YouSaid · the spoken record

Stephen Breyer

lines on the record: 24
first: 2021-09-30
most recent: 2021-09-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Judge, once he puts on that black robe. I'm not going to say it's a midnight transformation, but look, a judge and I have to think this about myself there too. I have to. A judge is there for all Americans. He's not there just for Democrats. Is not there just for Republicans. He's not there just for the president of the party. And even if half the country thinks he's a real idiot and they can't stand what he writes, In his own mind And the way he approaches. The job he has to remember. There for everybody. All 331 million.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I've said is that they better be pretty careful about it because two can play at that game. And of course what's worrying me, and I say this, I try to explain to people in the book the extent to which politics is relevant or not relevant or present or not present and in what form in the work of our court. And what worries me is that people will think we're junior league politicians. And if they think that the second thought should be, why don't I have a senior league politician? And once you begin to think along those lines, you can play at that game, as I said. You can have Republicans appointing and then Democrats appointing and vice versa. But I see the overall tendency of that is given the history, given the way we work, given the country, et cetera, as weakening the confidence of the average person in the decisions of the court. And you can say,”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's of great privilege to be on the court. I mean, there's no doubt. And from a personal point of view, I'd say it requires you in middle age when you get there to give your best to this every minute. And you say, is that a big virtue? Yeah. Yeah. And the older you get, the more you see it as an enormous virtue.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was in dissent. I thought it was wrong, and I thought we should have heard the whole thing. It was a procedural matter. They didn't decide the substance of the state.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That are the subject of the whole conference are death cases. And at the very last minute. Because of COVID, I think, there have been some recent cases which did not just involve the death penalty or something that wasn't too difficult. And there I thought... I was in the descent in those cases”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What it is that in between Hearing the cases on which we have decided to hear, someone will make an emergency motion. Now that's what it is an emergency motion. The country is divided. I'm in charge of the first circuit, for example, but everybody's in charge of some circuit. So if there is a litigant in the first circuit, Who believes that he needs immediate attention to issue an injunction or to stop an injunction? Well, then he'll file it with me and I'll look at it. And most of them there isn't much to. And so it's easy to deny it. But some there is something too. And then I usually will refer it to the whole conference. And if I should have and didn't, he can go to any other judge and it will be referred to the whole conference. Most of these”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“should try to follow the courts of the rule of law when they don't like it, when they think it's wrong. And that's why I wrote this book in a sentence, that is why. I want people to see in some detail it's not moralizing, it's my experience. And I want them to see. What the court can do. But when you say the court can do, It doesn't mean nine people. It means the country as it's come to develop a long time, two hundred years and then Maybe Maybe we have. A country that can use This weapon called the rule of law. In order to prevent some pretty terrible things.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because that was the era of Martin Luther King, the freedom writers, and suddenly the North woke up. And others woke up and said, This is an intolerable situation, and eventually threw a lot of work and a lot of work and a lot of moral effort and a lot of physical effort and a lot of organizing effort and so forth eventually Legal segregation was brought to a conclusion and the reason that I find that story important, and I told that story to a woman from Ghana who is the Chief Justice who is trying to improve the constitutional system there and ask me why do people do what you say? And my response was, 301 million people in this country and 300 billion are not lawyers. Comes as a surprise. And those are the people you have to convince. Convince what? Convince that they”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Eisenhower, I'd like to see that at the monument that they're building for him. He called in a thousand troops from Fort Bragg, 101st Airborne, and they took those nine black children and walked into that white school. I'd like to say that's the end of the story. But it wasn't What happened was after a few months, the troops had to withdraw. When that happened, the school board said we're not going to integrate anymore. And when that happened, a very famous case went to the Supreme Court. Cooper v. Aaron. And when that happened, all non-justices signed the opinion saying, integrate. Now, do it. Right now in Little Rock. Hey, but there are nine people Maybe there could have been 900. Maybe 9,000. Closed the school. That's what happened. For those of us who remember and those of us who don't. Couldn't keep it closed.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought it was different in this respect when I clerk. I felt it was a court with a mission. What mission? In 1954, the court had decided that Plessy v. Ferguson rightly was down the drain. And legal segregation is contrary to this document, equal protection of the law. They said it in 1954, and we both know what happened in 1955, nothing, next to nothing. 1956, yeah, double nothing. 1957, a rather brave judge in Little Rock, said those Little Rock 9, those nine brave black students are going into that white school central high school. The governor, Governor Falbas, said, Maybe those students have a court order, but I have the state militia, and they're not.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have no idea. I mean, that's the truth of the matter. And later I thought about it, and of course the newspaper people wanted to say, weren't you terribly disappointed? And I said, You why I said, well, it's not such a terrible thing in your life to be seriously considered to be on the Supreme Court, even if you're not appointed. And that's about the best you can do. And I was thinking partly I said that because it's true. And partly I said it because I did have children. My friend. You don't always win everything you want. And my goodness, what you want those children to learn. And you want them to learn fine. Sometimes you'll get everything you heart desires not very often. And sometimes you won't. You better be a good sport about when you don't. As well as when you do.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, those were days, it was a different day. You remember that. People did try to work together. And every single morning, Ken Feinberger was like, I was chief counsel and he was general counselor or something of the Judiciary Committee. And we would have breakfast with Emory Sneeden, who was a former JAG general and was Strom Thurmond's chief person on judiciary. And we would plan the day. We planned out the day. We wanted no secrets. We wanted to try to accomplish something and we'd figure out how do we color it red for this party and how do we color it blue for the other party. But the important thing is if it's desirable, let's try to get it through. That happened a lot. I can't say there was no conniving. But Ken and I and Ember used to call what we did open conniving, openly arrived at.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't think maybe someday anybody who thinks maybe someday I'll be on the Supreme Court. I mean, I don't want to say there's something wrong with him, but there is something wrong.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Terrific. He was great. He was an enthusiast. He had loads of energy. Jack Kennedy said that he was the smartest man he ever met.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I was pretty nervous. I mean, I remember talking to a friend of mine I'd been an undergraduate with, and he was there too. Paul Dotic, actually. And we both said, well, this is the end of our great careers. That was after our first year. And we both did pretty well in law school.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most of it is memo Quite a lot can be visits to chambers, but if I'm going into your chambers, I'm not going to say, no, your argument isn't so good. This would not be a helpful way to start the conversation. And if you go into somebody else's chambers, you better be prepared to listen to them. As well as hoping that they will listen to you. And then you try to see And that's what I learned in the Senate. That's what you try to see where is there some common ground? And is there common ground enough that you can work with it?”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“year for me to write that it was about copyright and something called programs interface programs and I was told that that was very very important well for me it was like learning Latvian I mean I don't know how I did that but but you see I'm not saying all the I see what they're saying I see what they're saying and it's true that a lot of the sort of exciting cases are more close”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not necessarily. What you read about are the ones that the press thinks the public will be interested in, which usually has a political or a social content. And they'll say, that's the most important. I don't know. One of the most important decisions I wrote this last year was called Google versus Oracle.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I get that question a lot, and I used to get it more when Nina Scalia was on the court, and the two of us would be there, and somebody had asked that question, and I'd try to answer it because I didn't want him to. And I'd say, look, I know you're not aiming that question at me. You're aiming at Nino. Okay, I get it. But what you don't understand is that some people suffer from a disease. It's called good writer's disease If a good writer finds the felicitous phrase, he won't give it up. Let him destroy himself, let the world come to an end. It's like a good comedian. You can't give up that joke. Now, that's Nino. He is a very good writer. He has a felicitous phrase, and we all know that, and we don't take it personally.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They don't insult each other, and they're not rude to each other, and it's a professional job, and you go in and do your best professionally. And if you want people to listen to you Most, the best you can do is to think through this problem. Listen. Where the other person is coming from, and see what you can contribute to that thought.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good would that do? I try to explain that to the students. You know, you get all excited and all that happens is people disagree with you think, well, you know, he's all excited. You must be wrong. And that's so true. So we get on well personally and we're friends personally and we disagree on some things. Not as many as you think, but some.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good point. Then he would say, I'm not saying my theory's perfect. He would say, you know, the two hunters, they're hunting bears, and one's putting on his tennis shoes. Where are you going? He says, I'm bears coming. He says, you can't outrun a bear. He says, yeah, but I can outrun you. See, that was his view of my way of deciding cases. And I never, and I still, 28 years now. I've never heard a voice raised in anger in that conference room. I've never heard. One justice says anything mean or inside of.”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think so. We would debate those differences and we'd go, I thought we had a terrific debate. In Lubbock, Texas, there were several thousand students who'd come. They'd never seen a Supreme Court justice. And we talk about our differences. You know, I say, hey, if I had your theory, my goodness, don't you think that do you think George Washington knew about the internet for free speech? Do you think he, and Scalia would say, I knew that?”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You never, never know when somebody's going to ask you a question. You see, somebody says, what is Article 3, Section 19 say? Expect you to know”
2021-09-30 · The David Rubenstein Show · Stephen Breyer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source