Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140709

Lawyer. Later former secretary Janet Napolitano talks about education policy. Next a discussion on the impact of the splooem Supreme Court decision on the can traception mandate in the Health Care Law. From washington journal, this is 40 minutes. Joining us now, pro choice america, their president , welcome. Thank you for having me. We are here to talk in part about the decisions made by the Supreme Court last week. First of all with hobby lobby, what happened . What is your perspective . My perspective is i am disturbed. What we saw were five male judges essentially say that discrimination against women is not discrimination at all. What happened is that the court decided in favor of a private corporation saying that our religious beliefs trump the civic doubt we have to provide comprehensive health care for all of our employees. This was coming on the heels of there are administration and the country acknowledging if you are truly a religious institution, are you exempt from this. You request do your own ideas about what your health care looks like, but if you are a private corporation, we all have to play by certain rules in Civil Society and this is one of them. We will provide comprehensive health care. Hobby lobby was one of dozens of companies that said, actually, im not going to. Im not going to provide certain kind of contraception. More specific, right . Always abortion specifically that caused abortions . Well, they dont. Im glad you brought that up. It was an interesting piece of the case not many people knew about. Every single medical expert in the country agrees, your viewers will be familiar with. Most of them iuds, pedestrian b, do not actually incite abortion. What they do is prevent fertilization. What the justices essentially said during the oral arguments is the medical science the facts are of no consequence legally in this case. Because we are talking about someones belief system. So there is no way for us to adjudicate what they believe even though all of medical society lined up and said the facts are flawed. So they said, no, were not going to provide these kind of contraception and the court said, unfortunately, you dont have to. Why its disturbing is because what it essentially says is Womens Health care is different than other kind of health care and in this instance, for Womens Health care, my boss gets to decide what i choose and dont choose, even though its my earning. We have to remember and your viewers know this very well, our Insurance Coverage is a part of our compensation. Its not something they just willingly provide. In fact, hobby lobby enjoys a very nice tax break on the taxpayers that are paying hobby lobby to pay its employees Health Insurance. So essentially, its punished female workers and set off a domino effect. The very next day we had other corporations say, you know what, i dont want to cover component compensation at all. It starts chipping away at what every doctor in the company says. Wart of what the justice said this is solely a mandate. Our decision should not hold an Insurance Coverage mandate must necessarily fail if it conflicts with a religious beliefs. He did write that. We will see. One of the this i think so that happened immediately after the case was handed down was a number of employees wrote a letter to president obama saying, hey, just so you know, if you actually pass an executive order that says i cant discriminate in my employment against gay and lesbian people, i intend to file ary lid a religious claim. The court tried to say this is a narrow ruling. They didnt prevent anyone else coming back an saying. They said this ruling applies to contraception. They dont prevent anyone else coming back on religious ground, they set a precedent that said, you know, that building over there you think makes widgets, it has a spiritual bleechlt it may be different than your, but it trumps yours. Thats part of what i think people are finding so disturbing ability this, we do value religious liberty in this country. Our country was actually back in a minute on it. Its what makes our democracy thrive. Wouldnt certain types of businesses fall under that, not every would follow under the elite system. What the court ruled in this case it applies to all closelyHeld Corporations. Which is not a matter of size. It is a legal structure and it actually covers 52 of our economy. It just means that the majority of the shares are held by a very small number of people some your viewers will be familiar with closely Held Corporation like cargils, like coke zrits, like toys r us. These are closely Held Corporations. So the sweeping effect is pronounced based on the ruling. So in essence, what itself the worst Case Scenario . Well, the worst case is i Case Scenario, i dont think we have seen the worst Case Scenario, we know immediately women will lose access to some kind of contraception many have been using and see them as detrimental to their health. What i think we will start to see is with the establishment of this precedent, people will file religious claims on behalf of their countries. We might see people saying i dont want to hire gay people, we might see people saying, hiv medication is against my spiritual belief and the court will now, has set a precedent it will have to hear those cases because its granted that these companies can, in fact, hold spiritual meanings. Do you know in the lower courts that possibly would work in the mandate up the Supreme Court . Not yet. There are definitely cases in the lower court that go beyond the four kind of contraception that say i dont want to cover contraception at all. I think what we will start to see because of the message the court sent is more than we tell in this letter from the employer saying, hey, if you sign in, im going to use this court case to say its against my religious beliefs to hire lbgt people. Ilyse, you want to ask her questions on it, call us. Our first call is from derek from stillwater, minnesota, independent line. You are on with ilyse hoeg. Go ahead. Caller yeah, i got a question. So knowing that, obviously, are you prochoice, its in your name. So im going to assume that. But knowing that men are now the minority in this country and women make up 53 of it, technically the minority doesnt have a voice in this example obviously if you, two people have sex and somebody decides to have an abortion, why is there no choice for the man in that side of the equation and would you support that . I think we are seeing an enormous amount of equality for men. Up with of the thing noi noted is hobby lobby covers things like viagra and other Erectile Dysfunction Drugs while its refusing to cover contraception, which as we know is actually the way that we reduce abortion in this country, by providing as much access to contraception at all. As to the callers question, i this i what we do see is enormous number, couples making this decision together. I also think the law is clear on this and women do have the ul mat choice and when theyre denied contraception, theyre denied the entire range of choices that stops us from getting to the place that your caller is talking about. Aup next. Providence, rhode island, democrats line. Yeah, good morning, i am calling concerning this issue here. Ill never forget. I have a 23yearold daughter. She was born if december of 1990 and at that time a sonogram technology was there, but, you know, it wasnt that good and i remember seeing my daughter in the sonogram. Her body, you know, moving around, a little small little thing and that conclusively told me, there is a life over there. All right. Im a prolife democrat and what i dont like is going on here is the Democratic Party. I only voted republican once and it was for ronald reagan. I voted for him two times, the Democratic Party has been taking over. Its not for the working man anymore. Even though im a retired stock 30 years in the business. Its been taken over by an elite, very wealthy elite primarily located in manhattan and los angeles. Shes got a little smirk on her face right now, im looking at it. So, caller what do you want us to address . Caller thats a good question. That conclusively with the advances in sonogram technology up to the year 2000 is definitely a life and shes smiling and you are snuffing it out. Ill let our guest respond. One of the things that is really interesting that the polling data shows is that seven in ten americans across the board, whether talking about south carolina, kansas, or nationwide support the rights that were enshrined in roe versus wade. One of the things that we know is that when abortion is made illegal the number of abortions dont go up. The number of death itself and injuries to women go up. Some people just dont believe that government should be involved in our most personal decision. But that actually spans both parties. Its a really interesting dynamic that we see that every ethnicity. Every age group, every party, there is still a majority of support for women and with our partners and our doctors to make our most personal Health Care Decisions and im from texas, so im very familiar with all the different kind of democrats and republicans, but i thank your caller for his call. He is certainly entitled to his opinion. We all have opinions. I think the question is what the law should do in terms of taking the callers opinion and imposeing it on other people and the law is very clear on that. The law is clear this is a privacy whysh that women with our doctors an our families only we know our own individual circumstances and thats why it protects to us make our own personal Health Care Decisions. Next on our republican line, lowell, go ahead. Caller its terribly disturbing to watch the disposition of the youth in the united states, sex seems to be something that people who know longer have it into ed to pay. I understand both sides, but i certainly look at hobby lobby as standing up for their religious rights, where you were a muslim, we and the right in the nation would be totally for a mussily. Having any kind of desire he have and supporting that. Its i raised my children with god in their lives and it should be respected and my daughter, alexandra, at 21, i think she needs to have contraception and i would hope that it would be only after shelves married, not before. I know that is no longer the moral and ethical stances that people in the united states, but it should be and for a person who atests to do the right thing in life and their parents rayes raised them properly to have the ideas that our grandparent had about morality and ethics, we want to instill in our children. I dont want to take up any more of our time. What i want to say is if you are moral and ethical. It seems like you should be patted on the back rather than made to feel the fool. It sounds like the caller has a lovely family. I applaud him for it. People in this country have all sorts of different attitudes and different kind of partnerships. Thats what makes our country wonderful. I think what is challenging about the hobby lobby case is it does actually reject medical science that these kind of contraceptions are used for all sorts of conditions, including preventing unintended pregnancy, including for married people. Its a funny thing to note the iud is used for married, sorry, used disproportionately by married people who feel like their family size is what theyve chosen. So it sounds like the caller has a lovely family. But i think its not pursuant to the case, because if you actually want to make a case, that hobby lobby should be consistent, the question of why theyre not covering contraception that is used by married people, single people, people with medical conditions, people who want to avoid unintended presents a, but they are covering viagra, cialis and the other kind of drugs. Thats a really relevant question in this case. Thats what leads us to the fact it is a discrimination against one class of people. Thats women who work for hobby lobby. You use the phrase five mill justices in the beginning, that was a part of your response the decision. They also added a little Justice Kennedys language in his writings. He said this, he said this, its important to confirm a premise of the courts opinion is the assumption of the hhs here is a compelling interest in the health of female employees, kennedy wrote, although the court didnt explicitly halt a compelling interest. The National Review goes on to say, kennedy pointed out the government has admitted by coming up with a socalled commentation it could restrict furthering the interest tan using the contraceptive mandate. Did they take the wrong approach . Well, its a very interesting thing to lay it out even and put a finer point on it. What Justice Kennedy is arguing is sort of different than what your caller is arguing. Justice kennedy is saying it is in the best interest to provide contraception for women across this country for medical reasons, all of the above. But because the government had said for religious affiliates and nonprofit, he was arguing its less onerous on the government than the business. Whats fascinating is the very next day they issued a series of emergency rulings, including the one on Wheaton College that shows that they actually dont have to abide by the very accommodation that Justice Kennedy those who may not be familiar with the Wheaton College ruling. What is it . It says you dont have to cover this at all right now. And that was not you have to find a third party administrator, which is what the government argued. So, basically, we are getting into the legal leads here. But the people have said, oh, but that means that the accommodation will stand, it will be next session. All Justice Kennedy is saying the burden is on the government to show that they said this is the least restrictive way to accomplish their goals in this case, providing contraception. This is not the least restrictive way in Justice Kennedys opinion. Theyve already shown there is another way t. Accommodation is up before the Supreme Court. With the wheaton ruling, it sort of tipped our hands the very next day. You know what the accommodation may not stand either. We are back to square one. Frank lives in fort lauderdale, florida. He is on our independent line. Go ahead. Caller yes, hi, i want to ask you about the religious component in this whole argument, which you have been addressing from the pro choice side. You know, on Notre Dame University there was, a you know, there was some people who didnt want obama to speak there a number of years ago because of his views on abortion some of the alumni got pretty mad. Georgetown university, obama spoke at that school. They covered up the Christian Cross in the back drop. I saw obama at notre dame, i sided with him there. I basically was against them putting a white sheet over the Christian Cross. I thought if obowl is going to choose that venue, he has to put up with the institution or which includes the Catholic Church that hes at and to a certain extent, i, you know, i sympathize with the ruling. I figure its similar to this case to it. Could you comment on that . Well, im not familiar with the case of georgetown, i do know our president is a christian. So i cant say anything more than that i think the point the caller is making about religious liberty is a very important one. As i started to say earlier, it was a value our country was founded on. Its what makes our democracy tread. Religious liberty means two things, it means i dont have to do anything because of my own personal faith and the government cant force me to do that. However, i dont get to force anyone else to do anything that they dont want to do because of my personal faith i dont get to tell my people what to do. That makes religious freedom thriving and make sure we have the diversity in our democracy that we actually value and we pledge religious persecution from. I think whats happening in the hobby lobby the owners can say, this is not right for my family. This is not what i want to do. If you enjoy the tax breaks of being in a democracy, you are expected to play by a certain set of rules an part of those rules is, i dont get to impose my religious beliefs on my employees. I am a private corporation. They have just broken those rules, which really does endanger religious liberty. I think thats why we saw a lot of people of faith speaking out. There were a lot of preachers and reverends who said this is not a victory. This is actually a scary defeat for religious liberty and that we value in this country. A viewer of twitter says this is a problem, forcing companies to provide specific coverages. Shouldnt it be the customers choice . In this case, it would be the customers choice. The government has a compelling interest in making shoo you are the Health Insurance plans that again tax payers are subsidizing, they get tax breaks, are comprehensive enough that it actually affects everyone equally. Every employee should have equal access. They can choose to use it or not they have to have an equal lefr level of coverage in their Health Insurance plans. In this case, thats exactly what this is doing is not making it unequal, what Affordable Care act did and did so well was actually say we all do better, economically from a health perspective, from a civic perspective, within we you the most amount of preventative medicines, preventative treatments possible. Thats where the contraception got covered. It is a preventative treatment. If you already have the family size you feel like you can afford, that you want, it prevents unintended pregnancies and this coverage or this case actually flies in the face of. There is a story from abc news saying that more than half of privately insured women are Getting Health Care control under the law. Which is a great step forward. If that is still hang, why is hobby lobby still concerned . In america, we believe there is a compelling reason for everyone to get the baseline. Right. That people shouldnt be excluded simply because of where they work or where they live. Its sort of like what we do with the civil rights laws, you dont have different voting rules because you live in the south. You dont have different Health Insurance rules just because you are employed by this private corporation, not this private corporation. Helen from maryland. Hi there. Hi, im helen. I like to say thanks, to c span for this opportunity to talk about hobby lob bit. I am a big customer of hobby lobby. I am going to stop being a big customer of hobby lobby. I am practice choice. I have a religious background. However, i did, i went to the Supreme Court got a judgment for something that leave that judgment to god because what hobby lobby is doing right now, theyre deciding what people can do in their homes with their families. Hobby lobby should be doing that for their families and they are making enough money to do whatever they want. But the employees are not and if thats what is a part of their coverage in the past because we just happen that they can stop doing it. But if that was a part of their coverage perhaps hobby lobby needs to inceo es the pay for these employees so they can get the contraceptives that they want and also if theyre not getting it from hobby lobbys payment, theyre going to get it out of the taxpayers pocket in order to cover whatever contraceptives they want and my last comment is hobby lobby is making this judgment on contraceptives when a majority of their products in their store happen to be made in china. China has the worst human rights and the restriction of how many kids you can have and im sure they doing something to prevent. Thanks. You know, i think the caller is making a point that a lot of people are frustrated about that. There is a lot of inconsistencies in the hobby lobbys claim that this is a keeply held spiritual bloef for them t. Caller pointed out hobby lobby had the contraception coverage before they dropped it in order to file suit. There has been a lot to talk about the Pension Funds are invested in the manufacturers devices that they claim to be morally opposed to. I think that as i understand it is legally inadmissible in the case. However, i think its frustrating to a lot of people who believe it goes to motive. If hobby lobby was truly infusing its business as it claims to with these spiritual value, neither of those facts would be true, they would be so opposed to these kind of contraceptions, they wouldnt have them in the first place and certainly wouldnt be invested in them as a company. From pennsylvania, this is richie on the republican line for ilyse hockey. Caller i am a pro choice republican and a medic with 25 years experience. I want to reeducate you guys back in 1973, nine male Supreme Courts said that abortion was legal and there is planned parenthood for all people. Not just when its for example if a guy wants to get tested forters cal cancer, you dont need a Birth Control thing. Its not just for women. Thats why i support planned parenthood, also. Thank you, have a nice day. Thank you, richie. Are you absolutely correct. It was nine male justices who decide roe and i think the point the caller is making. First of all, thank you, you are gindling brodie, a pro choice republican. Although there used to be many, many. The point the caller is making is that the Reproductive Health field is large and it includes an enormous number of services for both men and women, including contraception devices used for a whole host of conditions, including avoiding unintended pregnancy, but not exclusively that and that these decisions ability when and how to use these devices should be left to the individual, their family and their doctor as necessary and i think thats what were, you know, were disturbed by if a hobby lobby cases, it extends the buss reach from the boardroom into the bidroom into the most private decisions of their employees, which feels count tore what we believe in many earthquake. The cofounders had microphones after the decision to give their thoughts. This is what they had to say. The Supreme Court reaffirmed americas country is founded on and sustained by religious liberty. Its been a long journey but an important one for our family and for those who wish to be guided in all areas of life, including their businesses by faith and conscience. We are truly thankful for a decision that continued to allow us continue operating our Family Business according to our principles. One of those principles is gratitude and we are deeply grateful to our employees, to our customers, to the many, many individuals from all walks of life who have shown their support through word, action and prayer. We thank god for his Many Blessings and ask for his continued grace to shine on our nation. Miss hoeg, any thoughts . No, i this i that, you know, again there is a onesided understanding of religious liberty which is my religion, my liberty. What we are seeing is their ploem employees arent afforded the same right if america. An employee that says not only does it go against my morality, its zbrumt instrumental to my way of life to have access to full Reproductive Health care coverage. Theyre being thrown by the wayside. When you hear thoughts of tom kellogg, twitter, he says, how is hobby lobby forcing their views . They are just not paying for it . So the kind of devices that are at in question with hobby lobby are roughly amount to a months pay for a low wage worker. Thats a lot. Its certainly a lot for people of the means of the hobby lobby calendars and the people we just saw to say oh, go out and get it. The other thing tom kellogg has to say is actually hobby lobby is benefiting from the tax breaks from taxpayers who are saying you are going to give your employees health care coverage. So we will subsidize your company because we believe in that. You cant have it both ways. One of the things that we were watching that the court could have chosen to do was to say, this is not a substantial burden on your religious liberty. Because you can just choose not to give your employees healthcare at all. There is a penalty for that. It probably is about the same as what theyre paying for the health care. So its not a financial burden on the company. So they could have just chosen not to give their employees Health Coverage at all. They would be gree to get it on full coverage. Theyre not offering them that option. Theyre saying, basically, male employees, you will get everything you want. Female employees, are you paying the same with your copay and labor, you will only get what i tell you you can get. Laura up next in pennsylvania. Republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning, folks, i just want to say im a Nurse Practitioner in Womens Health i am very prolife. She opened, miss hoeg opened this part by saying that these are not abortive patients. When you talk about iuds and things that prevent implantation. I guess shes not aware that most people, even religious people especially that espouse do not kill innocent unborn babies when they began was when the sperm met the egg and that is when they consider a new human life because thats a new human dna. Its not the mothers. Its another human person beginning to grow so anything that prevents that baby to continue to grow and have one choice at life, that is what they were espouseing. I dont think its just about religious liberty. Its about science, also. I was watching cosmos, they were saying scientifically we know its when the egg meets the sperm. Can you tell me how much does planned parenthood make . I dont keep track of planted parenthood. I know they have Free Health Care to women and men as the previous caller said thatwise would not have access to it at all. A and you know the caller is totally entitled to her religiously based belief that life begins whenever she believes it begins. The point is its not my opinion, its actually the American College of gynecologists the american medical association. Its all of the medical experts that line up and say that there is a scientific definition of abortion and that thats not what these contraception devices do. The court felt that was inadmissible for the same reason your caller says i believe it and in religious liberty cases, they are judging belief. But that doesnt make it 69 tickally true. In fact, we have all the experts saying it is not. Could we say that insurance or an employer doesnt provide these types of contraceptions, they could go to other means or ways to get them. Whether from planned parenthood or other ways of getting hem . . In some places. Certainly with refacing a place where women in my home state of texas have to travel hundreds of miles for Reproductive Health care t. Hobby lobby case is one piece of a long terrell and very sustained effort to championship away at womens access to Reproductive Health care about whats best for us. So there is an expense piece to it. As one caller said, if the companies arent going to pay even if they are getting tax breaks f. Women can find it then youve got the taxpayer paying. They are paying twice for hobby lobby to be able to hold its religious beliefs in this one case where it didnt have it before and it still has its Pension Funds invested in the same manufacturers. Sandy from michigan on our independent line, good morning. Sandy, are you there . Oops, sorry. Got to push the button first. Sandy, good morning, go ahead. Caller good morning. I just wanted to say on this case of the Supreme Court against hobby lobby. They did not say a woman could not have contraception. All they said is you couldnt have it for free. If im an atheist. It has to do with the fact that i have to pay for somebody else to sleep around and i dont like that. I never did and i dont expect that i should have to pay for somebody else that did thank you. You know, one of the things that the caller just said is a very common misconception that this is free contraception. Our benefits packages including our Health Care Benefits are part of our employment. Its what we pay for when we go to work every single day. In fact, thats where the sort of discriminary fakes and unequal justice comes in. The men are working at hobby lobby with their labor, they are actually getting everything that they possibly could want, including viagra, if they choose to sleep around or choose to use it in their marriage. The women again iuds, which is one of the Birth Control in question, is just proportion natalie used by married people as a very reliable device are not getting that same benefit even though theyre working as hard and even though the company is getting the same tax break. Its not free. Its not necessarily for people who sleep around, although it would be nice if we could all judge each others behavior. Its for medical concerns beyond preventing unintend presents as. Its for married people to choose their family size, for single women to make sure they dont have families before theyre ready. As i said, the medical experts and the government believe there is a compelling interest and making sure that these resources and medical services are available to women who have paid for them, themselves, with their labor. Glenda lives in pennsylvania. Democrats line. Caller hello. Are you on. Go ahead. Caller okay. I just wanted to know if hobby lobby pace for the sexing . I dont know that for sure. We know they pay for viagra, which has been sort of the comparison i actually dont know. Although we have no reason because they are typically covered in many of these Health Care Plans. I honestly dont know. A sec decision mailed by the court dealt with free speech zones, in massachusettes, could you tell the viewers what happened . Yes. Sure t. Week before hobby lobby was decided, there was a Court Decision that came down that said that the protective buffer zones around Reproductive Health clinics in massachusetts were no longer constitutional that what had been put in place by Public Safety officers routinely dealing with people harassed, threatened, intimidated, screened at going into clinics were that those could no longer stand and that there would be access by the protesters who are almost always there. How many justices decide on this . You know the justices decided on free speech grounds, which we found. It was unanimous, right . It was unanimous, yes, 390. It did leave in place other kind of buffer zones we have around the country. There is one in colorado that has been upheld by the Supreme Court you know what was interesting was the speech if question was not being impeded. In fact, you have people in the clinic saying i can hear you just fine. Im just going to continue unimpeded to my appointment inside the clinic and you have a buffer zone larger than this around the Supreme Court, which became a talking point and around polling places. Weve seen it at political conventions, protesters are asked to stay a certain length back from the delegates going into the convention. So we have a history in this country of balancing free speech with Public Safety and in the case of massachusetts the reason there was a photo in the boston global. It shows a gentleman behind the line. It looks like he is almost pushed out to the street as far as the street zone is concerned. Yeah, it was 35 feet the buffer zone around the Vietnam Court is 2352. The polling places is about 100 feet. We have a history in this country of balancing free speech and in the case of massachusetts, the attorney general asked for the law because people have been murdered in the clinics. That has gotten pushed aside in the wake of this case. You know, people have been routinely harassed that the tension was rising. Won day somebody walked in and shot people in the clinic. They said, we have to do something. We cant protect Public Safety t. Supreme court said not this way. Not here. We are disappointed but there is a lot of attention going into replacing that law with one that more closely prescribes to the one already upheld by the Supreme Court because there is a compelling interest in protecting both the doctors and clinic workers as well as the people going to their appointment. Lets hear from brad, republican line in texas. Are you the last call. Caller actually, its brett. Its not a big deal. I want to say this, im glad we have have an open forum here. I do know for a fact hobby lobby does cover 16 times of Birth Control fda approved. The four contraceptive or and or you know methods that the hobby lobby is against or will not cover is the plan b, the copper intrauterine devices the iudt. Reason theyre morally opposed to those four is because they believe according to science or their study or understanding is that these pills or these contraceptives actually have the ability to possibly harm or kill a human that is growing inside of the female. Where i think we are getting off track here is it seems more like we are arguing about free stuff rather than contraception in the health of women. They do offer 16 different types of Birth Control. So, you know, we have already covered the fact that rorls of what hobby lobby believes, medical establishment says this does not disrupt pregnancy or life as medical people understand it. You know it is true they cover 16. The very next day what we saw were companies saying i dont want to cover any of these. So thats a part of the slippery slope. Even if you cover 16 but not 20. Thats sort of saying ill cover these 16 drugs, but the one that works best for you im deciding you dont get. So there are very specific reasons that women and families choose these specific devices, medical reasons, they have to deal with how our bodies react to things. So its not mix and match. Its like saying you walk into the pharmacy and let your pharmacist decide whats best for you, not your doctor, not yourself, not your own experience, that i think is so disturbing to people. We live in a country where we trust individuals to make our own personal decisions. In this case the court famed us, hobby lobby gets to make our personal decisions. We will keep fighting to make sure women have access. Does this come into the 2014 midterms and how much so . I cant speak to 2016 yet. We are trying to get through 2014. I do believe it will be a huge issue. The outrage we have experienced on this in a country where 99 of women use Birth Control at some point our families depend on it. Youve got a real marginal feel tlag has 3re veiled that is basically leak i know better than you, better than your family what you should do with your personal life and thats just not the way most americans think and i think theyre going to be looking for an electoral remedy. I think, you know this furthers the idea that republicans are out of touch with women and families need in this country. Ilyse hoeg, if you want to find out more about the organization, miss hoeg, thank you. The white house has requested 3. 7 to deal with border security. On our next washington journal, we will talk with Arizona Republican congressman David Schweikert and door his meissner. As part of our spotlight on magazine series, entrepreneur and venture capitalist nick ha anauer will speak. Walk journal is live each morning at 7 00 eastern on c span. You can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Wednesday, british Prime Minister David Cameron appears before members of the british house of commons dush Prime Ministers question time. Live coverage from the palace of westminster at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on our companion network c span 2. 40 years ago the watergate scandal led to the only resignation of an american president. Throughout this month, american tv revisits the final weeks of the nixon administration. This weekend hear the oral argument as the Watergate Special prosecutor contests executive privilege over his oefrl office recordings. Now the president may be right in how he reads the constitution but he may also be wrong an if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so . And if there is no one, then the president , of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government . Watergate, 40 years later. Sunday fight at 38 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. Next, a review of the most recent Supreme Court terms, with reporters who covered the court. This event is hosted be i the d. C. Br. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for coming. Im arthur spitzer. My day job is legal director of the local office of the American Civil Liberties union, but im here wearing my hat as a volunteer for the d. C. Bar and the first thing i need to say is we apologize for the lack of adequate food for which you all paid. I understand that more sandwiches are being made as i speak and are going to be up shortly and nobody should hesitate to get up and get some food during the program. Nobody will mind. So welcome to the 26th annual the Supreme Court view from the press Gallery Program sponsored by the d. C. Bar section on courts, lawyers and the administration of justice. I have a few other political naers in addition to food before we begin. First our thanks, to arnold importer in whose room we are gathered. They are hosting us again for i dont know maybe the eighth or tenth 84 and thanks to marsha tucker, their pro bono coordinator for helping to host us and help with all the arrangements. Thanks to c span, which is in the back for covering us again the year. You will be able see the rebroadcast of this program at various odd hours for the next now days and then it will be in their archive where you can watch it on your computer at your leisure. If you dont want the being of your head to be on national tv, you are welcome to slink to the side around avoid that. Thanks to fritz mullhauser for being the producer of this him practice, coordinating between the d. C. Bar and around old reporter ampbtd cspan and making all the necessary arrangements be you he is not responsible for the food situation. The section on courts oh and the d. C. Bar tells me i have to announce this session is on the record but you into ted bars approval if advance if you are going to record it cspan has the bars approval, but if you dont have the bars approval, you are not authorized to record t. Section on courts, lawyers and the administration of justice is one of more than 20 sections of the d. C. Bar, through which much of the brs work is done. That section concentrates on matters pertaining to court administration, rules, relationship between the bench and the bar and all aspects of a lawyers relationship to the profession, including ethics, discipline and admission standards t. Section also focuses on improving access to justice for everyone in d. C. The other sections ten other sections are cosponsors of todays program. They cover pretty much the range of Legal Practice and i would encourage all of you if are you members of the d. C. Bar and not yet active members of at least one section to think about becoming an active member. To many of you here for the summer, but are future members of the d. C. Bar, when you get back, you should certainly think about becoming active in one or more bar sections. Its a great way to get to know other lawyers outside of your own firm or practice, to learn more about interesting areas of the law and to make a difference in the profession. On a personal note, if you are not yet a member of the American Civil Liberties union, i have membership forms in my briefcase, which id be happy to give you after the program. We are prif leejd to have with us this afternoon a panel of journalists who have been covering the Supreme Court for, by my count, 107 years. I will introduce them briefly in the order of how long they have been covering the court beginning with tony morrow on my far left of the National Law Journal and media. Tony has been covering the courts since 1979, usa today. He joins the legal times in 2000 and continued as its Supreme Court spoern correspondent after its merger with the National Law Journal in 2009. His undergraduate degree is from rutgers. His journalism degree is from columbia. David savage, next to tony, has been covering the court, has been with the los angeles sometimes since 1981 an covering the court since 1986 and also in the last several years covering the courts for the chicago tribune. These author of a book called turning right the making of the rehnquist Supreme Court and hes recently authored the latest edition of the congressional quarterlys guide to the u. S. Supreme court. David has degrees from unc at chapel hill and at northwestern. Joan biscubic on my far right comfortr covered it for reuters since fine 89. Before reuters, she covered the courts for usa today and before that for the Washington Post. She is also a regular panelist on the pbs washington weekly show. She earned her law degree at George Town Law School and she specializes in presenting the Supreme Court through the lens of judicial biography. She has written sandra day oconnor, how the first woman became the most influential justice and more recently american original, the life and constitution of Supreme Court Justice Anthony scalia. As a Public Policy scholar at the wilson center, joan is within weeks of finishing is new book called breaking in, the rise of Sonia Sotomayor a and the politics of justice which has a publication date of the first tuesday in october. One day after the court returns. Robert barnes, next to joan, joined the Washington Post in 1987, covering maryland politic, always an interesting boat. Since then, he has served as Deputy National editor in charge of domestic issues, the nationa Political Editor in the first term of the Clinton Administration and the papers metropolitan reporter and began covering the Supreme Court in 2006. Bob has planning to go to law school and changed his mind after a journalism course as an undergraduate that university of florida. The biography on the Washington Post website said it did not occur to him that he could do both. But perhaps a better explanation is that he realizes he didnt need three years of law school to not practice law. Kimberly atkins on my immediate right is Washington Bureau chief for the dolan companys publications, specialized legal and business journals including the new york daily record, the massachusetts lawyers weekly, the Wisconsin Law journal, the federal news service and about a dozen others. Kimberly has covered the court and capitol hill since 2007. Previously, worked at some daily newspapers including the boston globe. Before launching her journalism career, he was a litigator in boston so shes a reformed litigator. A graduate of wayne state university, Boston University school of law and the columbia journalism school. I learned from the internet that kim is also a Fashion Designer and the owner of kim eileen design creating custom womens special occasion and bridal wear so if you need legal advice or a gown, see kimberly. Last but not least, adam liptak on my immediate left covering the court for the New York Times. He took over that beat six years ago but he has a long history at the times which he first joined as a copy boy in 1984 after graduating from yale to which he returned for his law degree in 1988. In 1992, he joined the times as Corporate Legal department advising the paper and representing it in litigation involving defamation, privacy, the right to gather news and similar issues. Decade later, he became a reporter covering legal issues including the nominations of justices roberts and alito. And series of deep reports about the contributions, the connections between the contributions to the political cam pans of justices on the ohio Supreme Court and those justices voting records. His work also appeared in the new yorker, vanity fair, Rolling Stone and other publications. Unlike most of the end of term Supreme Court panels, this is not a bunch of legal hot shots analyzing the cases as lawyers although they are all hot shots and well talk about some cases plu the plan is to talk mostly about the court as an institution and a collection of individuals and about covering the court as journalists. I plan to save sometime at the end for questions from the audience and so i encourage you to think about questions you might want to ask and ill try to remind you about that again as we get closer to the end. Finally, youll be receiving through the email an evaluation form from the d. C. Bar. We really appreciate it if you would fill them out and send them in. We do read every one. We have made some changes in the program over the years in response to comments. And i encourage you to complain about the food problem so that the bar will do a better job next year we hope. And now im going to sit down. And lets start the discussion with yesterdays front page stories about the hobby lobby decision on monday. It seems to me its a great example of the challenge of squeezing a complicated decision with many facets into a few paragraphs in a newspaper or on a website. The leads of the Daily Reporter who is are here on the panel today were somewhat different and im curious to ask the reporters about why they made some different choices. And at the risk of taking up more time with my monologue, im going to read some of the openings of some of the stories. The New York Times story began, the Supreme Court ruled on monday that requiring family owned corporations to pay for Insurance Coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. It was a decision of startling breadth. The 54 ruling which applies to 2 companies owned by christian families opened the door to many challenges from corporations over laws they claim violate their religious liberty. The Washington Post began, the Supreme Court struck down a key part of president obamas healthcare law monday ruling that familyowned businesses dont have to offer do not have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the owners religious belief. The decision deeply split the court not only on the holding protecting some businesses from offering contraceptive coverage, but also on how broadly the order will apply. The Los Angeles Times began, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time monday that private companies had a religious right to be exempted from federal law. Saying a business owned by christians may refuse to pay for insurance paying for contraceptives for female employees. It was a victory for social conservatives and the high courts most important statement on religious freedom in years. Reuters, in a story not by joan but her colleague Lawrence Hurley said the Supreme Court on monday ruled that the owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of the Health Care Law for insurance of Birth Control for women. The decision which applies only to a small number of family or other closely held companies. Means an estimated several thousand women whose Health Insurance comes from the Companies May obtain certain forms of Birth Control elsewhere and kimberlys story from one of her papers that i found on the internet says the u. S. Supreme court held that the Affordable Care acts requirement that employer funded Health Care Plans cover certain contraceptives at no cost to employees violates the rights of closely held private companies. So some stories emphasized in the lead the potential breadth of it. Some stories emphasized the narrowness of it. Some spoke about emphasized that it was privately owned or family companies. Some said only that it opened the door to perhaps challenges by many corporations. So im curious about some of the choices that were made and why. Adam, would you like to start . I thought they all sounded pretty good. But i think we could spend the rest of the session reading our stories aloud. I wont. You know, the case had many moving pieces and you could focus in the first couple sentences on one aspect or the other. But like the aclus position on education, admissions and higher education, i think the diversity may be a good thing. Art, i was thinking about the emphasis an its slight in each of them but speaking from reuters point of view and we had several different story that is went out that day. The first one is going to have some emphasis on what it means for business because reuters is an emphasis on business and thats a reference to the companies affected and how many employees. But then, we followed up with another story that talked about where this fits into the whole scheme of the whole term. And then another story about how this might change kind of the corporate landscape with this combined with the Citizens United ruling. But even hearing you read these, i know you thought there were a lot of differences but frankly i thought they all sort of captured the essence of the morning with just slight nuances depending on what kind of audiences we all serve and we all do serve different audiences. One one fact that seemed to me quite important about the decision was the question of whether any women would actually lose free access to contraception as a result. And i didnt see anything about that anywhere near the top of any of these stories. David savages has it in the sixth sentence in the fifth paragraph which was higher up than anybody else. He addresses the question of whether anyone would lose access and in other stories it was much further down. Also wrote about four versions of that story during the day and get to cover different i mean, all of us i think now in the same business of trying to write a quick version for the web and an updated version for the web and then another version for the newspaper. And with each version, i get questions from editors just like that saying, wait a minute. Are women really going to lose contraceptive . By the end of the day we have a few sentences that said many not many women lose coverage in the end. I thought it was interesting, too, what you had here was a dissent that was saying that this decision is very broad and you had an opinion by the majority saying, no, its actually very narrow. And they went back and forth on these two things. And, you know, some wondered was ginsberg making it a bigger decision than it was in the way she wrote about it. And then others say, actually what she did is force the majority and justice aloito to go back in the opinion and say its not about this and not about this and actually just about contraception. I think it remains to be seen exactly what this decision will mean but its interesting that the two sides sort of went back and forth at each other about this and so its a little hard at this point to tell its a really broad or whether it is a narrow decision. And did you see what Justice Kennedy did . He writes a separate concurring opinion that Justice Kennedy and usually straddles the middle and whose vote takes the middle. He wrote a concurring opinion saying, lets lower the temperature here. The decision doesnt mean as much as my colleague Ruth Ginsberg with the dissent has said but its, you know, its narrower the way Justice Alito says and like he tried to bridge the rhetoric in the moment more than the substantive issue. Justice ginsberg is not normally an alarmist and having achieving the goals that bob said might have been part of the reason for the dissent. She saw it the way she saw it and that kind of alarmist dissent, theres history for it. You remember that Justice Scalia in two big gay rights decisions said, if you buy this, then the next thing you know, samesex marriage and he turned out to be right. Somewhat broader question still focusing on hobby lobby, the case involved four separate issues, any one of which could have been determinetive. Whether a corporation was a person for the religious freedom restoration act or whether the owners could assert its rights, whether the law imposes substantial burden on the religious beliefs, whether the government had a compelling interest in providing the coverage and did so by the least restrictive means. How do you deal with all that or is that only of interest to legal geeks . Can you get all that in your story and how do you try to make it understandable or dont bother . I definitely had to get all that in my story and write in part for lawyers and the legal issues are definitely what theyre interested in and its, you know, similar to what other people said. I write for business papers, legal papers. We have a daily business paper in Oklahoma City where hobby lobby is located and came out looking differently which went to press a couple days later. But yeah. You have to sort of explain what it means in a way that is understandable and for lawyers and other who is read the paper because its not just lawyers to understand exactly what the impact of it means because there is a lot of rhetoric and people on the television immediately in the aftermath saying a lot of things and difficult to find out what the law is after this opinion and sometimes it takes a couple days for it to settle down and for people to really analyze it and start coming to some conclusions. Do your editors give you all the space you want to detail a case like that . You know, they always have the power of the they hold the scissors so i just give them i give them a big long story and they can trim it to their individual needs. But i normally dont get cut off. My stories stend to be in the 1,200 word range. At least this one, we knew what that bottom line was and who won, knew who lost. It was relatively easy. About a week before there was a Green House Gas case where Justice Scalia starts reading the majority opinion and i was downstairs. You guys were upstairs and scalia very rarely is on the side of the environmentalists so you assume epa will lose and theres rhetoric about how the regulation goes too far and in the written version, about 25, 26 pages in, after saying why epa loses, he turned and said, however, it could be approved against power plants under a different regulation and a different argument. He said upstairs, epa basically won most of this case. But that was a really interesting scramble because a lot of people put stories up on the web right away saying Court Strikes down Greenhouse Gas regulation based on what the court seemed to say and then at the end of the opinion, they basically said, well, actually, epa won most of the case. Im glad you didnt pick it because it was all around a lot at the beginning. Like the aca decision two years ago. The same thing happened when the chief justice went into all the things wrong with the decision and said, but its constitutional. You know . After a lot of news organizations reported that it had been that it had been struck down erroneously. I thought at least Justice Alito wept out of the way to lay out very clearly exactly what you knew by page 2 what happened and maybe attempt to avoid a situation like with the first aca challenge where nobody really understood what happened in the beginning because the lead was buried as we say. Except that, well, i was used to tell people to find out what the majority ruled you should read the dissent first but i think the Common Thread in all these discussions so far is that theres sort of there is some spin going on with the majority saying, oh, this is very limited and the dissenters saying, no, this is opens a big can of worms, and its a real challenge i think to figure out which is the right, you know, which is the right tone to set in writing our stories. Especially, when we have to do it within seven minutes after the decision comes down. But this was also the case in the harris versus quinn, the union agency case that came out where, you know, they stopped short of striking down or agency fees altogether and alito, it was fairly clear that they stopped short of doing that but then, you know, how do you know really whats going to happen next . I thought that decision by Justice Scalia that you were talking about, david, was a particularly good example of what happens at least once or twice a year in that i imagine must present special challenges to the press. Heres the summary of the lineup from the end of the courts syllabus in that case. It says, Justice Scalia announced the judgment of the court and delivered an opinion parts 1 and 2 of which were for the court. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy joined the opinion in full. Jous tis thomas and alito joined 1, 2a and 2b and 1 others joined. Justice breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in port and ginsberg, sotomayor and kagan joined and Justice Alito concurring in part and dissenting and Justice Thomas joined. So how do you even figure out your editors on the phone moments saying 52 or 72 . So whats the correct answer, 72. But but look at what really matters going into it and the interesting thing about the epa and recess opinion case and harris v. Quinn on monday, we have certain expectations of how far the court might go, the union one, we knew what was at risk here. The idea that maybe Public Employees werent going to have to pay union dues, the whole free rider question that we thought the court was going to challenge. They didnt end up reversing aed in intobood but a set back anyway and you have to figure out what to do and adam was saying that you kind of have to figure out what vote really matters here in the recess appointments, the unanimity of the setback to president obama and his nlrb appointments mattered and the 54 rationale is key and work them in both together and for the immediate what you send out as an urgent or to your bosses right away that they can put on the wire and will make a difference to all the readers of all different stripe, you have to really give them one vote and one quick hit. Keep revising. I would say, too, you know, one thing that we are all lucky about is that we cover the court fulltime. And that means that we can really concentrate on the court and go to oral arguments and if youd been at oral arguments in these cases, these decisions although they come down in a complicated manner were not surprising. I think we probably all wrote sort of a version of it after the oral argument because it certainly seemed clear in the epa case that there was a majority that didnt believe they had the power to do one thing but that they were going to be able to do it some other way. I think we got that feeling after the recess appointment oral arguments, too. And so, one i think big advantage that we have is that we do have that background so that when one of these complicated decisions come down we still know what the arguments were, we know how the court seemed to accept them or reject them at oral argument. But this was an odd term in one sense. We struggle after going to an argument about how much we want to predict the result. And often the safest thing to do is the justices seem divided over whether to ban abortion, protest, ban protests near abortion clinics or to allow the police to search the cell phones of people they arrest. That seemed divided. Turned out to be wrong in both cases because they were unanimous in both. In addition to the front page stories like hobby lobby and cell phone searches, even at the end of the term, many of the cases handed down in the last couple of weeks were quite technical and may be of great interest to a fairly limited audience. For example, there was Fifth Third Bank corp. About whether the trustees of an Employee Stock option plan get a presumptionive of prudence buying stock in the company that the Retirement Plan connects to. Or, halliburton at what stage in litigation can a defendant in a stock fraud class action can a defendant try to show that the alleged fraud had no affect on the market price of the stock . How much time do you need to spend and can you spend on immerses yourself in the details of cases like that and how much room do you get from your editors or do you want to report the details of cases like that that may be of great interest but only to a small audience . So those two cases very different answers. No one with a pulse cares about the fifth third case but the halliburton, we wrote about. Had a way to do away with security fraud class actions so you couldnt really ignore that. Its a balancing act, right . During oral arguments you dont know in which order the decisions will come down or which decisions will come down together. Im the sole washington reporter for all my papers and im only within person so i covered oral arguments in fifth third because it was an issue for particularly lawyers that could be of interest and when it came down, it came down in a flurry of you know, much bigger, much more impactful cases and ended up not writing a story about the decision and i think some publications may have run ap copy or not cared so much at all because they were so focused on the other cases so i try during the course of the year to pace so that the decisions will come down at the same way that oral arguments will but it doesnt always work out. I make sort of a different comment. There are a lot of cases during the term that are not all that interesting but i was sort of struck this year as i every year the Supreme Court deserves credit for style points of dra massachusetts its as predictable as heat and humidity in late june. Theres a series of Big Decisions and then the last day some really Big Decisions that sort of divide the court, divide the whole country. It happens all the time. A lot of people paying any attention like in the health care case, gay marriage case, you generally dont know how the Supreme Court will rule. It is really unusual part of government deciding something really big an you dont know how it will come out. They decide it with a bang at the end of june. And then they leave the bench and take off for three months and just seems to me, boy, they really know how to do drama. They reserve all the big cases for the very end. Im sort of thought roberts may send a note in april saying something like, why dont we slow down on the gay marriage case or the hobby lobby . If we release this in may, it lets the air out of the balloon. Lets keep that i dont know how they do it but theres a really big case at the very end of june and strikes me as congress i dont cover does it wrong every year. You know . They have the state of the union speech in january. The president comes up there. The lights. Everybody seems happy. And then about two weeks later, its clear that, well, we are not going to legislate this year because they go to the floor and one side says, we cant make any deals with the people on the other side because theyre unreasonable and obstructionists and dont legislate and by this time of the year, who cares if congress is in recess or snot theyre not doing anything anyway but the Supreme Court really knows how who do drama and presentation. David, theyre still doing so much drama in the courtroom. We went through a period of people werent showing up because you can get it quicker online but we have a decent group in the press section and d. C. Group in the bar section watching the proceedings which, of course, are not televised and the justices are still playing to that with the dissents from the bench and plenty of back and forth thats giving us grist for drama in the stories. It is also interesting i thought this last day a number of people asked me why did alito have both of those decisions and, well, the reason is because they took one took much longer to decide than the other. The union case was argued in january. And it took this long to get agreement which suggests that perhaps there was something that fell through, a majority opinion that somebody wasnt ready to go along with. But it just so happened that one argued in january and one argued in march. Happened to be the last two cases of the term to be decided. There had people had been wondering for weeks whether the term was going to end the previous week. On thursday the 27th or whether they would go to the last day of june, monday the 30th. It made me wonder. I remember an article, adam, you did several years ago about how justice black mns law clerk urged him to postpone the decision in bowers against hardwick from a thursday or friday to a monday because, you know, a story on a friday or saturday newspaper in the summer doesnt get much attention. And i wonder if anybody suspects that hobby lobby may have gotten pushed from last week to this precisely for the style and impact that david was talking about. I think that theory would make more sense if they issued decisions on friday and might well get lost in a way but i dont think it applies the thursday decisions which is what they typically do these days. I think its good pr advice back in the day but i dont think i attribute that to why monday. Monday was since the beginning of the term the last official day of the term and no particular reason to think it would be something else. Okay. Joan, you said something a minute about the difference between being upstairs in the courtroom and downstairs in the press office. Can you tell us about what that difference is and how you make the choice . Yeah. And i really am in a lucky position that i have a partner who actually is very fast an handles our on the spot copy, Lawrence Hurley. He is down in the press room and the minute he can get a copy of the opinion he runs to the terminal and types up what happened very fast and prewritten snaps to go out to the customers. So that gives me a real luxury of being up in the courtroom which when i worked for usa today and the Washington Post i could do all the time but that was before we had to be as fast as we need to be for wire service. So when youre sitting there, you get to hear the justices in their own words tell you what they think is so important about the ruling and you get to see their colleagues react to it an you get to see people in the spectator section react to it so i think its wonderful drama and plays into what david savage said getting to the nut of what they have done and highlight themselves and what they think is important and Justice Scalia said in the epa case as we were listening, okay, so the government gets 83 or whatever of theyre trying to do, didnt get the rest, so we walk out of the room with that understanding not paging through dozens of sheets trying to figure out whats the nut of it and also just because cameras arent there we can always bring that into our stories and i think enhance what the readers get so i feel very fortunate to be able to do this. But its important to emphasize the cost. I go upstairs but the cost is the moment they start talking, your competitors are down starls with the hard copy of the decision and theyll talk as they did in the hobby lobby case for half an hour and you are in a courtroom no electronics, editors cant get a hold of you. Nervous about posting something without your permission and a real cost to this incredible benefit of having the case explained to you by the people who wrote it and theyre not reading their decisions aloud. Theyre giving a coloek wee summary. Part of the reason that some media organizations got it wrong with the Affordable Care act is that they didnt sit through the entire opinion announcement where you hear the nuances, you hear theres two parts to it, one that the Affordable Care act is unconstitutional on one ground and then its constitutional on another ground. But the people who raced off with the hard copy got kind of sidetracked. You would think that it would be more accurate if you had the piece of paper in your hand but it didnt work out that way in some instances. In fact, i think theres some thinging that maybe if they didnt hand out the opinion to the reporters until the end of the oral presentation, it might work out better. Is that something the press gallery wants to ask them to do . I wouldnt say i would doubt theres unanimity on that point. It would be full unanimity if there was. Maybe a furious concurrence. Im going to interrupt one second. I saw someone walk in with a plate of food from the lobby and guessing thats where the extra food and if anyone wants to no . Is there some back here . Okay. So theres more food if you didnt notice it coming in. Art, i want to add a postscript about being in the room. I remember bob observing in the aca rollout. Don er haverrilli in the courtr with us, you know, don verrilli, assistants, spectators who are keenly interested in this like art and lawrence gold whos very interested in the Union Decision on monday. And you can see how they react and i remember during the course of the health care ruling, we were both noticed that don verrilli tightens it sounds when the government lost and then loosen up and chief Justice Roberts says, no, you won. You get a lot and as adam observed, it is a cost if youre the only one up there for the news organization. Right. There are other times that really dramatic moments especially in the announcement of decision, you are not the only one. One, was for example, the schutte decision, the affirmative action decision, on a day thats a heavily covered case. I want to say cell phone searches. Aerial. On the day of aerial. Susan b. Anthony first which is a real case and then the decision lands. And then announce the decision and Justice Sotomayor gives a first dissent from the bench and its it was actually quite a powerful dissent and it was interesting moment and its something that like you said, neither broadcast and she did not release sometimes justices release bench statements. If you werent there, you missed it and a lot of reporters were there so when the stories you had this explanation of that, that you normally on any other day if it was a, you know, a run of the mill sort of habeas case or something nobody would have been there and missed it and not be able to see it so there is a value in being there but you cant always be there. So in a situation like that, bob, what do you do . Do you stay upstairs to watch the arguments in these two important cases . Do you run downstairs and file a story . I went downstairs because i thought it was a dramatic moment and i thought that it was a case that people were going to be really interested in and i wanted to get something on the web so even though i had thought at first that i would stay and watch the arguments, i decided that it wasnt worth it. It was more important to get a story out on the web. And was that the unanimous i just conclusion. I just do b