A lot of ways. Things have gotten both better and worse and there always getting both better and worse. Thats what makes it so frustrating to be in and around politics. There is no easy argument to make about the direction of change. Theres always a cost of progress and theres always a cost to resisting progress. To your more general question, it does seem to me that in a lot of ways we are having too many of the most important fights in our political life at the national level. Part of what i mean by saying our politics need to be decentralizes that some of these arguments need to be had by people who are looking at one another. That is surely one way to get around that divide. Its a lot easier to sustain in the abstract then when its you and your neighbor. I cannot for the life of me see who has to decide who gets to go to what bathroom in the white house. I just dont think its necessary to do that. It would be a lot easier to live with one another if we didnt have to have one answer for the entire country to that country question decided by the president. So i think there are a lot of issues like that and for both practical reasons and for these kinds of civic peace reasons, it would be better taken up now at a level closer to the ground. Not every question is like that. There are questions that we just have to resolve as a people, but i think we take way too many questions to that level now. What it does is just raise the temperature of our politics to such a degree that becomes unsustainable and now all we ever do is yell about how the whole world hated the results of this next election. We can change that and i think we ought to. Book to be taped hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events we will be covering this week. On monday is a noble book sellers, dell Quentin Wilber will discuss his latest book one month of murder about a homicide squad in maryland. Tuesday at the new york union league syndicated radio host argues that america has moved away from the founders original ideas on liberty and justice. That same evening at Harvard Book Store in, winona will talk about the impact of fracking on the environment and public health. Melissa dikeman will look at the role women play in the leadership of the tea party movement. Then on thursday, at the Ferguson Missouri Public Library africanamerican studies will argue that every time africanamericans make social progress they are met by a deliberate pushback. Then well be at the annual reading festival hosted by the president ial library and museum in hyde park new york. Thats a look at some of the author programs book tv is covering this week, many of these events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the near future on book tv on cspan2. You are watching the tv on cspan2. Whenever we get the opportunity, we like to go to College Campuses and talk with professors who are also authors. Today we are in claremont california and were discussing with the author of this book, understanding Clarence Thomas. What in your view is the biggest misconception about Clarence Thomas . The biggest misconception would be that he was somehow a shoeshine boy. He is his own man. I had a chance a few years ago to do a book on Justice Anthony scalia. I admire him enormously. In fact, theyve asked asked me to do an afterword for the book to come out in a new paperback edition and im going through all of his cases since it was published. Thomas, having done done the book on him is deeper. Hes more profound. Hes more consistent and he is a giant. Hes not as glib is not as witty or sarcastic in his opinion but he writes very solid opinions and he is remarkable. One of the things he does is each year when the court knows the big cases coming his way, he will assign a clerk or to to look at one particular issue that he hasnt really researched or thought through thoroughly in the past. He will devote an enormous amount of attention on one case and he will end up writing a concurring opinion or dissent. You cant say all the things you want to say without using supporters. Itll be 60 80 pages in length. It will be enormously well researched and it will be his statement on the issue. When that topic comes up thereafter he will write an opinion just referencing the opinion in which he really spelled all of this out. He is a remarkable man. Is he consistent . Very. What drew me to thomas was having first on the book on thomas. They were both original. I wanted to compare and contrast their original isms. Scalia has a much narrower form of original is in. There are basically three approaches to original as him. One is called original intent. Thats where the effort is made to understand the original intentions of what they were trying to accomplish in philadelphia. You look at the record of the federal convention and letters and documents. The second is original understanding. Original understanding is trying to ascertain what the document meant for the delegate and the various conventions that brought the constitution into existence. The focus there is on the state gratifying conventions and on the federalist papers written to persuade the delegates. The third approach, and this is scalias is called original public meaning. What he wants to understand is what the words from the document mean to the society that adopted it. For example i have an appendix that lists five pages of dictionaries that he has turned to to ascertain what a word meant at a particular time. He will read the federalist papers not to try to figure out what the ends they were attempting to achieve or but to ascertain what the words meant. Thomas combines all three into what i call, he will turn to what the intention of the framers are and what were the ends that they were attempting to achieve. What means bringing that approach on matters of criminal procedure, especially the bill of rights position, they are identified as the most conservative justice on the court but on criminal procedural matters he often ends up writing opinions that make him look like a liberal. He wants the words to mean what they meant at the time. He wants, he will suppress his own impulses and prejudices to try to preserve the integrity by adhering to his original general meaning approach. He does it repeatedly. A good example no one is probably more opposed to partial birth abortion than thomas. And yet when the Supreme Court heard the case he wrote an opinion saying where does congress get the power to pass the flaw. Congress said its using the Commerce Clause to regulate this kind of question. He is very consistent. How often did he and Justice Scalia vote the same on issues . Approximately 87 of the time thats less than ginsburg and breyer. The interesting thing is when they vote against each other. During that 27 years together on the court, i found about 16 instances where they didnt agree. The direct headon was only in about 16 locations. Were the writing in those cases, was it different . Almost altogether altogether had to do a statutory construction. Scalia wrote this reading law on statutory construction. Thomas takes a more, he is willing to consider more sources than what the text says. Hes more willing to look at legislative history. What does the intent of congress when they passed an act rather than exactly what the words employed to achieve that act might mean. On occasion they will quarrel on that. Im big issues, almost almost never. One is the First Amendment page. They wrote the majority opinion. California passed a law that made it a criminal offense to sell violent video games to minors without parental consent. Every acquired something on the packaging for it to go into effect. They wrote the value opinion for seven justices. The First Amendment applies not simply to books and newspapers but also to movies and the internet. Also a new medium like video games. He just employed traditional and thomas wrote this lengthy dissent saying when the First Amendment was written children didnt have any free speech rights. They were subject to whatever their parents said. He went to Early Education to show the whole argument that parental control is absolutely essential and prominent and so he writes a 40 page dissent that is focused almost exclusively on the meaning of the First Amendment and its application up until 1840. Again focusing on the original general meaning approach, he wants wants it to mean what it meant then. Another instance, another interesting case dealing with the First Amendment in children was a case called morris against frederick. You may have heard about this case. It was in anchorage alaska. The olympics were about to begin and the olympic torch was being carried through anchorage so this high school allowed older kids to go out and watch the torchbearer as he was passing. This kid comes out with a sign that says barn hits for jesus. He was suspended for a few days. He challenges the suspension saying i have free speech rights. Remember there was an earlier case tinker against des moines where they challenge objection from the vietnam war. They unanimously said thats protected speech. This time the court was unwilling to extend free speech protections. Thomas writes the opinion saying free speech rights for students at the schoolhouse door, the purpose of schools is education and not when it ends up being disruptive to the educational process. It was very interesting. Why do you think he doesnt talk from the bench. Maybe once in 25 or 30 years. I talk about this in the book and actually two years ago in february they wrote a piece called thomases outrageous conduct, the point that he had and ask any questions for eight years. We then got to the ten Year Anniversary and about three weeks after that he asked a question just a couple weeks ago i was asked to respond to them. Whats so interesting is how they prepare for oral argument. Every judge or justice will have one of its clerks write a memo on a case thats about to be argued. Then he will meet with that clerk and go over the kind of questions he should be thinking about asking and which briefs do i need to Pay Attention to, et cetera. Thomas does the same but then he has the bench memo sent to the other clerks as well as him and then they meet for about four hours on each case and sit there and just talk about it. Okay, if we decide this way, what are the longterm implications for the law. If. If we decide the other way, what are the implications. It becomes enormously wellprepared. His view is i learned by listening, not by talking. Scalia had a big impact on oral argument when he joined the bench in 86. Often there might be three or four questions asked and a half hour of an attorney. Today its about 50 questions an hour. What can you learn when 50 questions get thrown out an attorney within an hour debate. Now questions aside because each side gets 30 minutes. He said all they seem to be doing is enjoying hectoring the council. I was with him at the university of notre dame law school. He said they had a case before the court. In this case the question before the court was is it possible to pattern unique dna strands. They said that the complicated question. Before us we have the two attorneys that knew this issue better than anybody else. I was really looking forward to learning from them, but what did i get . Due to my colleagues wanting to show off how bright they were, whats interesting is that until the death of scalia, seniority seniority determines where you sit on the high bench. Thomas and scalia on one side and breyer on the other. Observers of the court have noted that frequently thomas will lean over and Say Something to breyer. Suddenly breyer pops off with a question. In one interview he gave he sent all those questions and i guess im somewhat responsible. Whats also interesting his giants on the court like all of her homes almost never asked question. To very different era today. If you add one more voice, the attorneys would have almost no time to talk. I dont know that id want nine thomases in terms of how often they joined the discussion, but a few more would surely allow an opportunity for attorneys to better express themselves. Did Justice Thomas participate or cooperate with your book . No he didnt. I wrote him and asked if i could interview him to clarify a few matters. I pointed out all of the common connections in people that we had known but he declined. So its a total armslength objectivity. He is wellliked. He is especially wellliked by his clerks. By his law clerks. When interviewed at harvard law school, she asked him what he liked least about his job as a justice in the court and he said lack of anonymity. When asked what he liked most about his job on the court he said my kids, the clerks. Thomas has a more Diverse Group of law clerks than any of the other justices. A number of them take them only from the absolute elite law schools. Thomas will take them from a whole variety of places. He has taken people who have been iraq war veterans and come back to law school and come by much more different pathways to the clerkship than most of the others. He has many more women clerks than a lot of the other justices he dotes on them. At the beginning of the term, in the summer before they have an official beginning in october, he has them watch and he has a big diesel pusher mobile home and he takes them up to the battlefield at gettysburg and becomes very close to them. They have an annual monthly reunion for all of his clerks at a restaurant each month in d. C. So he gets along well with his colleagues but hes famous with his clerks. What you think about Lifetime Appointments . I have a funny story. Justice scalia was on campus a few years ago. I was asked to introduce him to a big group down in Orange County at the airport hilton. About 700 people in the room. He was at an organization and if you contributed a certain amount of money you got invited to different things. It was sponsored by the society and theres a group known as the pace setters. The school was established in 1946 per the graduates of the first three graduating classes through 1950 are referred to as the pacesetters. I said pacemaker fellow. The audience roared in laughter. I was wondering what, and someone said pacemaker and i walked over from the podium and pulled myself together and got back up there and said there are a number of us who because of advances in modern medicine such as pacemakers wonder if we should reconsider granting time tenure. Huge laughter. When they finally got up, he said thanks. Lifetime appointments our problem. Scalia was appointed in 86. He was five months short of completing 30 years on the bench there is something about allowing, he left the court in 91 and was appointed by eisenhower and 58, 56. Thats an enormous amount of time. Eisenhower was born in the 19th century and here you have a judge by him serving until the early 1990s. I think a ten or 15 year term would make sense. You could, at at that point a point somebody like judge garland whose older. I think the only reason hes being nominated right now is because we can give someone a real shot at being confirmed. He wouldnt want someone younger to be appointed. Right now you go for young people so you can hope you can make your mark as a president that way. They will better reflect the citizenry. You have justices on the Court Dealing with the issue of cell phones. Can the fbi or the police, without a warrant upon arresting somebody search the contents of their cell phone. The Court Unanimously said no. When you listen to the oral argument, a lot of these justices dont have a clue about modern technology and all the features and all the apps that are on there. There was a case a couple of terms ago concerning a case dealing with patent law where they were able to circumvent table systems. It was clear that scalia, for example had almost no sense of cable tv, even though he helped write the cable tv act prior to his appointment as a justice. There is no real sense of contemporary technology. It would be nice to have judges rotate off so you can rotate in who have a better sense of those practices. One of the things early on when judges didnt have lifetime tenure was the road the circuit. Until the 1820s when the Supreme Court wasnt meeting and they didnt meet much, the justices were writing on carriages and horse back from court court case to court case carrying cases of the regular judges. That contributed to enormous turnover because it was a very arduous way of life. Right now pacemakers and others, they lived in florida flew up every two months for oral arguments. Modern technology and modern medicine would have befuddled the framers and made them rethink the issue of lifetime tenure. Weve been talking about his book, understanding Clarence Thomas. This is is book tv on location in claremontcollege in claremont, california. Cspan, created by americas Television Companies and brought to you by jim as a service by your cable provider. After words is next, california senator Barbara Boxer discusses her book the art of tough which looks at her life and career in politics. She is interviewed by emiko bashar from minnesota. What an honor it is to be here with you. One of my mentors in the senate as someone who came into the senate when there was barely a woman to be seen. You were there. This book that you have written, the the art of the tough really tells your story of how you got there. Barbara levy was born on november 11, 1940 from a family of jewish refugees. In your own words you grew up in a pervasive shadow of the holocaust and you end up going from that little place in brooklyn to the United States senate. You may be moved to california in between. You did it all with such grace