'Frankly, I Think That's Crazy': Josh Hawley Shocked By Decision Of Biden Judicial Nominee

thank you mr chairman uh thanks the nominees for being here congratulations on your nomination justice robinson if i could just start with you i have to say i'm i'm troubled by your history of compelling individuals to express pro-abortion viewpoints against their religious convictions i'm talking about the regal art press case i think senator cruz asked you a few questions about it you represented linda paquette in 1994 who demanded that two devout catholics print custom membership cards for an organization that advocated in favor of abortions when they declined to do so citing the teachings of their church you and your client filed a complaint with the vermont human rights commission and then a lawsuit and in your briefs you argued that their decision not to print those materials was invidious it was pernicious and it was akin to racial discrimination which is quite a claim i mean it's really quite a claim and i i just i have to ask you why did you feel it was important to leverage the machinery of government this is a private business these are two private individuals why did you feel it was important to leverage the machinery of government to force these two catholic business owners to violate their sincerely held religious convictions help me understand this thank you senator hawley um as i indicated with senator cruz that case was 30 years ago so i apologize if i'm not as precise about all the details but i can tell you generally speaking that we conceded that if the printers had declined to print the materials on account of their opposition to abortion that there was no basis in law to pursue our claim the issue the threshold issue in the case is whether that in fact was the facts my client was a catholic she was there to get flyers for vermont catholics for choice printed she was deeply offended um by the um suggestion that she wasn't a true catholic and that was the reason why the printer wouldn't print the materials um the case never proceeded beyond that stage we we went up to the supreme court on what i would call a procedural issue we went back down and and the case settled and and that was the end of it well i i can understand the issue if the government had told your client that that she wasn't a true catholic or a true hindu or true whatever given our first amendment but we're talking here about a suit against two private individuals husband and wife i believe malcolm and susan baker who on the basis of their religious viewpoints said that they they couldn't print these cards and you and your client attempted to leverage the machinery of the state in fact you were the ones trying to use the machinery of the state to compel these two private individuals to to speak of course the supreme court has addressed this fact pattern in the masterpiece cakeshop case since that time which concerned compelled speech in light of masterpiece cakeshop do you acknowledge today that your client would not have the right to compel other individuals to speak in a way that she favors senator hawley i i don't read the masterpiece cake decision as altering um the smith holding that neutral laws of general applicability apply without regard to a free exercise defense nor do i understand the court to have resolved the speech claim as i read the masterpiece cake decision it turned on the fact that the court concluded that the process in the colorado civil rights commission evinced hostility toward religion and it wasn't in fact a neutral hall neutral law of general applicability in that respect ah so your i think this is an important point so so what you're telling me is your view understanding the law is is that the law can in fact compel people of religious faith to speak against their own faith and their own viewpoint the law can do that and if the law if it's only if it's labeled as neutral but it just so happens that it compels religious believers to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs that's okay under the first amendment is that is that correct your understanding of the laws that currently exist no senator holly i'm i'm not aware that the u.s supreme court has addressed the the nuance of a free exercise claim coupled with a free speech claim which is what you just described what i referenced earlier was a straight-up free exercise claim and i think that the u.s supreme court hasn't backed away from justice scalia's decision in the smith case in terms of the applicable law so you stand by your representation of this client and all of the arguments that you made including calling the position of of these two catholics malcolm and susan baker and videus pernicious and akin to racial discrimination do you regret any of that rhetoric senator i don't remember the context i haven't looked at that brief in 30 years so does the passage of time make it any different i'll give this to you for the record and that'll allow you to refresh your memory but but i'm just i'm quoting you invidious pernicious akin to racial discrimination as you sit here does that not trouble you you're describing the religious beliefs of practicing catholics who are citing the teachings of their church you think that's akin to the ku klux klan senator the threshold question in the case which i suspect i will find is what we were addressing in that passage was whether or not this was discrimination against my client on the basis of her religion and you were saying that these two catholics who did not want to provide the speech you're engaged in the speech your client wanted to them to on the basis of their faith doing so was akin to religious discrimination listen i have to tell you the last president sent somebody up here to this committee who made that exact argument it's a republican who made that exact argument i voted no that person didn't get confirmed i i've got profound profound concerns justice robinson about your position here and i have to tell you the passage of time doesn't do anything to alleviate my concerns one more question mr chairman if i might let's shift to criminal law that the kazowaski case can you help me understand this case september term 2017 this is a defendant who was living with his girlfriend and her six-year-old daughter the defendant was using box cutters to open boxes the six-year-old asks him what he was doing the defendant held a box cutter to the girl's stomach told her he would kill her in her sleep then laughed as the girl ran away the girl later told her father about the incident said she was unable to sleep understandably this same defendant later convicted of aggravated domestic assault with a deadly weapon you dissented saying he shouldn't have been convicted and you wrote in part because the blade was covered with plastic it shouldn't have been considered a real threat and you went so far as to analogize this to a pillow fight i've got the case right here you said this threat in this case is akin to the threat to use a pillow to swat somebody's backside i have to tell you this completely baffles me the threat of a box cutter to a six-year-old stomach and the guy says he's gonna kill her and that's akin to swatting her with a pillow help what am i missing here thank you senator i i think if if if the picture in your mind is the box cutter that we used to open boxes in our garage i would understand um your perception the picture is the one that is in the record because it's it's in the case i can see it it's right here it's right here it's a it's a box cutter there's a blade yeah he put that to her stomach the blade was completely covered uh senator and the question the question of law well there were two questions one was um our the record and what the record showed and i i understand your your description of what you understand the record to have showed i i'd have to go back and look more broadly but the legal question is whether the the definition of deadly weapon in vermont law was satisfied by that implement the fact that an implement may be used in a deadly way doesn't make it by definition a deadly weapon and so the question involved the very specific nature of that box cutter and the way he used it well all i can say is i find her position in this case frightening and the idea as the father of three young children the idea that somebody puts a box cutter to a young girl's stomach and says he's gonna kill her in her sleep and that that's not an issue frankly i think that's crazy thank you mr chairman senator durbin has gone to vote i will go shortly but that concludes our first panel we thank both of you for your excellent testimony this morning and congratulations again to you and your families uh we will

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Length: 8min 39sec (519 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021