Charles E. Schumer

I think that is a good question to ask.

Sir, in all due respect, aside from advocating for the client, which you are seeming, you know, you sort of--you are saying all of this work I did, and everyone, you know, it is almost like we are in 1984 here because your views on…

Did you contact them and say, 'I'd like to be involved in this, I'm an expert'? Or did they contact you?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank everybody. I know it has been a long day, but I think it is an important day as well.

I asked Mr. Estrada: Name a past case--because he kept saying, well, it might come before him in the future.

Could I ask you to review the Congress's findings in VAWA and tell us whether you agree?

It does not do justice to the importance of what we are doing here.

It's a healthy reminder that we're a country that was formed by States and that we still live under a Federal system.

Do either of the other two witnesses want to comment on that?

Unexamined deference to VAWA--Violence Against Women Act--findings would have created another problem as well.

First, the public has to understand that the charges of judicial activism that have been raised, particularly in the most recent term, are simply inaccurate.

This is just not right.

I am not following you. What I was focusing on is that the brief went beyond what the Federal Government can do and talked about individual citizens' rights to deal with disparate impact, not the disparate impact itself, not the argument…

We should have an open and fair debate here, not just go through the motions and, as Senator Leahy said, rubber stamp whoever the administration puts forward.

I have a bunch of questions.

the States, as co-equal sovereigns, have their own sovereign powers, and that includes, as everyone at the time of the Constitutional Convention understood, sovereign immunity.

But you would--okay. Any others you want to mention?

So here is the brief that you filed.

I understand, but that is where we pass from strict constructionism to judicial activism in a certain way, and--

I just would ask unanimous consent. There are a whole bunch of letters of opposition to the nomination.

If philosophy did not matter, the White House would send us a far broader panoply of judges, in terms of their views, than they do.

How many of the cases where you argued on these significant cases--I mentioned four or five before.

Can I just--I want to let you finish. But did you disagree that the evidence we found was dispositive--you may disagree with it--but was directed at interstate commerce?

Five Justices on the Court have basically bought into the States' rights jurisprudence that you have been one of the leading advocates of and creators of, really.

Despite this evidence, which was enough to convince a jury of age discrimination, you voted to overturn the jury's verdict for the employees.