Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Supreme Court Nomination Hearings from PBS NewsHour and EMK Institute

next tonight day two of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg confirmation hearings the Supreme Court nominee testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee kwame holman reports here will come to order unlike yesterday when senators went through two hours of opening statements the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning got right down to questioning High Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg first was Democrat Dennis deconcini of Arizona who asked Ginsburg about her career long effort to invalidate laws that closed off opportunities to women though supposedly designed to help them I tried yesterday to trace the difference between racial distinctions Jim Crow laws which were not obscure and the message that one race was regarded as inferior to the other with gender classifications that were always rationalized as favors to women and so my position was constantly these classifications must be rethought are they genuinely favorable or are they indications of stereotypical thinking about the way women or men are yesterday judge Ginsburg you mentioned that on a number of personal encounters that you had relating what brought you to where you began to press these issues in a legal form and one of the stories that I would like to if you did not go over and I might have missed it reason why you refer to this area as gender discrimination instead of sex discrimination in the 70s and I was at Columbia and writing briefs up distinctions based on sex and writing articles and speeches I had a secretary and she said I've been typing this word sex sex sex and let me tell you the audience that you're addressing the men that you are addressing and they were all men in the appellate courts in those days the first Association of that word is not what you're talking about so I suggest that you use a growl book term use the word gender it will ward off distracting associations when you're confirmed and you sit on the Supreme Court when and how do you determine whether to lead or to follow societal changes I'll give you the answers that I attempted to give in in that Madison lecture I quoted from a law professor who said that the rationale for that decision and the ones that followed it the one-person one-vote line of decisions was that when political avenues become dead-end streets judicial intervention in the politics of the people may be essential in order to have effective politics well Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa pressed judge Ginsburg on whether she favors judicial activism would you agree that judges need to exercise self-restraint and not endeavor to reform society isn't that a task better left to the political branches the courts hear only such controversies as the Constitution and the laws provide that courts sell here courts may not hear cases for which the Constitution does not provide for which legislation does not provide but when the laws do provide for controversies of a judiciary nature the judges must decide them they have no choice I pretend during the afternoon session judge Ginsburg did something no recent High Court nominee has done he spoke at length about her support for abortion rights life she had been asked by Senator Hank Brown about her 1970s defense of a woman in the military who was told she would be discharged unless she had an abortion in that case we argued three things one that this regulation if you're pregnant you're out unless you have an abortion violated the Equal Protection principle because no man was ordered out of service because he had been the partner in the conception no man was ordered out of service because he was about to become a father and then we said that the government is impeding without cause a woman's choice whether to bear or not to bear a child and that was her personal choice and the interference with it was a violation of her Liberty her freedom to choose guaranteed by the due process clause and then finally we said that this is an unnecessary interference with her religious belief could that argument be applied for someone who wished to have the option of an abortion as well does it apply both to the decision to not have an abortion as well as to a decision to have an abortion terminate the pregnancy the argument was it's her right to decide either way hard right to decide whether or not to bear a child in this case any restrictions from her employer to that option or to that right would constraint would be constrained under the Equal Protection argument yes and in this case it was her choice for childbirth and she the government was inhibiting that choice it was it came at the price of remaining in the service that was but but you asked me about my thinking about equal protection versus individual autonomy and my answer to you is it's it's both this is something central to a woman's life to her dignity it's a decision that she must make for herself and when government controls that decision for her she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices I said on the Equality side of it that it is essential to women's equality with man that her choice that she be the decision-maker that her choice be controlling and that if you impose restraints it disadvantaged her you are disadvantaging her because of her sex finally senator Paul Simon of Illinois asked Ginsburg how she would deal with the potential isolation of being on the Supreme Court have you reflected on this at all either in your present tenure or future tenure and how can this nominee make sure that she stays in touch with the real problems people have out there one of the things that I've done every other year with my with my law clerks more often if they are so inclined is we we visit the local jail the DC jail Lorton penitentiary which is the nearest penitentiary I do that to expose myself to those conditions and also for my law clerks so most of them will go on to practice in large law firms and corporate business and won't see the law as it affects most people so well that's one of the things that that I do to stay in touch late this afternoon judiciary chairman Joseph Biden called the progress of the hearings wonderful judge Ginsburg returns tomorrow and Friday when she and members will go into a unique closed session to discuss any personal allegations against her a new practice instituted after the Clarence Thomas hearings

Channel: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate

Views: 385,771

Rating: 4.6726074 out of 5

Keywords: ruth, bader, ginsburg, supreme, court, justice, confirmation, hearing, elena, kagan, barack, obama, ted, kennedy, institute, senate, pbs, newshour, macneil, lehrer

Id: -VfUB7PgW4o

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/Tomorrow-is-today]

It's great to see a potential member of the SCOUTUS who actually answered questions with cal dignity and respect.

[u/holeslaw]

It's worth watching the whole clip though.