This thing is coming out of the House at us. It looks like it is a complete mess.

If it does, I would like to recommend that we follow the model that you led, that I thought was extremely successful on the Elementary and Secondary Education bill.

And Supreme Court Justices socialize with this small group, and then they go and they tender--render decisions that give that small group immense political advantage.

the actual operation of getting Judge Gorsuch before us has been special interest, dark money politics.

Congress can rewrite these laws. Congress can demand disclosure.

what happens when the Republicans get five appointees on the Supreme Court?

And got deeply involved in politics, did they not? They changed the entire political environment, the entire political ecosystem with one decision.

Do you really think that a Supreme Court that decided Citizens United does not get involved in politics?

As much as 40 percent of the Federal judiciary has gone to these special-interest-funded training sessions described by one writer as a 'cross between Maoist cultural re-education camps and Club Med.'

It creates an egregious ethical conflict of interest bordering on wholly improper out-of-court communication with special interest lobbyists or representatives of people who have filed lawsuits.

I think these 5-to-4 decisions are a problem.

I think that he has handled these hearings in a very gracious way.

the Court made new law, 5-to-4, and each decision predictably helped Republicans win elections.

They set up an array of benign-sounding front groups to both organize and conceal their manipulation of our politics.

What could be more involved in politics than to open this ocean of dark money that flooded into our politics?

It looks like an interest group has put part of the Federal judiciary in its saddle.

Clearly, I mean, just on that alone, it does not even pass the dictionary test. Clearly, there is no independence.

As to transparency, this whole dark money problem belies their assumption of transparency.

Tellingly, big special interests and their front groups are spending millions of dollars in a dark money campaign to push your confirmation.

I think you have seen more like 90 percent of the public unhappy with Citizens United because they see the problem that it caused in our democracy.

There is a--it has been I think fairly and fully documented that there is a small group of billionaires who are working very hard to influence and even to control our democracy: Kochs, Mercers, DeVoses, and, yes, Anschutzes.

Stick with it because it is going away unless the judiciary breathes a little bit of life into it.

all the 5-to-4 Republican appointee decisions line up to help corporations against humans.

I was elected to the Senate in 2006. I was sworn in in 2007.

Once you let certain political interests achieve the kind of dominance that Citizens United has let them get, they can start to exert disproportionate control over Congress.