“I have never been more proud of a nominee than I am of you. You’ve been candid to this body about who you are, what you believe. You’ve been reassuring in your disposition, and this is history being made, folks. This is the first time in American history that we’ve nominated a woman who is unashamedly pro-life and embraces her faith without apology. And she’s going to the court.” “So this hearing, to me, is an opportunity to not punch through a glass ceiling but a reinforced concrete barrier around conservative women. You’re going to shatter that barrier.” “Would you agree, first, that nobody is above the law — not the president, not you, not me? Is that correct?” “I agree no one is above the law.” “And does a president have an absolute right to pardon himself for a crime?” “Senator Leahy, so far as I know, that question has never been litigated. That question has never risen. That question may or may not arise. But it’s one that calls for legal analysis of what the scope of the pardon power is.” “Of course, a Supreme Court has no army. They have no force. But they do have a force of law. And is a president who refuses to comply with a court order a threat to our constitutional system of checks and balances?” “As I said, the Supreme Court can’t control whether or not the president obeys. Abraham Lincoln once disobeyed an order during the Civil War.” “Many argue that Bush v. Gore — and back to your earlier work — hurt the court’s legitimacy. But will having justices with this background, two of whom were appointed by the current president, decide any cases related to the upcoming election — do you think that will undermine the legitimacy of the court?” “Asking whether something would undermine the legitimacy of the court or not seems to be trying to elicit a question about whether it would be appropriate for justices who participated in that litigation to sit on the case, rather than recuse.” “The reason I asked about that is that this would be unprecedented when we, right now, we’re in an unprecedented time where we have a president who refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power working to undermine the integrity of this election. And yesterday you wouldn’t commit to recuse yourself from the case we just talked about.” “It’s not law, however. The Constitution is law. The severability issue — First of all, the majority holding, as you recognized, was that even though the Medicaid provision was unconstitutional, it was severable. So Justice Scalia expressed his view in dissent. Severability strives to look at a statute as a whole and say, ‘Would Congress have considered this provision so vital that, kind of in the Jenga game, pulling it out, Congress wouldn’t want the statute anymore?’ So it’s designed to effectuate your intent. But, you know, severability is designed to say, ‘Well would Congress still want the statute to stand even with this provision gone? Would Congress still have passed the same statute without it?’ So I think, in so far as it tries to effectuate what Congress would have wanted, it’s the court and Congress working hand in hand.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
