN3 Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OCon

Institute, thank you for joining us this evening. I have the pleasure of introducing our two panelists and ted olson in just a moment. I would like to take a moment first to thank justice joining this evening. Its an honor to have you with us. Thank you. Today has been a time to celebrate the legacy of the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. This evening, we have the privilege of welcoming the second and the third. Were extraordinarily grateful to justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor for joining us to honor Sandra Day Oconnor. Justice ginsberg and justice day oconnor share an unusual distinction, interesting nicknames. Justice oconnor earned the moniker fwotsc. Justice ginsberg, crowned the notorious rbg. Ill leave it to you to decide which one is catchier. The justices also share a lifelong commitment for expanding opportunities for women. It makes sense when Justice Ginsberg joined Justice Oconnor on the bench, they bonded over their role in transforming the Supreme Court. Both justices had to overcome discrimination and professional rejection. But Justice Oconnor once put a helpful spin on it. Come of age where women could easily be lawyers, she told Justice Ginsberg, they would probably end up as retired partners at some law firm, but because that route was not open to us, Justice Oconnor explained, we had to find another way. And we both ended up in the United States Supreme Court. One woman they inspired was a young attorney in manhattan. She had been working in the d. A. s office in 1981 when she heard president reagan nominated Sandra Day Oconnor. Just two years earlier, she and her law School Classmates had wondered aloud whether they would ever see a woman on the Supreme Court in their lifetimes. Little did Sonia Sotomayor imagine 28 years later, she would become the third woman on the court and make history in her own right as the first latina justice. These three women come from very different backgrounds. One grew up shooting jack roberts, one a descendents of immigrants in brooklyn and one spent her summers visiting her parents native puerto rico. They had different paths but ended up in the same place as courageous trailblazers, inspiring role models and associate justices of the Supreme Court. We are deeply grateful to them for all that they have done and all that they represent. Former solicitor general ted olson joins them on stage this evening. He is used to taking questions from justices ginsberg and sotomayor, but tonight the tables are turned. Ted finally gets to ask the questions, and that may be why he has worked so hard to help organize this event. We are deeply grateful to his efforts in making todays presentation possible. Please welcome me in welcoming the justices of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor. [ applause ] thank you, everyone. Please be seated. Please be seated. Thank you. Thank you. I know most of that was for the justices. We are so honored at the Reagan Institute to have this program today, which those of you who have been here from the beginning know its been a marvelous, marvelous experience. Weve had many of Justice Oconnors clerks here and some of her friends and colleagues, talking about her legacy, what it meant when she was appointed to the Supreme Court, a bit about her Juris Prudence. And its been an exciting, interesting conversation. And i worried, as i was hearing this, what can we add to that . Because were going to talk about some of the same things. As the audience heard a lot about Justice Oconnor and her Juris Prudence and what she meant to the court and to america, but they didnt hear it from only perspective that the two of you can provide. Her colleagues in the history of the United States Supreme Court. And so im going to ask some of the questions that the people here, im sure, are anxious to learn about. And ill start with you, Justice Ginsberg. What was your reaction, and what were your feelings when you first heard that Justice Oconnor was going to be nominated to be on the United States Supreme Court . I was driving home from the d. C. Circuit and turned on the news, and the nomination of Sandra Day Oconnor was announced. I said hallelujah [ laughter ] but i also thought, this is a sign that what jimmy carter began is going to be advanced forward, and what jimmy carter began was to change the complexion of the u. S. Judiciary. When he became president , there was only one woman on a federal court of appeals, smirly hefstetter. He made her the firstever secretary of education. And then there were none. Shirley hofstetter . Yeah. And carter, only four years and no Supreme Court vacancy to fill he did, literally, change the complexion of the federal courts by appointing women and members of minority groups in numbers. I think president reagan was saying, jimmy carter was right and i am going to make the big stride forward of appointing a woman to the u. S. Supreme court. So you saw this as a continuum of what president carter had started, and it was a change in the opportunities for women to be a part of the federal judiciary, or judiciary anywhere . People ask sometimes, did you always want to be a Supreme Court justice . And i said in the ancient days when Justice Oconnor and i graduated from law school, what we wanted was a job, any job. [ laughter ] well, we wont talk about too much about the job opportunities, at least at the beginning. Justice sotomayor, where were you and how did you learn about this nomination, this appointment . And what was your reaction . At the time, i was an assistant District Attorney in new york county, and i was working hard. But as all of you know, ruth works harder than most of us. So i got to see it on the news that night. And to me, i had just graduated from law school a year and a half before, maybe two the year before. Year before. And at the time, there were obviously no women on the Supreme Court. There were hardly any women in the federal judiciary. There were, i think, maybe one or two women on the Supreme Courts of other states. And the idea and people, law firms were touting that they were progressive when they had one woman partner among 100. And so what ruth had started, i still have not seen the progress being made in any significant numbers just yet, but the appointment of sandra gave me a hope. It opened the door to me thinking that the progress would move faster than i had imagined. It didnt move quite as fast as i had hoped, and still some steps to be taken, but it was a door opener. It was an opportunity for women to begin to see the possibility of exploring all aspects of our profession. You see, the advantage of diversity, whether its gender or race or ethnicity, or even professional work, whatever the diversity represents, it gives people who dont otherwise think theres opportunity. It aspires them to believe there might be. And so i think seeing a woman on the court inspired not just me but so many other young women who were starting their careers. Do you think, Justice Sotomayor, that Justice Oconnor had very special qualities in terms of her character, her background, her upbringing . Well, ill tell you what i thought when i heard that made her be the ideal as the first or the only thing that scared me was she was a woman who had done it all. She was married. She raised children. She had served in the legisla legislatu legislature. She had served in the court system. And i thought to myself, oh, my god, if thats the standard im going to be held to, im not going to accomplish anything. Ruth pretty much did something similar in her work. Yes, i do think it takes those extraordinary women who broke those initial barriers, had a fortitude about them, a resilience that was absolutely necessary to be able to do what they did. Now, as you know, Justice Kagan and i are not married. We dont have children. Weve had successful careers and i dont think you have to be unmarried and no children to have successful careers but i think it helped back then, that she represented everything that people expected, and more. Justice ginsburg, what qualities did you see and experience with Justice Oconnor that helped craft her for the position of being, as evan thomas says in his book, first . Its got to be and you were second, and you were third. It has got to be, carry special burdens and a sense of obligation to the people who are out there, watching and seeing you as an example, as a role model. What qualities did she bring to that role . Sandra was responsible, more than any probably more than any justice in history for the collegeiality of the Supreme Court. That was very important to her, when she revived the tradition of having lunch together and urged o ed her colleagues to at she was also a good listener, and she had patience, and i never saw her snap back in anger. Sandra was a person who, whatever came her way in life, and some things that were not at all fortunate, she coped with. Like her breast cancer. I dont know how many women were inspired to carry on, to have courage to do what she did. And then when john oconnor became ill, how she dealt with that. Just whatever life brought her way, she just did it. That was her attitude. Part of her background was being raised, in part, on a big, several hundred couple hundred thousand acre cattle ranch in arizona. Part of growing up was no electricity, no running water. She went to school on the west coast in stanford. The two of you are from decidedly different environment. New york city, brooklyn, so forth, and were educated on the east. Does that make any difference or would it have made any difference . Of course it makes a difference. Everyone brings his or her Life Experience to bear, but i think sandras attitude, since her childhood, was she can do it. When she went out for the roundups and she rode with the cowb cowboys. And one of them said she wasnt the rough and rugged type, but she worked with us well in the canyons. She held her own, and thats what she did at every stage of her career. She held her own. Both of you broke many barriers and in many respects each of you were first, in many parts of your career, including on the Supreme Court in many different ways. Justice sotomayor, describe that. Do you feel special obligations to women or to the Legal Profession or to the judiciary because youre breaking, every day, these barriers . I dont think that i feel a special obligation to a particular group of people. I do feel, as a justice, whether im a woman or not, an obligation to uphold the values of the court. And i think that thats what sandra felt, a deep commitment to the institution, and that goes along with ruths description of her emphasis on the collegiality of the court. I tell a story that the justices were at a meeting. I dont remember if it was lunch or conference. We got distracted in a conversation about a book that described many a time in the Supreme Court history when the justices were openly hostile to each other. And someone asked, what changed th that. And some of my colleagues were suggesting the names of one or more chief judges and all of a sudden a quiet voice in the room said when women came on the court. And Justice Ginsburg was right about that. I do remember, though, ruth, the first time i met sandra at the court. The first morning after my induction that i was there, she came to visit me, which i was humbled and i said to mffher, s going to try to come see you. She said no, no, no, youre a new justice. Im welcoming you. But one of the things she spoke to me about was my obligation to attend the daily, the lunches that the judges had. And she told me she had told the chief that it was his obligation to continue the tradition. So, it continued even after her taking senior status, leaving the court, that emphasis on the institution of maintaining not just its collegiality, but the sense of its importance in our society. Well, i was going to follow up on that about the collegiality. It can be very tense, i suppose. I dont know. None of us really know except for justice kavanaugh, but the atmosphere must, from time to time, be very tense, especially at the end of the term when some the very controversial decisions are rendered and there are sometimes very strong opinions and strong dissents. Does that collegiality carry through, even when there is a lot of tension in the decisions and sometimes in the language of the decisions . Justice ginsburg . Ted, this is an episode in which you played a major role. [ laughter ] it was not the end of the term, but i suppose the most tense moment ive experienced in my 26 years on the court was the decision in bush v. Gore. It was a marathon. The Court Granted review on saturday, briefs filed on sunday, oral argument on monday, decisions out on tuesday. When it was over i sent my clerks to watch what the news channels were saying about it to Justice Kennedys chambers, because he wrote the principle opinion for the court. Justice scalia called me that evening to say, what are you do ing still in your chambers . You should go home and take a hot bath. This was the night of the decision . Yes. Well, it was tense, that case. And im not asking anything that happened in, you know that we shouldnt be talking about, but we do know, we do know that there were a lot of difficult feelings about whether the court should have taken the case or how the court was going to decide the case. Justice oconnor has famously not jabbing back, a concurring opinion. Is that part of what youre talking about . She responded to ideas, but never to individuals. You would never see in an oconnor opinion as youve seen in other opinions one justice saying about another justices opinion. This opinion is not to be taken seriously. That was said of Justice Oconnors opinion. She never snapped back to speak in the same stride enter voice. She was never critical of a colleague. You would never see in her opinions this opinion is profoundly misguide d. And in that, i tried to follow her lead. Is it hard, Justice Sotomayor, sometimes to resist . Because i read these opinions. [ laughter ] and some of them are pretty pointed. One day, Justice Scalia looked at me and said, i really love you, sonia. Youre a bulldog like i am. Were both new york city street fighters. He was right. I have been helped in restraining myself with the intervention of colleagues, which is one of the things that you asked about how do we maintain that collegiality. Other colleagues will step in, have conversations with you and suggest that some things have crossed the line. Others, i have received and i wont mention what it was about or who it was, but an apology from a colleague for something that was said in heated argument. And that, i know, was likely prompted by someone else saying, hmm, what did you do . Or did you really mean that . And so its to remain collegial, to understand working with each other, assume each others good faith. It gets challenged when you disagree, but thats the time when you need to come to your senses, and the group needs to continue insisting upon the nature of our family. So i was going to ask about the oral arguments. Sometimes the oral arguments the justices are asking of the advocate questions but theyre really talking to one another. Is that true . You know that feeling that youre being talked through and not to. [ laughter ] and ive never understood, ruth, why lawyers dont let us do that more often. [ laughter ] chief Justice Roberts has talked about this a little bit about the oral the context of the oral argument. And ive heard either him or someone say we dont talk to one another too much about the cases before oral argument. This is the first time correct me if im wrong. This is the first time weve talked to one another and were doing it through the medium of the poor guy or woman standing six feet away. Is that true . The first time that weve considered a case together would have been at the petition for review stage. The discussion is fleeting, but at least we would have been together and noticing this case that has been granted review. Then theres not much discussion before the argument. Frankly, there isnt time, because as the term goes on, youre gearing up for the sitting. Youre writing opinions for the sitting just passed. You may not have finished the reply brief in the cases being argued the next day until the night before. So thats why there isnt much in the way of discussion before the oral argument. But we are constantly trying to persuade each other. Every time im writing a dissent for four people, i am hoping that i will