and he taught me that the streets were paved with pastry cakes. i have enjoyed my visit ever since. i'm really happy to be talking about "the oath" today. it only came out two days ago. so far so good. and it's exciting to finally get to work on these books. people read them. it's interesting. it's exciting. so let me start by asking the first question that i know is on your mind, which is who is your favorite justice? it's not a lame it. she has to earn it. she's only been there a year and a half so far. i'm still struggling with the question, because for so long my favorite justice was david souter. because he was so delightfully odd, that he didn't have a cell phone. he didn't have the computer. he didn't have an answering machine on its own. he was late for william rehnquist funeral because they couldn't with a message and find out where he was. each doesn't like electric light. he moves his chair around his office over the course of the day to catch the sunlight. true story. but the great thing about justice souter was that he sort of got the joke about being the supreme court justice. he understood that he sort of was important but it wasn't really all about him. and i'll just give you one example of that. for reasons that remain obscure, david souter and stephen breyer are frequently mistaken for each other. if you know what to look like they really don't look anything alike, but people on have a vague sense of who the justices are. one time not too long ago justice souter was driving from washington to his home in new hampshire and he stopped at a restaurant is something to eat. and a couple keep up to and because i know you, you're on the supreme court, right? he said just. he said your stephen breyer, right. and he didn't want to embarrass fell and he suggested i'm stephen breyer. fife nhs for had for a while and the guy, the guy said justice breyer, what's the best thing about being on the supreme court. he thought forum and any so i have to say it's the privilege of serving with david souter. [laughter] how can you not love a guy like that? i'm taking nominations for my favorite justice after that. so let's talk about the current supreme court by the numbers for starters. they are or men and three women, first time in history there's three women on the court. [applause] there are six catholics, three jews, no applause? no protestant for the first time, first time in history. but our representatives of four new york city boroughs on the supreme court. there is justice sotomayor from the bronx, justice scalia from queens, justice ginsburg from brooklyn, and justin kagan from manhattan. tragically staten island is unrepresented on the supreme court. but you never know when to might be vacancies and we might address that. there are six products of harvard law school in three parts of yale law school on the supreme court for corporately no other law schools in the united states. [laughter] besides those two. it is a bizarre and unfortunate fact i think. but those are help interesting facts about the supreme court. but, frankly, i don't think they're very important. here's an important fact about the supreme court. there are five republicans and four democrats. i will speak for somewhat longer, but this is basically all you need to know. [laughter] if there's a take away here, i've gotten to the point early. there are five republicans and four democrats, and that really tells you much of what you need to know. and it is true that the justices wear robes because they're supposed to look all alike, and this was, you know, supposed to give the perception that they're all pretty much the same. but just as on the other side of first street, the united states congress is deeply divided, according to party, so was the united states supreme court. and this is a moment of real partisan division at the supreme court. and that is exemplified in case after case. why this moment is so important i think, you need to go back in history of the supreme court to a different period in the court, to the mid '60s, and the late '60s because that was the last time the supreme court was really a unified ideological force. it was not divided summarily. there were seven liberals on the supreme court, the late dates of the warren court. and there was a real liberal agenda. every saturday morning chief justice warren and his great deputy meet together and they would say what cases do we want to take, what do we want to move along? they had ideas about how to move the law. year after year they changed cases -- they changed the law. 1964, justice brennan's famous opinion in your times against sullivan revolutionized by the law. 1965 justice william o. douglas, griswold v. connecticut, the case that established the right to privacy that married couples should not be denied the right to buy birth control. 1966, miranda versus arizona, revolutionizing criminal procedure and perhaps more importantly changing television dramas for ever. [laughter] >> 1967, perhaps the best named case in supreme court history, loving v. virginia. what was it about? it was the case that said states could no longer ban racial intermarriage. think about that, 1967. there are people in this room who were on live in 1967. [laughter] and it was still illegal in a lot of states for racial intermarriage. when barack obama's parents got married in kenya, i'm sorry, i mean -- if such a cheap joke and i apologize for that but it does remind me, you know, everybody knows mitt romney is having a rough patch as presidential candidate, but all right, all right. but a sentence i have not heard uttered anywhere is, if only donald trump had been the nominee. [laughter] because as you recall he sort of build his campaign around the idea that barack obama was born in kenya, or somewhere other than the united states. but that campaign could not take off exactly. mitt romney is therefore better or worse. and in all seriousness, when barack obama's parents got married in 1960, it wasn't in kenya. it was in hawaii. they got married in hawaii. there were people in prison in this country for racial intermarriage. that's no joke. it was illegal in 20 states in 1960, and it gives you an idea of how much the country has changed in a good way. but right after richard nixon became president, for vacancies appeared on the sprinkler. you never know how that's going to work. jimmy carter is the only president in american history to serve a full term without having a single nominee. there were no vacations while he was there. richard nixon was only president for five and half years. he had to leave early, remember? [laughter] geek out for appointments because chief justice warren left. john hartman and hugo black left. they were replaced by richard nixon with chief justice warren burger, harry blackmun, powell, and william rehnquist. and as you think about that list, it illustrates a theme that a think, it's a very important part of "the oath" but it is the theme of american politics over the past generation. and that is the evolution of the republican party. it is the most important story in american politics. it is the most important story in the supreme court. because modern republicans dominate the supreme court for two generations, and moderate republicans are gone. they are gone at the supreme court. they are gone in the united states congress. arlen specter as you all know is fighting for his life now. i had the privilege of covering senator specter who is a great character. often during his long tenure in the senate, and he left the republican party literally, but republican party had left him well before that. and as you look at nixon's appointments to the supreme court, 1970, they thought the court would move way to the right because -- the '70s were almost as liberal as the '60s. what with the big cases? the nixon tapes case. the pentagon cases. they approve school busing. they ended the death penalty in the united states in 1972. a letter back in 1976, and still the most controversial decision of all, 1973 roe v. wade, but said states could no longer ban abortion. it was a seven-2 up in and the only two dissenters and rove v. wade were byron white was appointed by president kennedy and william rehnquist, three of the four next justices were in the majority of will be wait and i think it shows you a lot about where the republican party was in the 1970s. 1975 when douglas stepped out and forward dominic john paul stevens to replace them. in his hearing he was not asked a single question about abortion because he was not part of a political dialogue in the way that later became. the big issue, big change began in 198 1980 that goes with the election of ronald reagan ronald reagan brought with them to washington a very underrated figure in a recent american history, somehow i don't think gets his due as an important person. that's edwin meese because edwin meese at first was in flash and then attorney general. said look, there has been a liberal agenda at the supreme court. there needs to be a conservative agenda at the supreme court. what was that agenda? expand executive power and end racial preferences, speed up execution, welcome religion into the public sphere, and above all, reverse roe v. wade and allow states once again to ban abortion. a big part of the reagan revolution was the arrival of washington of a group of young and committed conservative lawyers who wanted to work in that, on behalf of that agenda, who were two of the best and the brightest of that group? john roberts and samuel alito. 1970 -- in 1985, a memo at the solicitor general's office, alito wrote what can be made of this opportunity to advance the goal of bringing about the eventual overruling of roe v. wade? later that year, applying for a promotion he wrote i am particularly proud of my contribution to recent cases in which the government has argued in the supreme court that the constitution does not protect the right to abortion. samuel alito then, samuel alito now. but republican party of 1980 was not the republican party of today either, and we saw that in reagan's nominations to the supreme court. 1981, potter stewart unexpectedly announced his resignation, and reagan had made a campaign promise that jimmy carter didn't even make in the 1980 campaign. he said at the have the chance i will nominate the first woman to the supreme court. reagan said look, i have my chance, go find a qualified woman. it was not a simple thing in those days because they were not a lot of women, especially republican women in the traditional pipelines for supreme court appointments. so reagan's people went all the way to the intermediate appeals court in arizona, not even the arizona supreme court, to find the remarkable figure was and is of sandra day o'connor. sandra day o'connor was not then a social conservative, or anything like the kind of conservative that dominates the republican party now, and that was fine with ronald reagan. he didn't care. it wasn't his agenda either, and he was very proud of his nomination of o'connor. 1986 chief justice burger stepped down. reagan elevated rehnquist from associate justice to chief justice, named antonin scalia to that seat. no question about it. conservative. the following year, a really key turning point in history of the supreme court. 1987, lewis powell step down. lewis powell was at that point the swing justice. justices don't like when the news media so that term but it's been a useful term for a long time in the supreme court because the court has been so evenly divided for so long. so it was very important. and in 1987, remember president reagan nominated? robert bork. robert bork, and something important had happened between the nominations of rehnquist and scalia in 86 and the nomination of bork in 1987. in a midterm election, the democrats had retaken controls of the united states, so the chairman of the judiciary committee was no longer strom thurmond, but was instead a young senator from delaware named joseph biden. and biden engineered a really meticulous examination of orcs record. and bork to his credit, perhaps to his regret, engaged the senators in discussion of how he felt about the issues, and it became clear he felt the civil rights act, a thomas just think, he thought there was no such thing as a right to privacy to the constitution, and the senate by a vote of 58-42 said to conservative and he was voted down. ronald reagan nominated instead to that seat anthony kennedy, who was serving a liberal but was certainly no robert bork either. and he has had a long and distinguished career as, now the swing vote on the court. and that really, that set, that really set up the rehnquist years. accord which i wrote about in my last book, "the nine," and when i started looking at the supreme court in a serious way as a writer, i was inspired by book that i'm sure is familiar to many of you called the brethren by scott armstrong and bob woodward, really a great book, first real behind the scenes book of the supreme court. and 15, the theme of the book was also justices, regardless of politics couldn't stand were in burger. they thought he was at pompous jerk. that sort of contention has been the rule more than the exception of the history of the supreme court. i don't know how many of you have had the misfortune of your of a chassis from sir from 191 1914-1941 named james mcreynolds was such an appalling anti-semi to use to get up and leave the conference room whenever justice brandeis or justice cardozo would speak. william o. douglas, i can take was a liberal one summer had a terrible car accident, drove his car off a cliff, and the first question i but had back then in the court was whether lewis -- where was frank-footer at the time? they hated each other so much they thought frankfurter might have driven him off. [laughter] i was hoping as a journalist that i would find this cd center of the rehnquist court, the hatred therein. well, to my great disappointment as a journalist but somewhat to my satisfaction as a citizen i learned that rehnquist was actually very popular among his colleagues. he basically created a rule that good fences make good neighbors. he didn't harass anybody. everybody left each other alone. they voted, and rehnquist, you know, didn't force anyone to vote the way they didn't want to vote, and that was it. another think rehnquist did, in the 1980s, the court was deciding about 150 cases a year. by the time rehnquist died, they were deciding about 80 cases a year. now do the math. 80 cases divided by nine justices, divided by four law clerks of peace, no wonder they live so long, right? it's a pretty cushy job in on the supreme court. there's just at the many cases. in the '80s, the caseload had gotten so big there was a proposal for the court to have come to create a new super intermediate appeals court between the circuit courts and the supreme court. and chief justice burger like this idea, and it went to the white house counsel's office for evaluation. the white house counsel assigned a young member of the staff name john roberts to evaluate this new proposal and this is an excerpt from the memo that roberts wrote, that while some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to the eyes, it is true that our supreme court justices and schoolchildren are expected to end to take the entire summer off. [laughter] the chief justice doesn't feel this, this way anymore. is much more in favor of taking the summer off. especially this summer, he wanted the summer off. and it is true that under chief justice roberts the court remains a congenial place. and to see that the court is a congenial place, you need only go watch a supreme court argument. i'm sure, many of you have done that. if you have not i really encourage you. it is really the best free show in washington. it's very entertaining, very illuminating, and there is of course one very well known fact about supreme court oral arguments. and that is the art a justices who are very engaged and very prepared and ask lots of hard questions. and we are now in year seven of clarence thomas' reign of silence. february 22, 2006, yes, that's right, the last time you asked a question. those of us who go to arguments regularly, they are -- there's not that many of them up there. the press section is right next to justice sotomayor. thomas is right next to her. thing, will this be the day? [laughter] it never is. it just never is. but this is why he still. this is why you should go is because you see that justice thomas is not silent. they said, you know, he passes notes with his colleagues. justice thomas is not an unpopular or uninfluenced member of the supreme court. he's actually a very significant force on the supreme court. he just chooses for his own bizarre reasons not to never ask any questions. just be converted about the rehnquist court, i think it is useful to think about the rehnquist court in two parts. 1986-2000, and 2000-2005, the dividing point in history of the court in many respects is a dividing point in the history of the country and the court's decision in bush v. gore. now, justice scalia does a lot of public speaking, and he's often asked a kind of hostile questions about bush v. gore. why did you do bush v. gore? and he always says the same thing. oh, get over it. [laughter] well, speaking just myself, i am so not over it. [applause] >> four i wrote "the nine" i wrote, i wrote a book called too close to call about the recount in florida. it had a big part in bush v. gore, and one thing i try to do in reporting that book was interview al gore. obviously, you want to interview al gore. he wouldn't talk to me. i tried everything. he didn't want to relive the expense. just by coincidence i met al gore while i was working on "the nine" and i said to him, he had read "too close to close." we're talking about that. i said, i'm writing another book where bush v. gore is at the center of it. i said i think i'm the biggest bush v. gore junkie in the world. and he said you may be second. [laughter] you know, i think you got a point. i have to agree. but i don't want to spend too much time on bush v. gore today but the bush v. gore had a not predictable -- the fact that very good at protections as you know. will get to that a little later. the legacy of the supreme court, as you know, i think you all know, bush won that case, and but the court from 2000-2005 moved to the left. the court got more liberal. same nine justices. why? think about the cases. they decided to end of the death penalty for the mentally retarded. ended the death penalty for juvenile offenders. they decide in texas, gay people could no longer be thrown in prison for having consensual sex my. they saved affirmative-action in the case of the university of michigan law school. and in case after case they rejected the bush administration's position on guantánamo bay, and the treatment of detainees there. so why did the court move left? the court move to left because sandra day o'connor's group more and more alienated from the modern republican party. she didn't like john ash grove. should invite the way the war in iraq was being conducted, and above all she was alienated by something that doesn't get talked a lot about now but i think is very large in the history of our country, not just the supreme court, and that's the terri schiavo case. terri schiavo case had a big impact on justice o'connor, as someone who believes in judicial independence by someone who is also dealing with, although many people did not know at the time, but the scent of her husband -- so the idea of medical decision-making for critically ill person was not just a distraction for justice o'connor, an effect in 2005 she left the court to take care of her husband. and she was replaced ultimately i only do. -- ju