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I have expressed in my questioning today is that the court has taken a lot of power away from congress. the court is doing a lot of legislating. they are supposed to defer to congress. we have a 100,000-page record. they have set hundreds of years of precedence by allowing corporations to make political contributions. so the court is taking over a lot of our legislative function in many, many cases, and then when the executive, when the president asserts his authority, as he did with the warrantless wiretaps, the court dubs the case a terrorist surveillance program. and our constitution is bas...

War there, and the concern that i have expressed in my questioning today is that the courthouse taketh a lot of the power away from congress. the court is doing a lot of legislating. they are supposed to defer to congress. we have a 100,000-page record. they have set hundreds of years of precedence by allowing corporations to make political contributions. so the court is taking over a lot of our legislative function in many, many cases, and then when the executive, when the president that serves his authority, as he did with the warrantless wiretaps, the court dubs the case a terrorist surveil...

Process. saying she was not being very revealing of how she thinks and how her legal mind works. that was among the reasons you were casting a vote against her. you voted against her. what is it that you expect out of these judicial nominees? what is it that she didn't reveal that somehow other nominees have revealed in the past, one, and two, is this going to be a concern of yours if she is brought up as the president's nominee for the supreme court? >> chuck, i voted against her because she wouldn't answer specific questions on what kind of cases she would urge the supreme court to take. i'v...

Think that the judiciary committee members, myself included, haven't been, frankly, tough enough on insisting on some answers. for example i'm considering, haven't made up my mind but conditioning my vote on whether the supreme court nominee will take up these questions. congress has the authority to the tell them which cases to handle, and i have legislation, for example, to require them to decide the constitutionality of the terrorist surveillance program. but supreme court nominations a little different from the solicitor general. i have an open mind. >> yeah, we want to clarify that. i tho...

Against somebody on that basis? >> well, it is different to ask them how you'll decide a specific case. i think that's out of bounds. but to ask them, will you take up an issue, will you not duck it as they did the terrorist surveillance program and as they duck the lawsuit involving the survivors of victims of 9/11 where congress had made an explicit determination of sovereign immunity not applying, i want to know that they're prepared to take the cases. the supreme court has a very light backlog. i've spoken extensively on this subject. they leave a lot of splits among the circuits. a lot of...