I was only watching very briefly (while buying a bagel in a class break), but I saw Roberts saying something about how the Executive lawyers would always say one thing on a particular issue, while the Senate lawyers would always say another. Was that in response to this question or line of questioning?
I missed that bit, but I heard that he wouldn't discuss his views on the internment of U.S. citizens, since that case might come before the court. I wish that someone would ask him about Korematsu.
It was the same questioner, at least (Leahy). All I remember is that the question eliciting the response you cite had to do with a Reagan-era memo he wrote arguing that the Executive trumped Congress in some particular circumstance.
Perhaps, since all of the really interesting questions and hypotheticals will get the boilerplate "might come before the court" response, Roberts' questioners should try to pry at least one bit of information out of him by crafting a question to which the boilerplate response is revealing in some way. To what (kinds of) questions would "might come before the court" be an illuminating answer?
Can we fire the Democrats and hire a new opposition?
w/d, see this SCOTUSBlog page (at 10:10). Same line of questioning.
Actually, Leahy's next question was about Korematsu, but he asked it in the stupidest way possible, by asking what Roberts thought of interning people based solely on their race, or ethnicity, or nation of origin. So of course Roberts got to say that he couldn't imagine that coming before the Court, and didn't think it would be a constitutional policy.
So basically, in re 1, he was taking the line that the Executive was his client and he did what the Executive would want? Is that right? Is this an accurate representation of what the Solicitor General's office is supposed to do?
Say, has anyone mentioned lately that Jefferson Sessions is an ass? I thought that needed to be brought up, apropos of nothing. (Well, this reminded me.)
Thanks, SB.
Yes, that is a very stupid thing to ask.
I like Ted Kennedy better during times when I'm not listening to him speak.
I'd like to see Roberts asked who his favorite character in Inherit the Wind is.
I'm not sure on what issues it would be particularly revealing that he thinks it might come before the court. Maybe whether some circuitous proposals invloving mandatory movement of Supeme Court Justices to Senior Justice status after 18 years violate the Article III requirement of life tenure, since he'd then be predicting that it might get proposed in and pass Congress...that's probably far too specific.
C-SPAN is appealingly amateurish.
I only caught a couple of minutes of Kennedy going on about segregation and voting rights act, while I was driving, and I didn't get it at all. Kennedy lays out what seems like a pretty good trap for Roberts, and it sounds like Roberts is about to say something that might be controversial, and then Kennedy keeps interrupting him so that what Roberts ends up saying is not very controversial at all. WTH?
re: 8
I have not seen Roberts' testimony, but if your question is: "Does the Solicitor General work for the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch", the answer is yes.
To 7: Yeah, I missed that. I'm going to watch the whole thing tonight. I'd prefer a straigt-up "was Korematsu wrongly decided?"
To 9: I think Jeff Sessions might be the dumbest guy in the U.S. Senate. He's probably dumber than Allen of VA. I think he's both dumb and really disingenuous. His floor speeches in support of the bankruptcy bill were positively obtuse. Senator Durbin offered up amendments, and Sessions pretended that the problems Durbin was addressing didn't exist. It was all down-home folksy wisdom, but I didn't get the sense that there was much going on in that brain. I didn't get the sense that Sessions was being entirely manipulative. I thought that he was too stupid to know that what he was saying was untrue. I don't, however, know that he would have cared if he had believed Durbin, but I really felt that he, like the POTUS, had gone with his gut feeling that deadbeats shouldn't be allowed to welch on their debts and that other messy facts didn't need to be considered.
The question was more "Is the Solicitor General's job to file briefs aggressively arguing whatever position the executive wants them to?" That is, is the SG's relationship to the Executive like the relationship of an ordinary counsel to their clients? Or if I've misconstrued the normal attorney-client relationship, do tell.
14: Dumber than Santorum? Have you ever read the full man on dog transcript?
The problem I have with Sessions has mostly to do with the Klan jokes, etc. (More, and for TNR subscribers I believe this makes the same point.) But I don't want to derail the conversation too much.
(Evil little troll! Evil little troll!)
re: 15
Basically, yes. The Solicitor General, like the Attorney General, is the Executive Branch's lawyer and argues the positions the Executive takes, just like any other lawyer (and, of course, is subject to the limits that exist (even if they are not always observed) on the arguments that a lawyer permissibly may make).
Well, there's definitely something to be said for "The client made me do it," but this makes it seem like that could be along the same lines as Rehnquist's claim that his pro-Plessy memo was an academic exercise prepared at Justice Jackson's request. A worthy successor!
Won't derail the conversation. Promise.
Yes, it would completely violate what the site is about for me to lure you off-topic.
Sorry to wander off thread, but I think that Sessions is working awfully hard to disprove the point that Santorum is the dumbest. He doesn't even bother to ask questions. He just quotes fulsome praise. Can't wait for Coburn. Barf.