Went on the floor that day, the first thing i did was go over to bird. I said bob byrd i will never know the rules of the senate like you do. Ill make you a deal. I will never surprise you, if you will not surprise me. He said let me think about it. He came back later that afternoon and said ok. And we never did. I think that tradition has carried on. I think dole adopted that point of view. The system, and the rules of the senate are such, that theres plenty of room for disagreement and controversy. To do so within the framework of organization without sneaking up on your adversary. Some of the interview with former Senate Majority leader howard baker airing at 8 00 eastern 5 00 pacific. News from the pentagon planning more cuts for benefits for troops and the 2016 budget to be submitted to the white house in february. Military pay and benefits cost 185 billion in 2011. That decreased by 8 billion. That was mostly due to the reduction in active duty and reserve troops. You can read more at thehill. Com. In November Elena Kagan spoke at her alma mater talking about her career and time behind the bench as at the Supreme Court. [applause] welcome, folks. My name is stephen macedo, assessor of politics and human values at princeton. I hoped to instigate the event, brought to you by the University Center of human values, in its 25th year. Also brought to you by the Princeton University public lectures led by professor eric gregory. I want to thank the University Staff involved and reuter who is managed every detail. Elena kagan, princeton class of 1981 has had a distinguished career at the university of law at the university of chicago and a harvard, and was a member of the executive branch of the United States as a policy advisor to bill clinton. And the governments lead advocate before the Supreme Court under president barack obama. She served she served as the dean of harvard thought school where she gained a reputation as a brick builder and that famously fractured institution. Kagan has emerged as a leader of the liberal wing. She is considering continued efforts as a consensus builder. Also very notable are her hunting trips with Justice Scalia. They shoot skeet, and other things. [laughter] as former Vice President has former Vice President cheney been involved . If he is, stay behind him. It has been said that the role of the Supreme Court is to speak about justice on behalf of the American People. It is written and a wonderful book on the constitution and american democracy constitutional built government built by the princeton president. He is one of the leading authorities on democratic constitutionalism and the Supreme Court. I can think of no other two people i would like to hear converse on just as in america than the two people to my right. Join me in welcoming princeton president and supreme justice. [applause] it is great to be here. Let me start by thanking you for being here. I think you can tell by the audience how thrilled we are to be able to welcome you back. Thank you for making time. It is good to be back. I was thinking of the last time and that was my 25th reunion eight years ago. I spent a part of the afternoon Walking Around princeton. And seeing all of the new things on campus. It looks fantastic. You will be back for your next major reunion, too. Woodrow wilson came back when he was in the white house. It may give the marshals a case of the letter flies. Anytime we can get you back, we would be delighted. He wanted to hear us talk about the court and constitution. Before that i want to give you the opportunity to clarify rumors about hunting trips with Justice Scalia. He won a say what that is about . Aint is a funny story. I grew up in new york, and we didnt hunt on the weekend. When i was nominated you have to do courtesy visits with senators. The hearings on tv are the tip of the iceberg. You have to Wander Around and talk to senators. I think i did 82 of them. It was striking how many of the republicans and democrats wanted to talk about the second amendment. About guns. There are rules about what you can ask at these kinds of sit downs. There are rules about what i can say. They knew they couldnt ask me direct questions about what i thought of particular cases or issues. And come up with proxies along the lines of do you hunt . [laughter] i went through countless of these interviews. The answers were so pathetic no. Do you know anyone who hunts . Not really. [laughter] i was sitting down with the senator from idaho who has a ranch, and is a great hunter. He was telling me about his hunting, and how important it was to his constituents. I understand why. And why many senators would want to know these kinds of things. I was feeling punchy, it was late in a day my 93rd interview. I said, senator, if you would like to invite me hunting i would like to come. This look of abject horror passed over his face. I realized, i think ive gone to far. I said senator, i didnt mean to invite myself to your ranch. I will tell you, if im lucky enough to be confirmed, i will ask my colleague Justice Scalia to take me hunting. I grew up in new york without this experience, but he understand why it matters. I will commit to do that for you. When i got to the court, i went over to Justice Scalias chambers and i told him the story. He thought it was hilarious. I said, this is the single promise i made in 82 interviews. He said, i guess i have to let you fulfill that promise. He is very generous. He started with skeet shooting. Then, we did the real thing. A couple of times a year, we shoot quayle, doesnt, and we once went to wyoming were i shot a deer. , youre going. We are going duck hunting in mississippi next month. Im a competitive person. If you put a gun in my hand and say the object is to shoot things, i am like, all right. Lets do it. You would have been confirmed by a larger margin if you wouldve been able to say that. Before you are a Supreme Court justice or hunter, you are a student on this campus. How do you remember princeton . I love princeton. All of you folks who go here are very lucky if it is as good now as it was then. I expect it is better. I was a history major with fantastic professors. I often think about how many of the faculty were so generous with their time. Whether it was an out of Office Conversation or my thesis advisor that i saw a little before this and him nervous he is in the audience, i keep thinking he will take up his red pen. We have repealed the grading policy. [applause] t edited my thesis, four times. It is the place i feel that i learned. Whatever i know about writing, i learned here. I have friends that will be my rents until i die. I had extracurricular activities. I spent an enormous amount of time at the daily princetonian. I thought this was the greatest place. I feel very warmly about it. And warmly about what it did for me. Did it occur it when you were here that you may want to be a Supreme Court justice . Not even one thought . That that would be a cool thing to do . I talked with some students earlier, and a woman asked, did you know you wanted to be a lawyer . I had to admit i did not. Law did not seem interesting or exciting. My father was a lawyer. Now i look at what he did, and i understand why it was so deeply meaningful. He was not a courtroom lawyer. As a kid i didnt get what was interesting or exciting. I went to law school for the wrong reasons. Kind of i didnt know what i wanted to do and i wanted to keep my options open. I got there, left it, and was glad i made that decision. Even then, life takes you on different paths. If i come back, at my 20 victory union, last time i was back it was eight years ago. If someone asked what is the next thing . I wouldve said im going to be a university president. This, it is a good example of the way that life works. Life is long and takes lots of twists and turns. You cant know what you will end up. Are you enjoying it . It is a good gig. If you had said to me and law school, you have a chance to be a Supreme Court justice, which you take it . I wouldve said yes. You did a for two extraordinary georges its ordinary judges. Can you say how those experiences shaped the justice you are today . They shaped the person i am in the lawyer i have been. It is not like in the last five years. I suddenly started thinking about those two. They had a very longlasting impact. Judge who is getting the National Medal of freedom next week. That will be wonderful. He had an interesting career, ending up serving in all three branches of government. He was a judge a congressman from illinois before becoming a judge, then when he left the bench he went into the Clinton White house. Which is how i got into the Clinton White house. He called and said come work for me again. On a lot of my life since has been shaped by that experience. He knew all kinds of things about how law and government worked. He was also the worlds most decent human being. I learned a lot about that too. Justice marshall, that was an extraordinary experience. 27 years old in new york. It is a heady experience generally. You have clerked on the Supreme Court. It is a heavy experience. You are young, and then youre in this institution where the cases you have been reading about our being decided. It is a trip. In addition, you are in Thurgood Marshalls office, an icon of american law, the person who i think is the greatest 20thcentury lawyer. And, he was a storyteller. He was nearing the end of his life. He turned 80 the year i clerked for him. It was an old 80. Looking back on his life, and however much of a storyteller he had been, he became more so. He is to walk into his chambers, and reese to talk about the cases and do our work. Then at a certain point he would segue into stories about his extraordinary career lawyering at the trial appellate criminal cases, constitutional cases, and being at the forefront of everything that was important in a very significant time span. Eradicating jim crow. He was sunny, that he told the stories have a point. We got that. If he wanted to spend the year, at a relatively young age talking to someone who can tell you something about justice, that was the man to do it with. I will be very grateful, all my life, for that experience. Let me fast forward from your time as a law clerk to your arrival back at the Supreme Court as a brandnew justice. Where you welcomed, hazed . Looking at things new or familiar . A little bit of both. I will tell you how they hazed me. There is a particular role for the junior justice. The junior justice is the junior justice and referred to as the junior justice. You have a couple of different jobs. First, they put you on the cafeteria committee. It is not a very good cafeteria. It is the opportunity they have to haze you all the time. This food is a very good. That counts. The second thing is when we go into conference, it is just the 9 of us. We dont bring in clerks or assistance. Just us. Someone has to do two things. First, someone must take notes so you can tell people what happened. I take notes. That is the junior justices job. The junior justice has to answer the door. When there is a knock on the door. If theres a knock on the door, and i do not hear it, there will not be as single other person who will move. They will just stare at me until i figure out, i guess someone knocked on the door. These two jobs, notetaking and door opening, they can get in the wave each other. The way of each other. Even one sounds like a lot. You might say, why do people knock on the door . Knock, knock. I wont name names. Justice x forgot his glasses. Justice y forgot his coffee. So i am popping up and down. What was funny, with all that said, the warmth with which i was greeted by all my colleagues was very striking. This was my first indication of that. My confirmation vote happened the middle of the afternoon. In the United States in july. I say that because the chief justice was in australia at the time. Whatever it was here, it was 3 00 in the morning there. The moment that vote occurred, and i watched it in the Attorney Generals Office with my colleagues there. One of the assistants came into the room, and said the chief justice is on the line for you. He said, i just wanted to be the first to welcome you aboard, to congratulate you. He said, i guess were going to be spending the next 25 years together. Which is a little scary, really. I said, really, only 25 . He, and everyone else has been very warm and welcoming. From the start. In a way that is to a great credit to the institution. It is a Great Institution. One of the things what i got back it was striking how little it had changed. I had served their 25 years earlier. It was remarkably the same institution. Using the same processes and procedures. Almost sometimes a little laughably. In 25 years there has been a communications revolution. It seems to have passed the Supreme Court by. But also in great ways. The institution operates officially and collegiately. My first day on the job, the chief justice met me and took me around to the different offices in the court. The clerks office, the library the publications unit, and the staff that makes the place run. Every place i went into, someone said, i rumor you from and you were clerked when you were a clerked. When you were a clerk. I was a little nervous about that. What was i like, then . It didnt seem very surprising, in the way it all operated. It was very warm and welcoming. Let me ask you about how you interact with the justices. With your colleagues outside of conference. When you dont have to take notes or open the door. A little about that communications revolution. You have a legal issue or a concern about a particular opinion that has been circulated how do you talk to your fellow justices . Are you putting your feet up in Stephen Breyers office, like you would with colleagues at the Harvard Law School . Are you writing emails . You often write rather than talk. That makes sense. Especially if you are commenting or criticizing a printed piece of work or opinion. It often takes a writing to explain exactly and precisely what you mean, and why you think something needs to be fixed, and how it should be fixed. The precision you can get in a written memo is much higher than if you walked in put your feet up, and said heres what im thinking about. A lot of the communication, most of what has come out is in writing. People will say, i really hope to join you but there is this aspect of the opinion that i dont agree with. Heres a way that would make people comfortable. We literally send these memos someone from each staff has a chambers aide whose job is to walk them around the building. They are still being walked around the building . Email has not hit the United StatesSupreme Court. That is ok. I find that a little astonishing. At this point we have a set of lawyers, all interacting with colleagues, by email. Part is an attachment to tradition, and another part is that it encourages there has been email so that i have sent where ive hit the send button and have thought, what did i just do . I try not to, but sometimes i do. There is deliberation writing a memo. In the worstcase scenario, you have a little opportunity, as someone walks out the door, to say weight stop. To say wait, stop. That is part of the way we communicate. Different ones of us talk more. I am a schmoozer. I like to talk. I think i would be lonely if i didnt. I Wander Around. I talk to people. Sometimes it is about opinions, sometimes it is about life. I go into did you save steve breyer . Steve breyer and i are on one side of the court. The card that may be worn between our offices. We go back and forth and talk about things that strike us. That is reassuring in a way. I would ask questions about how you decide cases. I thought before doing that, and particularly since in 30 minutes well have time for people from the audience to ask questions that it may be good to begin what sorts of topics you think are fair game in conversation like this one. Or questions that different colleagues have had different positions about. David scooter was unwilling to do any of these appearances. Harry blackmun was famous for telling stories about his school. What is your view of boundaries . We speak best when we speak through our opinions. I intend i tend certainly i will not talk about any pending cases. I tend to think we put our opinions out there. The whole idea on how we operate is we give reasons as we make a decision. And those reasons are the the statement we can come up with about why to do a thing, and are unlikely to be improved upon as you do the lecture circuit. It doesnt mean i wont talk about past opinions that ive been a part of but i tend to like talking about the institution and how it operates more, as opposed to particular issues or opinions. Let me start with a question that may have been asked in 85 of those 90 interviews that you had. And the confirmation process. How would you characterize your judicial philosophy . First i dont think of myself as a grand philosopher. I think of myself as having views on how laws done best. About constitutional interpretation. About statutory interpretation. You bring those who used to the table when you engage with the case with a particular set of issues and facts. It is a very back and forth kind of thing. It is not, here is my philosophy, and i apply it to everything that comes before it. It is not as top down as that would suggest. Even saying that, it depends on what kind of philosophy. I may have one thing to tell you about a statute. You are interpreting the constitution, or a different set of things about how you interpret the constitution. What do yo