supreme court. before we do, i do just want to share one personal anecdote about what scotus blog has meant to me as someone who follows the court closely. this summer, on june 26th, my 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out. so those of you who follow it know that also happened to be the data windsor and perry, the two same-sex marriage cases came down from the court. my daughter was wheeled back from surgery at 9:59 which is -- [laughter] one minute before the court handed down. and so i was put in this terrible sophie's choice type position of caring for my daughter and refreshing scotus blog and following scotus blog over and over and over again which i'm sure the nurses had no understanding of what i was doing or thought i was a terrible parent. [laughter] it also shows the extent a that we rely on scotus blog to get our information in a timely way, to get it in the hospital rooms and the bedrooms and the academic settings around, so i'm very grateful for the work that you're

supreme court opinions. we had our name mentioned in oral arguments at the supreme court. we've gone on road trips around the country to teach seminars on free press and free speech. we have never had a panel at the national press club, and we're fixing that today with our first ever panel on supreme court technology and transpaper sigh, and we have, as i say on studio 8h and rockefeller plaza, we have a great show for you today on technology and transpaper sigh at the supreme court. we have judges, and we have journalists, and we have academics, and we have supreme court litigators, and as our moderator and musical guest, we have long time veteran supreme court reporter tony morrow and former head of the steering committee of the reporters' committee. i'm here to welcome you, thank you for coming, and to join us in this new chapter in our programming at the reporters' committee, and without further adieu, i'll turn it over to tony, thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bruce, i'm tony, and i want to welcome you to the discussion. i want to thank bruce brown and deb, especia

supreme court, and if it works in 95% of the other cases to have cameras, certainly the supreme court level but also at varying levels and to certain, varying extents in both trial courts and the appellate court in this 95% of the cases, i think those numbers alone, those exappearances alone -- experiences alone offer legitimate justification. and i would never presume to believe that congress should order the supreme court to do this. i am not advocating that one branch of government orders another branch of government to make this kind of monumental, cultural change. i am not advocating for that. but i think we need to realize that the supreme court itself has evolved from etc. original conception -- from its original conception and evolved in both number and gender, you know, and so many other progressive steps that it's taken. and this is just one more progressive step. >> by the way, justice o'connor commented that when she saw that moment when three women came through the curtain and took their places on the supreme court, it was such of a moving and magnificent moment. well, wo

supreme court to bring cases to the supreme court. my take away from the last decision is that justice kennedy had changed his mind about roe. three part of a group of justices who in the famous katie case had voted to save roe versus wade. the take away from kennedy's is that he believes on some level he got snookered, and people love over read his willingness to preserve the row right. -- roe right. it does seem likely that there are four members of the supreme court on the right who would be very willing to significantly right,cribe the roe although perhaps they would want to be incremental about it so it doesn't seem like they are being too aggressive. each abortion case that gets to the supreme court, you should expect the supreme court to materially restrict roe. it in a they will do way that does not seem entirely overt, but will send a strong signal to state legislatures that additional restrictions are constitutional. fact, justice o'connor was a big champion of the undue burden test for abortion restrictions. , the wallr on

where the supreme court reversed itself after supporting segregation for four decades of the supreme court suddenly began to support integration in the schools you know i think what we're seeing in the supreme court and in our elected officials are basically a reflection of the power of intensely concentrated economic and political power in the hands of the one percent which is why we've got to fight this in every way possible you know i think it's important for people to weigh in with the supreme court with their congressmen and women and with the president that this is unacceptable that we cannot dismantle these protections in the same way that it is unacceptable to be holding the budget and the full faith and credit of the united states of america hostage here and what's basically an extortion game being played by the top one percent which only burglars broke in on this issue but the between this disconnect between what the american people view money and politics now the supreme court seems to be ruling in these cases well sam i think that is a very good point and i really want to

court the supreme court responds to them and also the public pressure and we've seen the supreme court turn around we saw it in brown versus board of education in the one nine hundred fifty s. where the supreme court reversed itself after supporting segregation for four decades of the supreme court suddenly began to support integration in the schools you know i think what we're seeing in the supreme court and in our elected officials are basically a reflection of the power of intensely concentrated economic and political power in the hands of the one percent which is why we've got to fight this in every way possible you know i think it's important for people to weigh in with the supreme court with their congressmen and women and with the president that this is unacceptable that we cannot dismantle these protections in the same way that it is unacceptable to be holding the budget and the full faith and credit of the united states of america hostage here and what's basically an extortion game being played by the top one percent of schoenberg was busted on this issue but between this disc

the supreme court, the supreme court's role is to interpret the constitution and to determine what makes -- make sure constitutional rights are protected. the first amendment is a pillar of our structure, of who we are as a people. yet it is currently actually being, beyond its real true meaning is what we would say about the current interpretation. what they are not understanding is the first amendment rights of the people being drowned out of the system. >> that was liz kennedy, and also dr. jill stein. she stuck around to discuss the next topic, the government shutdown, which is now in week two and is not any closer to reopening or finding a way to raise the debt limit in the next nine days. this morning president obama called speaker of the house john boehner two, according to mr. weiner, remind him he will not negotiate over the debt limit. the president had this to say -- >> the american people do not get to demand a ransom for doing their jobs. you do not clear bank and say i will not pay my mortgage this month unless you throw in a new car and an xbox. if you are in negotiations

did they clerk for an appeals court judge or supreme court judge? another way you can do it, the best way but it doesn't cover all the nominees, would be citations to their opinions that we talked about before. there are lots of different ways i go through in the book that i won't have time to break through here but not just citations by nominees generally court judge's opinions generally but does the supreme court cited judge's opinion? does he get cited by judges in other circuits, not just his own? and there are different ways a citation can be done that can go and measure its influence? just to give you an idea how large the study is in this book the largest previous study that is remotely similar which looked at 80 circuit court nominees over basically two administrations, the next largest of that 40 nominees, circuit court nominees over two administrations. here is a problem. when you are looking at so few people over such a short period of time, just those two administrations are idiosyncratic or part of a longer trend and you can't find a lo

supreme court opinions. we have gone on road trips around the country to teach seminars about free press and free speech. at the never had a panel national press club. we're fixing that today. onh our first ever panel supreme court technology and transparency. we have, as they say at the saturday night live studio, we have a great show for you today on technology and transparency in the supreme court. .e have judges and journalists we have academics. we have supreme court litigators. as our moderator and musical guest, we have a longtime veteran of the supreme court, a reporter. the head of the reporters' committee. thank you for coming and joining .s in this new chapter without further ado, i will turn it over to tony. [applause] >> thank you, bruce. my name is tony mauro. i would like to welcome you to our discussion. hostld like to thank our for making this happen. in addition to being on this years,ee for close to 30 i have been covering the supreme court for 33 years. this is an issue that is near and d

not the supreme court. the public is left in the dark about the decisions justice make or don't make about the perceived conflict of interest or otherth cam -- ethicals concerns. i could go on. the issues seem to be popping up more and more these days in relation to the supreme court. let's get to the discussion. we have a terrific panel. i'll introduce each one briefly. first, kenneth star for whom there could be many hon risk. president, president of yale university. general as in former solicitor general and judge. and author of the classic "first among equal; the supreme court in american life "in this town, judge is probably the one that sticks. that's what i'll call him. next we have chief justice maureen o'connor of the ohio supreme court. we are glad to have her with us. she's a native of d.c. and has been on the court for the ohio court for ten years serving as chief justice since 2010. her court is an innovator in term of access and technology and you can even get the audio and oral argument on it

of the supreme court. and the justices when asked about these issues often put it in terms of sort of a supreme court exceptionalism, that the court is uniquely apolitical, unelected, it's unlike any other court and unlike any other branch or level of government. and the justices say we have this unique court and we don't want to mess it up. i guess what i want to ask you is whether that's irrelevant, the uniqueness of the supreme court is relevant in this regard in terms of whether they should be able to exempt themselves from the rules that apply to other courts? >> i do should i get the supreme court is exceptional. for the reasons i said, let me give you a vivid example. my first supreme court was the guantÁnamo case. i was her present someone alleging to be osama bin laden's driver and very high stakes and we won that case fight back-to remake the are coming out on the steps, the decision was 200 pages long but i hadn't had time to read it but i came up on the steps and they said would be penny. this

supreme court. that will be our focus for today's "washington journal" throughout the show. first we will talk to some court.s of the supreme after that we will talk to to former clerks of the supreme court to get an idea of what it is like to work inside the supreme court and the workload for the justices and then later we will take phone calls about the supreme court opening session. we will get an idea of the major cases they will be taking up for the new term heard back to your phone calls about the shutdown. a lease, worn, ohio. good morning. i believe that the republicans have done us a service and a disservice at the same time area did as you look at where the conversation started, at first it started with the defunding of obamacare. now they have pretty much backed away from that and now they're talking about other concessions that the democrats, that they want from them so that the country doesn't go into default. obamacare started out to be the problem but now look at where they are going.

and the supreme court's new term began. the court hears arguments tomorrow on the first major case of the term, lifting limits on individual campaign contributions. online, finding ways to delay the aging process, which would not only make people feel and look better, but could also save the u.s. trillions in the long run. read about a new study from health affairs, on the rundown. and see how a solar-powered home designed and built by college students will benefit a wounded warrior. we have a video on our homepage. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at arguments in a major campaign finance case before the supreme court. i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. on behalf of all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur f

supreme court. i did want to share one personal anecdote about what scotusblog has meant to me as someone who follows the court very closely. coincidentally this summer june 26 does it have been my 5-year-old daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out. for those of you who follow know that june 26 happened to be the day that windsor in. the two same-sex marriage cases have come down to the court. my daughter was wheeled back from surgery at 9:59. i was put in this terrible sophie's choice type position of caring for my daughter and refreshinrefreshin g scotusblog and following scotusblog over and over again which i'm sure the nurses had no idea what it is doing. to get in a timely way and the hospital rooms and bedrooms and academic settings so i am grateful for the work you are doing. we are here today as i said and so honored and lucky to have with us on this panel four of our country's most prestigious and keen observers of the united states supreme court. we felt we couldn't let them -- with

the supreme court should change. the initial. republican or democrat. and so the obama should do his job. i am afraid that obama is not doing his job exactly as he should. >> host: we will leave that. move on to teaneck, republican caller. >> caller: good morning. did you purposefully omitted the part of the constitution that states the free exercise era shall be left to the citizens of practice of religion? >> host: who are you referring to? >> caller: the gentleman. >> guest: the free exercise clause does not really come into play because we're talking about a government meeting. there is nothing in the practice of the town of new york that interferes with anyone's exercise of religion, going to church, doing anything like that the only question is whether the town government and self when response is a prayer, what limits it faces when it invites people to come in and pray and provides a forum. there is really -- sometimes these clauses overlap. the free exercise of religion at all people are guaranteed along with

court the supreme court responds to them and also to public pressure and we've seen the supreme court turn around we saw it in brown versus board of education in the one nine hundred fifty s. where the supreme court reversed itself after supporting segregation for four decades of the supreme court suddenly began to support integration in the schools you know i think what we're seeing in the supreme court and in our elected officials are basically a reflection of the power of intensely concentrated economic and political power in the hands of the one percent which is why we've got to fight this in every way possible you know i think it's important for people to weigh in with the supreme court with their congressmen and women and with the president that this is unacceptable that we cannot dismantle these protections in the same way that it is unacceptable to be holding the budget and the full faith and credit of the united states of america hostage here and what's basically an extortion game being played by the top one percent which only burglars broke in on this issue but the between t

he wrote to the supreme court of the united states. >> the supreme court they have cases brought to the court by people who are too poor who are able to pay for their fees. gideon's was a hand written document online prison stationery. you couldn't imagine a simpler more elementary way to get to the highest court in the land. >> why would the supreme court decide to hear the case of a poor man already in prison. because the constitution allows even a poor man to be heard. lightning strikes from the ground up. it may have been sparked by gideon but they were on the court's justice ready to catch it. >> he was the most influential person in the courtroom system of all time. people should not be disadvantaged in getting justice because they are poor. the judge was viable for the constitution. it had the best constitution in the world and if we were tolerant it would be all right. on the morning of march 18th, the decision was announced from the supreme court. they said justice black said i have an announcement the decision and opinion of the court gideon against -- vindication for 20 years

now before the supreme court. she'll be provideding over that situation. >> also, you're going to focus on something south of the border. >> south of the border, the california reporter talking about the increase between the increasing tides. an $80 million terminal being built at the tijuana airport, and when you land in tijuana, you'll be able to walk over a pedestrian bridge right into san diego instead of going through the border and waiting for hours in your car. they're hoping it's going to increase tourism and business ties between the u.s. and mexico. there's already a lot of that at the border, and they're hoping that this terminal when it's built and finished at the end of next year, is really going to seal the deal. >> how long has that been in the works? probably for a while. >> they have been talking about this for many, many years. probably the better part of a decade. there were disagreements over who was going to pay for it and how. it's going to be privately funded. there's now real excitement abo

the 18 years on the supreme court staggered every two years. every president got two -- >> strikes me -- >> very reasonable idea. >> no president gets to pack. >> exactly, if you are elected to two terms, four justices, great idea, never gonna happen. >> because? >> because it is hard to amend the constitution. and there is not the kind of political constituency that would -- that mobilized for such a thing that you would -- you can amend the constitution. you think it is a good idea to get rid of terms. >> the process. >> 3/4 of the state legislature, the house and the senate. >> especially given the toxicity of politics today, what a disaster it would be to martial people. >> it would turn into other issues would get attached to it. that is why, i think life tenure as an idea isn't perfect. if it is easy to amend the constitution, you can imagine the garbage. balanced budgets, flag burns. >> let me ask you the question about obama that i asked about romney. say obama had the opportunity to appoint sotomayor and cagan. >> elena kagan was my cl

in the best of the rest of the news in the wake of the supreme court's citizens united decision over seven billion dollars was spent by a combination of party's candidates and outside groups just during the two thousand and twelve election and depending on how the court rules in a new case mccutcheon v federal election commission that record spending number could climb even higher during the upcoming twenty sixteen presidential race at stake in the mccutcheon case is a fundamental rule of american campaign finance law that the supreme court affirmed back in one thousand and seventy six buckley versus fillet held a campaign contributions donations made by people like you me or wealthy donors like shelly adelson can be limited on tuesday the republican national committee joined alabama billionaire sean mccutcheon in arguing before supreme the. in court that the u.s. government should not limit the total amount of money any one person can donate over the course of want to lecture or to talk about the my caution case and its potential ramifications as derek crossman democratic candidate

for supreme court judge. another way you can do it, the best way doesn't cover all the nominees, would be citations to their opinion semitrucks about before. there's lots of different ways that go through the book that i'm not going to have time to breakthrough here. it's not just citations by nominees generally or judge's opinions generally, but it could be the supreme court site judge's opinion. does he get cited by judges in other circuits, not just his own? there's also different ways that a citation can be done. they can go and measure. so just to give you an idea how large the study is in this book, the largest previous study, remotely similar i had done, which looked at 84 circuit court nominees over basically two administrations. the next largest study looked at 40 nominees from a circuit court nominees over to administrations. here's the problem. when you're looking at so many people for such a short period of time come you can't tell just those two administrations are idiosyncratic. it's a part of a

supreme court and if it works in 95 percent of the other cases, and yet the supreme court level but also at varying levels to a certain extent of the trial court and the appellate court in 95 percent of the cases, those numbers or experiences alone offer justification or presume to believe that they should order the supreme court to do that. not that one branch orders another to make this monumental cultural change. so the supreme court has evolved from the original conception for gender with any other progressive steps that were taken. this is just one more. >> that moment with three women took a curtain and took their place it was a moving image bank efficent moment. would it be wonderful for us all to see that? or if it was extraordinary when john paul stevens steps aside in the outpouring of affection and admiration for a great man but an enormous affection for the man and his remarkable service to our country on the supreme court. we did not get to see that either. isn't that a shame? even the ceremonial part. let's at least have some of the ceremonies broadcast. >> when a portion o

supreme court. again ranked as a couple minutes behind. we will have live coverage when it starts. treasury secretary jack lew at a policy cartel center for american progress. >> thanks so much for the very kind introduction and thanks to the center for american progress for having me here this morning. this is your 10th anniversary and i want to commend john and all of you creating an institution that's really become central to helping shape the direction of public policy in this country. as we meet this morning, it's been just a little over a week since democrats and republicans came together to end the government shutdown and eliminate the risk of default at the threat over our country. this bipartisan action marks a turning point because even though the process was messy and damaging, our political leaders chose to come together for our country and our economy. we now have the opportunity to build on last week's event. there's no reason to let this moment slip through our fingers. not when the a

in the best of the rest of the news in the wake of the supreme court's citizens united decision over seven billion dollars was spent by a combination of party's candidates and outside groups just during the two thousand and twelve election and depending on how the court rules in a new case mccutcheon v federal election commission that records spending number could climb even higher during the upcoming twenty sixteen presidential race at stake in the mccutcheon case is a fundamental rule of american campaign finance law that the supreme court affirmed back in one thousand and seventy six buckley versus fillet home campaign contributions donations made by people like you mere wealthy donors like shelley. can be limited on tuesday the republican national committee joined alabama billionaire sean mccutcheon in arguing before the supreme court that the u.s. government should not limit the total amount of money any one person can donate over the course of want to lecture or to talk about the mccutcheon case and its potential ramifications as derek crossman democratic candidate for secretar

supreme court began its new term today. the nine justices will tackle some constitutionally significant case us on controversial issues. david shuster joins us with more. >> the cases on this particular term not as high profile as previous years. but still the issues will have some reach on some of the greatest post passionate debates of our time. many believe that the political system is broken because of the flow of money into the system. the issue involves individual contribution limits. as it stands individuals are not allowed to give more than $2,600. but they have already ruled in citizens united, saying that limiting contributions is a violation of free speech. the other controversial debate will be over contraception. religious groups say forcing organizations to provide contraception is unconstitutional. >> and there are others that will generate interest too? >> yeah, abortion is on the docket as well. the protests that we see every year in washington, in massachusetts the supreme court is take up a law that has e

of appeals and in the supreme court was a thing to behold. it was a sight to behold. i was privileged to witness that. and also i really would be negligence if i didn't mention the role that ilya shapiro and trevor burris played in writing numerous amicus briefs. it's true that ilya and i were the only people in every court of appeals hearing, although i was in pensacola for the district court case. so i got one case -- i mean -- i got one hearing up on him. and, but he was there, and we wrote these briefs. >> i was too busy debating the case in some other law school at the time. >> and he debated in all these law schools. and what trevor and ilya were able to do with the amicus briefs that i co-authored with them, the three of us worked together, is make a pure, constitutional argument of the kind that not all the lawyers for all the cases being litigated around the country were actually able to make at that point. so i do think that our amicus briefs did galvanize the best constitutional arguments against the case, and they were eventually

the supreme court has restricted its use. it says when government uses affirmative action or racial preferences it must have a compelling interest for that and they must be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. one of the interests that the supreme court has upheld as a compelling interest is diversity. this case is a little different from the cases we've talked about in the past. >> 2003 and 2006 involving michigan and texas before. >> yes, that is how those universities were using racial preference. this is about whether voters can pass the constitutional amendment to their state constitution prohibiting the use of racial preferences. >> take us inside the courtroom, justice soto-mayer says this gives away the opportunity to use racial diversity. >> the voters had restructured the political process within the university to the disadvantage of minorities, and the only way to really explain that is sort of a hypothetical. say i graduate from the university of michigan and i want the university to give preferences to my

and that was corruption under supreme court precedent. in the early 1990s, in the early 2000s that's exactly the definition because the rest of the supreme court, the majority that once held understands that politics is more complicated than, you give me money, i give you a vote. they understand that corruption can run through a system in a way that's far more pernicious and deeper but subtle. justice kennedy has a much narrower view of what constitutes corruption. and that has been the source of deregulation in citizens united. >> yes, if we saw a baseball player before he bats hand a wad of cash to the umpire, we'd know that that's corruption. but we don't see the donor handing, the politician, the incumbent senator or congressman handing a decision to the donor, we never see that. >> we never see it, but we see it in the aggregate. just take a look at what happened when we had the biggest financial crisis in history. wall street was right there helping write the legislation, working on all kinds of pieces of blocking things they didn't

bush campaign and and also played a role in getting it before the supreme court when when he. appeared to have lost the vote in florida. yeah i was astounded to find this note book by one of george w. bush's top advisers timothy go climb help i hope i'm spelling pronouncing that correctly but go home and says in a book which had a forward by karl rove. which it is a serious you know political confessional testimony and copeland stated that. when the nine hundred ninety nine ted cruz was on the working with the camp intellect george w. bush and bush for president and he had the connections to. get go going to meeting with paul why rick who really was want that top one two or three in a top among the top three architects of their and why rick was the guy who back in one thousand nine hundred eighty said i don't want everybody to vote i mean he spotted alec he helped you know heritage foundation it's amazing the ted cruz was like right at the nexus of this stuff and his mentor was was paul weyrich anywhere yet we had a bruce wilson great work you're doing thank you for the writin

you or somebody else of the supreme court? >> it is a question to us now, because that is why we had a meeting this afternoon with the president of the country, and some of the leading candidate ministers like the defense minister, attorney-general and other ministers. >> so this sound like a real crisis, if not a mess - if you pardon the expression - that you, yourself, is not sure who is in charge of what when it comes to the elections now? >> that is the problem we have right now in this country because according to the constitution, we are the authority, the election commission is the authority, is to decide on the election date, and even the election result, the election procedures. but, you know, the supreme court is a kind of authority here, like, you know - like our institution that can override the articles in the constitution because according to the constitution, we were supposed to have the election on certain dates. three weeks from the date of the first sign of the election. that has been broken by the supreme co

we're continuing our discussion of campaign finance laws and the supreme court. with us are dan roberts of the guardian newspaper. jessica levenosn and paul sherman. paul earlier this week we had two former congressmen, one a democrat, one a republican. both had served many terms multiple terms in the house. and one of them said to us when he began in the 1980s the cost of his campaign every two years was about half a million dollars. and when he finally left i in 2009, i think he said, it had raise on it $6 million every two years. that's a lot of money sloshing around in the system. why is so much money necessary? >> well, it's certainly true that the cost of campaigning has gone up and a lot of that has been driven by the increase in television advertising. but if we want to do something about the amount of money in politics we have to look at how much money is demanded in politics. a big part that have is that government has a lot of favors to hand out. the source of the problem is government power, that's what we have to address if we want to cut down on the

appeals court judge or supreme court justice? the best way but not everybody is citations of their opinions and there is a lot of a different ways i will go through in the book not just by comedies or a judge's opinions but does the supreme court? without judges of other circuits? also other ways to measure the influence. just to give you an idea how large this study is, the largest previous study remotely similar i had done that looked at 84 circuit court nominees and sent over to registrations. there is a problem when you looked at so few period over a short period of time you cannot just tell those two are idiosyncratic or is it part of a trend? also interesting patterns maybe this is where we cannot talk more about but the aba come after you control for that quality or how well they did or what appointments they did come you'll find the averaged democratic nominee would be ranked as well qualified of the members of the group and well qualified by the minority -- a minority. so most of the panel would vote for republicans as q

the supreme court's look at the post-watergate reforms. in that ruling the court drew the distinction between government's ability to regulate independent expenditures versus contributions. and a couple of the justices said, you know, why do we still have that? do we have -- should government have that kind of latitude for contributions? and at one point, they were talking about whether actually make it harder for government to restrict contributions. and elena kagan who was the former solicitor general for president obama said wait a minute. what about going the other way? making it harder, you know, making it easier frankly for government to then come in and regulate expenditures. in effect reversing citizens united. and solicitor general don vereli who succeeded her was at the lecturn saying far be from me to go backward which was a nice moment in the courtroom. >> joan, what was the atmosphere like in the courtroom and did you get a sense that any particular justice dominated the questions or really aroused people's interests with this

how many of the current supreme court justices served as a supreme court law clerk? the answer is three. chief justice roberts and associate justices breier and kagen. they their entire careers were designed about getting to this court and they succeeded. today's winner, roger moore. well i drove grandpa to his speed dating this week, so i should probably get the last roll... yeah but i practiced my bassoon. [ mom ] and i listened. [ brother ] i can do this. [ imitates robot ] everyone deserves ooey, gooey, pillsbury cinnamon rolls. make the weekend pop. >>> health care.gov has now been online for a full week but we still don't know how many consumers have within able to sign up for health care using the onsign exchanges. site users of experienced technical problems. jon stewart spoke with hhs secretary kathleen sebelius last night. >> we're going to do a challenge. i'm going to try and download every movie ever made and you're going to try to sign up for obama care and we'll see which happens first. >> the obama administration is now acknowledging these problems, in

. >>> the supreme court began its new term on monday. david shuster takes an important look at some of the are issues and what the justices are facing. >> these cases still have a lot of reach and the justices are still going to face, protesters can stand in front of abortion clinics to how much we can contribute to any political candidates. >>> watergate scandal, federal office. as it stands individuals are not allowed to give a candidate more than $2600 per election but under chief justice john roberts the supreme court has already dismannedismantled, perhaps wilw allow unlimited contributions to candidates as well, thereby allowing the rich to buy even more political power. >>> on abortion, the issue that prompts the annual marches on washington, a mches law that -- a mche protest oar's first ament law to free speech. >>> on affirmative action, it's not just michigan wolverines and spartans. there's michigan and michigan state. the ruling could also affect admission rulings donation wide. the new contraception law. religious groups ar

. >> what supreme court directive? >> when one of the parties that is one of went to court after tt round their complaint was irregularities in the voter list. but no irregularity was clearly identified. but the supreme court came up with 16 directive and they are out of reach. they are saying that the supreme court has not asked -- restricted them because the two parties are contesting the list. they are saying there are irregularities in the list. >> hold on a second. it's nothing to do with the police, is it? the election list? why should the police intervene in something that is not under their power. >> >> that is the point. we have been able to identify five groups that are restricting or restraining our process. actually the international community says it was not a coup. they wanted us to make a report but said it's not a coup, just like in egypt. in our case it was live on tv and everybody saw it. the international community are here on the ground and they see what is going on. and i'm sure now they understand

and since 2007, she's led the supreme court practice in the washington, d.c. office of akin-gump. her work in are private practice spans commercial litigation and administrative law, constitutional matters, strat industry tri construction, even criminal appeals. she's represented army reservists and business interests including the chamber of commerce as well as civil rights plaintiffs. ms. millet is a nominee with unquestionable integrity and character. she's committed herself to pro bono work. she has done this throughout her career and has engaged in significant community service. it's interesting at a press conference i held yesterday, we

one about the operations of the supreme court. one of the things i love about the book is you really capture how they interacted, and one of the things that i found fascinating is that, in fact, the supreme court justices didn't even have offices back in this period. they worked from home. >> right. they were freelancers. >> freelancers, no offices. so there are lots of things that are different about the way the supreme court operates today than then, but do you want to highlight a couple that you think are particularly interesting? >> that was one of the fun aspects of working on the book, was just seeing how things worked. yes, the supreme court did not have its current building. that was constructed in the '30s. they met in the old senate chamber in the capitol, and they had a conference room downstairs that was just down the hall from the senate barbershop, this sort of musty, cigar smoke-filled room, but they did all their work at home. they didn't have four law clerks like they do now. they each had a secretary, but they di