Jenny Martinez: Good afternoon, welcome and Happy New Year. We’re delighted to have here with us today, recently retired Justice Steven Breyer, for whom I had the honor of clerking in the 1998 term 25 years ago.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And she was a great clerk. I love those.  

Jenny Martinez:  And I was also, I was a toddler then. I was, it was, uh, I was very young. Um, uh, but in any case, uh, we’re delighted to have Justice Breyer here today for a conversation about his years on the Supreme Court, his views on constitutional law and the role of the Supreme Court in a democracy based on the rule of law. And we’ll also hopefully get some advice for our law students on, uh, life in the law and what, what law has meant to him in his career of public service and advice for students embarking on their legal studies. Um, justice Breyer is a Stanford undergrad alum, um, where he assures me that he went to class and did not spend time lying around in the sun. Uh, so <laugh>, so first of all, thank you for coming. Um, and let me ask, how did you decide to go to law school?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  My father was a lawyer. Now, this will be very far, all of you. He sort of expected me to go to law. Now it’s really foreign and is those days, you know, middle ages and so forth, where people sort of did what their parents expected. I mean, that couldn’t be true now, but I mean, it was at that time.  

Jenny Martinez:  And he was a lawyer in San Francisco,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Right? This is his watch. Uh, his watch says, uh, and I’m sure this has made a difference to my life. It says Irving g Breyer, legal advisor, San Francisco Unified School District, S f u s d 1933 to 1973, and his friends. And so that’s why I grew up in Chuck, my brother, who’s a district, uh, federal district judge in San Francisco. That, that was, it was the school department. That was our lives growing up. And, uh, it was great. I mean, we just ex our, our, our mother at that time, you know, the women had a harder time getting jobs and so forth than they ever have since. But, but, uh, no, she’d be in, uh, civic, different civic projects, legal women, voters, uh, United Nations Association, and worked for a few political candidates and so forth. And, uh, there we are. So we grew up in Kindred Sheriffs near Lone Mountain in San Francisco. And, uh, I think it was great. They grew up in the late forties, early fifties, uh, San Francisco. Uh, great. I came down to Stanford. I mailed my mother home, my laundry every week,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And there we are. There we are. <laugh>. That’s the, uh,  

Jenny Martinez:  So your, your father’s work with the school district. I mean, you’ve your sort of knowledge of local government and of public service. Do you think that came in part from your father?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Yes, and my mother. Yeah. And my mother. That’s what I, I I tell the high school students that, uh, what I’m saying is I, when I, or if I’m in a graduation, uh, ceremony, uh, I’ll say, look, um, I, I can’t tell you really how to lead your life. I hope that you find a job that you enjoy. I hope you find someone to love. And I hope that you participate in public life. Cuz, although I can’t tell you, uh, what to do, see, then this is dramatic. I take out the Constitution <laugh>, and I say, well, I say, I do know this. This document will not work if you do not participate in public life in any way, voting’s okay, beyond the school board, uh, beyond the Library Commission, uh, there are thousands of things you can do, but you’re part of a community. And that’s how I grew up. I mean, I grew up on Kittridge Terrace. I went to Lowell High School. I, uh, at that time was only a few blocks away from there. And, and I came down here and my daddy come to Stanford, even at Stanford. And, uh, so it just seemed like a normal thing to do. And, uh, participation should, I think, and for me it did. And I think it should for you too, just seem normal. That’s how you live your life. You’re in a community. You help other people as well as yourself.  

Jenny Martinez:  So my constitutional law students, do you have the pocket constitutions that I gave you this morning? Cuz you’re gonna carry them around like that? Yeah, yeah. Um,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  I have quite a few of them. <laugh>.  

Jenny Martinez:  So tell us a little bit about your early years after law school, what you did, and how it influenced your later career  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  After law school, I clerked for a year. I clerked for Arthur Goldberg, who his law clerks loved him, and I did too. We, he took, we took a, he took us out to lunch all the time on Saturdays. We worked on Saturdays then. And, uh, he was filled with energy. And, and, uh, Jack Kennedy, he said that Arthur Goldberg was the smartest man he ever met. And that’s possible. Uh, and, but he left the court after three years. Uh, and the reason he left the court was because Linda Johnson called him and said this, and I, I, I’m pretty sure this is what happened. He said, Arthur, the most serious problem faced in the United States is the war in Vietnam. I thought so, and I’m sure he thought so. And he says, I intend to solve that problem at the United Nations. And Edley Stevenson had just died.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And he said, Arthur, I want you to go to the un and that’s where we will solve the problem of, uh, Vietnam. And Goldberg believed him. And he talked to Brennan and he talked to Warren, and they said, probably you could do more good there. That’s true. And they were serious about it. Well, he went there and didn’t work too well. But, uh, uh, I still admire him enormously, enormously, uh, the people I’ve worked for, I’ve been very lucky in. I worked for Arthur Goldberg and what was his favorite saying? It was from Shakespeare. You’ve just suddenly reminded me, uh, life is short to spend that short time. Basically, it is too long if it just rode around dials point and ended at the turning of the hour at Shakespeare. Good point. Don’t spend it, basically. And I worked for Archie Cox for a while, and he was running for a, a few months when he was running Watergate.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Honest man, honest man. And the country saw that when President Nixon tried to fire him, did fire him. And, uh, Archie went on, uh, uh, uh, television then, and he was interviewed by people, and, and he said, yes. He said, that’s it. I I, I’m leaving the job. I, I’m sorry I’m being fired. But I tried not to run this, uh, in a way that was out to get the president. Sometimes when I saw what was happening, I’d say, maybe I’ve gotten too big for my britches. That’s very New England saying very New England. And he said, that’s, uh, and he was honest, completely honest. And I, I sort of saw that and learned from it. And he came over and told the people on the staff at the Watergate, don’t quit. You’re here to do a job. Do it. And they didn’t quit. And they did do the job.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And then I worked for Senator Ted Kennedy, which I loved. What was that like? I mean, you worked in, it was such fun, worked in I’m the legislature, so, oh, I, I loved it. I loved it. That was back in the seventies. And, uh, oh my God, are you coming in the morning? You didn’t know what was gonna happen, <laugh>. I mean, it was always something interesting. And the thing I learned most, which I told my law clerks, and they, uh, one group and gave me a, a cup where they put in all the things that I, I would say Kennedy told me and I learned from him. And the first one right on the top is the best is the enemy of the good. And what he meant by that is, if you’re out there working with the staffs from a few other senators who don’t agree with you, and you can get 30% of what you want, choice is get the 30%, or don’t.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And if you don’t, your normal supporters will think you’re the greatest hero of the century. What do you want? The 30% are being thought, uh, to be the greatest hero, the 30% you take that, and when it comes time, forgetting credit, forget about the credit. If it works, there will be plenty of credit to go around. And if it doesn’t, who wants the credit? And Exactly Right. And, uh, what he’d have us do, and I saw him do this a lot, you get somebody who really disagrees with you, they are an obstacle to this Bill <laugh>. And you figure out, oh geez, what am I gonna do here? You start talking to them. No, you sit down and you listen to them, keep your own thoughts down a little bit. And if they talk long enough, if they talk, they’ll say something you actually agree with.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And once they do that, you say, Hey, that’s a pretty good point. Let’s see if we can work with that. And you do. And sometimes you’ll succeed. And when you do succeed working with what they started with, then the newspapers would come in and say, Senator Kennedy, you did a great job getting that bill through. He’d say, don’t talk to me. It was Rrn Hatch. It was Strom Thurman. It was, uh, uh, it was Simpson. It was, they were the ones who thought of this idea that got us on the right track, that got the thing through credit is a weapon using as such. And I saw him do that over and over and over. I can’t say never wanted credit. He yes, he got elected, doesn’t he? But, but nonetheless, uh, I I I, I tell that to the high school kids when I have a chance to talk to them.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And you know what cheers me up about, uh, things going on now when I talk, when I just, you’ve, I’ve said what I just told you before. Surprise, surprise. And, and uh, when I, when when I talk to the high school graduates or whatever, uh, on this kind of thing, they get interested. That’s it. They get interested. They’re looking for something to do to help. Not a bad idea. I say, you want to talk to other people who disagree with you, do it. The first place to look is the mirror. And then go out and do it. Yeah. They’re interested in that. And I think that’s a good sign. I think that’s a good sign. And it, uh, makes me not totally depressed, which I could be from time to time, but I’m not.  

Jenny Martinez:  So you are an optimist. Um, people would say the world has changed since then. We could start with, we could start with the Senate, um, work our way up to some other branches of government. Um, but, uh, <laugh>, I mean the legislature, do you think it’s still the same collegial place that it was when you worked?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  No. People who were there say it’s not, and it wasn’t all that collegial in, I mean, please, uh, uh, people didn’t agree about everything. Uh, and maybe they disagree that, but Kennedy said the thing that sort of reckless senate is the airplane. You see why, you see the point he’s making these, because people leave on Monday afternoon and they come back Thursday evening. And so they don’t get to know each other as people. That’s a problem. That’s a problem. Cuz you can take the people who, you know, really disagreed with us a lot, but they think they’re doing something from America. They think it. Now I might say, Hey, you’re not, you know, you’re not, you’re actually doing the opposite. So that doesn’t mean that they don’t think that they’re doing something fairly good. And so getting to know people as people and getting to, to know where they’re coming from, getting to know that the need is not, has not gone.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  It’s harder to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And so you, I the other thing I say, look, look, and, uh, I know there are a lot of problems in there, and I know there are problems in the court, and I know that I don’t agree with every case. And there we are. Okay? Okay. There we are. So, right here in Palo Alto, I’m willing to bet that during this Covid thing, which you had God awfully difficult time here, uh, there were groups as there were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, groups of people live on this block, and they go out and see older people are doing all right, and they see that people have enough to eat and see that they can get to the doctor. And that happens in Cambridge, mass. And it happens in Palo Alto, and it happens in St. Louis, and it happens across the country.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  But, but there’s a project, you know, and we get people who think different things, perhaps on some things, but they’ll get together and they’ll try to work in. And that’s true, that’s been true since I was in Mrs. Squad’s class in the fifth grade at grant school. Uh, and I think it’s true today. So those are things that make me reasonably optimistic. Uh, there’s quite a lot to do. And I like the smile on the high school students faces anyway. Uh, when I say, you know, you can go out and do that. You can go out and do it, and there are a thousand things you can do, and just think about item and just think about it. Get people to cooperate, et cetera. Corny but true.  

Jenny Martinez:  All right. So when you, um, when you, the next job you had after working for Senator Kennedy was as a court of appeals judge, and what was it like moving from the legislature to the judiciary?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Well, it was less exciting.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  I liked being a judge. I was on the first circuit, which was, uh, um, Massachusetts, Maine, uh, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Puerto Rico. So we made sure we went down there once a year. I love Puerto Rico <laugh>, and not just because it’s a nice climate. I mean, you could say the same thing about Massachusetts, uh, about, uh, Palo Alto, but it isn’t so nice at the moment, so we won’t say that. But none, nonetheless. Uh, it was really interesting, really interesting, fun and interesting. And you’re a judge, and a judge is a judge. That’s a different kind of a job. And don’t go around telling everybody what you think about everything. Uh, I really, because, uh, Lee Campbell told me that, he said, when you’re a judge, a judge is a person with a, a little bit of power, indeed, probably quite a lot of power in a very narrow area.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And you go out and start talking outside that area, the lawyers will say, isn’t that interesting? So intelligent ha ha ha they’ll say that while they’re in the room with you. And then they’ll go outside and say, there he goes again. So, be careful what you say. People are not necessarily interested in your general opinions. They are interested. That’s right. That’s true. And that’s true in the Supreme Court too. Uh, and, uh, I, I’ve liked being a judge. I mean, I think it’s a, it’s a, uh, a chance to do something. You have to pay a lot of attention. And on the Supreme Court, I would say the, uh, main virtue of that, for an individual who, you know, through some fluke is appointed, uh, the main virtue of it is you have to give your best every minute because it matters to people. And so there you are, as you get older, you can’t stop doing what, spending the time necessary for the case, thinking it through, reading the briefs, talking and listening and thinking.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And you do your best when you write on those pieces of paper. And you think writing here or paying attention is just a preparation for, it is preparation for something. It’s preparation for something that you’ll do your life, most of you. And the virtue of it is, is to me, whether you’re a judge or you’re a lawyer, is, uh, it takes two things. You’re helping a person, the client. So it takes a, a heart of some kind, paying attention to that individual and a head too, because you are able, if you’re right here, uh, to know a few things, that it’s the combination of the head and the heart that I think, uh, uh, makes people pleased that lawyers.  

Jenny Martinez:  So tell me a little bit about your approach to judging. You’ve, you’ve written books about it. I mean, if you had to sum it up in a sort of brief introduction, what’s your philosophy of judging?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Well, I said this, my, I I was at a talk with my brother, who’s a judge in San Francisco. I said, what, what? I think he’s a good trial judge, and what does a good trial judge do? He listens, listens to the case in front of him, listens without, you know, preconceptions. You can have those preconceptions, no problem with that as long as you abandon them. The second that you learned some facts and figures and arguments that you hadn’t thought of at the beginning. So that’s called being fair minded. I think that’s important. And, uh, being willing to do the work and what the newspapers are gonna say, forget about it. That’s their problem. That’s not your problem. And I said, of Chuck, which I think is true, and I think it should be, and he never forgets one fact that there’s a human being in front of him. There’s some human beings there, have a few problems, and you don’t forget that fact. So those three things, I think the, the fairness, the willing to put in the work to understand what’s going on, and remember, it’s about people. It is about human beings. It isn’t just about some case book, case books are there for a reason, but the reason ends up with the human beings who are having a big argument or they wouldn’t be there, and it’s serious and it’s about them.  

Jenny Martinez:  So what do you think is the role of a constitutional judge in a democracy based on rule of law? Like the courts are a counter majoritarian institution or sometimes called upon to set aside what the legislature has done, and yet an independent judiciary is understood to be a cornerstone of a functioning democracy. And so how do you think about the role of a constitutional judge in that kind of system?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Rule of law? I had it in, uh, my office about a few years ago, a woman who was the, uh, president of the Supreme Court of Ghana. And, uh, she was trying to make, uh, few changes that I think would be in the right direction, human rights and so forth. And she asked me this question. She said, what, what, why do people do what you say? I mean, that’s a pretty good question. There were only nine people there. I mean, you could have had 9,000 people in Cooper versus Aaron, and people still might not have done it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know why? And I say, well, there isn’t a single answer to that. And I tell a few stories, you know, the Cherokee Indian case in the 1840s, which I, where, where, uh, the Supreme Court said Northern Georgia, uh, belongs to the Cherokees. It doesn’t belong to the Georgians.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  The Georgians found gold there. And so they want to take it away from the Cherokees, but I’m sorry. No, uh, yeah, no, that’s the case of which Andrew Jackson said, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it. And Jackson sent troops to enforce the case now, but to throw the Indians out. And they walked along the Trail of tears to Oklahoma where their descendants lived to this day. I wanted her to know that story. And I wanted her to know about, uh, some of the things with integration and how hard that was. And read Cooper versus Aaron, as well as as, uh, brown. And, and when you read Cooper versus Aaron, you remember that nine judges on the Supreme Court all said in Little Rock, you have to integrate Central High School now. And, uh, as, uh, Eisenhower thought might happen, they closed the schools.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Governor Fhelps closed the schools, and, uh, took a long time. And we eventually got somewhere along the way, at least as far as legal segregation was concerned, because finally, a lot of people who weren’t lawyers and weren’t judges began to think that was the time of the Freedom Riders. That was the time of Martin Luther King. That was the time of, uh, Rosa Parks. That was the time when a lot of people across the country suddenly did wake up to there. There were a few problems down there in the South with Jim Crow, and I said, those people were not lawyers, but they woke up to it and they decided to help. And, uh, contrary to popular belief, we have 331 million people in this country, and 330 million of them are not lawyers. Hey, and they’re the ones you have to talk to. They’re the ones you have to convince.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  They’re the ones you have to convince that even when a decision, they don’t like the decision of the court, they don’t like it. And, uh, it means something to them. It can affect them. And it might be wrong. I mean, if it’s five, four, somebody’s wrong, all right? But you follow it. Maybe not if it’s Hitler or something, but they’re not Hitler, okay? And, uh, no, they’re the ones go to the villages, not, you don’t send the judges. They can go if they want, but everybody’s gonna think the judges are prejudiced. No wonder they make their living out of this. Or the lawyers who do too, the average person in that village, in that town, in that city, are out on the farm. They’re the ones that have to accept a need for a rule of law, which is to follow a judicial case sometimes when it was wrong.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And why do that? Because it has happened, as you well know, it has happened that a majority of people voting through their Congress can do things that do things to individuals who are not very popular, that are terribly unfair and wrong. And, uh, I think that’s certainly one of the reasons. What did Hamilton say in 70? Was it 76? I don’t remember which Federalist, I think it’s 76. He says, uh, you’ve gotta have this Constitution, beautiful document. Beautiful. We’ve written it. Hey, but if people don’t follow it, let’s put it up in, uh, the Smithsonian, as in the museum. By the way, they did not have the Smithsonian at that time, but he would’ve said that if they have, uh, so we have to have a system that they’ll, they’ll, they’ll follow it. And who, well, if we say the President has the last word, he just might, when he does something and someone says that’s contrary to those words in the Constitution, say, I don’t agree and say, everything he does is wonderful, and right, let’s conceivable a president could do that.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  So he said, let’s not give the power to the president and Congress. Congress is fabulous. They’re majority too, and they’re fabulous in knowing what’s popular, <laugh>. So if you want popularity, they’re the ones to go to because they know how to do it. But just sometimes you might be a very unpopular person. Uh, and, uh, how do we protect you? How do we give you those basic rights? So eventually Hamilton says, let’s give the power to the judges. It wasn’t something that, uh, John Marshall made up. There were a lot of people at that time, say the last word on the, uh, the constitutionality of a statute should be, uh, uh, that of the judges. Cuz the judges, for one thing, they’re not very powerful. They don’t have the power of the purse. They don’t have the power of the, so he says, and they’re sort of, they’re interested in law. And, uh, they won’t do too much, too terrible. Too often, I think you, you see, you read the 70, uh, Hamilton, 70 Federalist, 76, see what you think, see what you think. Uh, but that’s really, I think, where the judges got the power from. And, uh,  

Jenny Martinez:  So clearly for a constitutional democracy to function, as you suggest, most of the time people have to follow the Supreme Court’s decisions, even if they think they’re wrong. But there are these moments in American history where people think the court has gotten it very wrong. Yeah. So dread Scott is one example. We fought a civil war over dread Scott, and, you know, the Lincoln Douglass debates are about whether we have to respect the Supreme Court’s decision in dread Scott in the 1930s in the New Deal, the switch in time, that saved nine, the court was striking down all of the New deal. And then when Roosevelt threatened to pack the court, then the 1936 election, uh, went in his favor. The, the court switched its moves in terms of upholding the New Deal. So how do you fit those moments in American history where it seems like the court has gotten so badly out of step with public view that there is, uh, you know, a, a pushback that’s necessary from the ordinary course of democracy where you want Cooper versus Aaron to be upheld and enforced.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Fred Scott was pretty wrong. Lincoln said, Lincoln said, it’s a shocker. And what Lincoln did is he read Curtis’s dissent. And if you’ve never read Curtis’s dissent in Dread, Scott, I recommend it. I recommend it because it’s pretty damning as to the correctness of that majority decision of Tawny. Even under the law at that time, before the Civil War amendments were passed, and, uh, the New York State legislature passed a, a resolution. And here in the, in the leg, not here, I’m sorry, I’m in the West now, <laugh>, I’m from the west, actually. I’m, I’m from here. But nonetheless, I do get, uh, confused from time to time and think I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And, and, uh, uh, they’re in Cambridge. Much nicer here. Yeah. What? It’s much nicer here it is until this rainstorm. But anyway, the, the, the, the, uh, uh, they said, you realize they’re saying that a slave driver can come with his slaves under Bunker Hill.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  The, I mean, uh, the, the Citadel of democracy. Okay, so what happened? What happened if Tawny had a reason for that? My guess has been from reading about it, is Tawny thought he would stop the Civil War. He thought that you see the big argument whether the new, uh, territories could have slavery or not. And they were arguing about that, and he thought he would decide that that was what Buchanan supposedly told him. And, uh, he would decide that, and then that would be over. And then there’d be no Civil War <laugh>. If, uh, judges are bad at one thing, it’s politics. And, uh, uh, if Taw thought that Lincoln, after saying it’s a shocker, gave his speech at Cooper Union in that speech at Cooper Union, really took a lot from the Curtis dissent and it vaulted him to the head of the Republican party.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And, uh, he became candidate, became president. And uh, that was one of the things that assured there would be a civil war, and that eventually slavery would be abolished. So there we are. I can’t recommend that sort of thing for people. Uh, but you don’t agree with a lot of things. Well, you don’t, well then you try to change them. Now, I wouldn’t say you, how do you change them? Talk or listen or see where these other people are coming from And, uh, as a, as a lawyer or a law professor, you can write, does that hurt? No, it doesn’t hurt. And so that there’s still a huge argument. Did the switch in nine? Was there a switch in nine or were they following what they thought? Anyway? And probably nobody will ever know the answer to that, cuz the answer is to why you vote for something, uh, A or B is you work it out and then you vote for it and so forth.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And, but that’s locked in your head and you don’t even know yourself. You know, you just think that’s the right result there. But, uh, uh, yeah, there have been a lot. Kennedy used to say this too. He’d say, the country is like that, and it goes like that, and then it goes like that, and then it goes like that. But when it’s too far over here, it will write itself eventually. And it has of the new deal cases, it did. And it did eventually. It did eventually decide. Brown versus board took a long time and it did eventually. Doesn’t everything work out? But it slowly gets there. Slowly gets there. So your choice, if you’re a citizen of the United States, is just throw up your hand and say everything is all wrong. All the good move to some other place, or you work at it. You work at changing, you work at convincing, you work at, uh, trying to get, uh, uh, people in positions of authority, uh, say in the Congress or the President. You work for those things you believe in and you participate. And that’s the best I can do.  

Jenny Martinez:  Well, I know our students probably have many questions and we’ve got about 30 minutes left. I have lots more questions that I can ask, but I wanna give our students a chance. So we have two microphones in each aisle, and the q and a is open only to law students. Um, but if you are a Stanford law student and have a question, please feel free to go to one of the mics in the aisle and you can, a few of you can line up for each one of them if you, if  

Student question 1:  You’d like. Hi, justice Breyer. Um, thank you so much for being here. This has been delightful. Um, I’m just gonna do this. Um, I had the privilege of hearing you speak about five years ago, and in those five years, my own thoughts, opinions, and feelings on a lot of things about politics and the judiciary have changed a lot. And I’m curious for you, is there an issue or an opinion that you’ve since changed throughout your legal career, your mind on, and what has influenced that change of mind?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Oh, sure. I mean the, the, the thing that comes, pops into my head, see, what you do is you, you, you get the, uh, well first you have to decide what cases to take. And that’s our first job. When I’m, when I’m on the court, the first thing we do is every week we vote. And if there are four votes to take a case, we hear it. And usually that’s about, uh, 60 or 70 or 80 in the year, and we get maybe seven or 8,000 request year cases. And we hear the cases where different judges had come to different conclusions on the same question of federal law. Well, there we are, now we’re hearing it and we get briefs. Uh, blue brief, the lower court was wrong. You knew that red brief. No, it wasn’t. It was right. Yellow brief. The red brief is wrong. <laugh>,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  My green briefs, everybody, you too. They they’re great. Stanford, they’ve been great. Stanford, uh, a mike is cur eye briefs really good. And, uh, they say maybe they’re tanner, maybe they’re a hundred. I mean, they’re a lot. This is why the, uh, uh, green, the blue brief is right. And, and then the dark green. And, and, uh, that’s why they’re wrong. And, and I don’t know why they call them briefs. They’re not brief <laugh>, but, but, but, but, uh, uh, in any case, yeah, we read them, I read them, my law clerks read them, and I’ll look through all those amicus too. I’m looking to see if one says something the other hasn’t said yet. But I will turn the pages and see if there’s something new in there. Okay, so what is it? I see the question. I already know the answer. Oh, then I read the red one.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Ah, not so fast. If you were sitting there, you would see what I see. It’s not as cut and dried as you think. And by the time you start reading all these, you begin to think, Hmm, not quite so clear. And being open-minded is not having a blank mind, being open-minded is being willing to be persuaded by the arguments, thoughts, issues, numbers, statistics, everything that’s in those briefs. One of the great things, and one of the Stanford priest have to tell you, it said, go look at such and such. We had to have a, we had a, it was a very good case. It’s sort of interesting. It was whether a houseboat counts as a vessel for admiralty purposes. So you think we just decide things like abortion and so forth? No, we don’t. <laugh> I mean, I’ll tell you, one of the hardest cases is, is this houseboat really a vessel or is it not a vessel?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And, and, and Earl most of them are like that, you know, most of them. And, and lo and behold, they put a footnote where there was a picture in the very old Supreme Court case from 1890 or something of something that they said, this is a vessel. My God, it looked just like the houseboat. All right, so he won the case. All right, very good. But that, that, that kind of thing is really what we’re doing most of the time is that. And so when you get something that’s gonna be the front, they, they won’t put that in in the front page of the times. Cuz nobody really cares that much about it. I cared about it, the other judges cared about it. Of course you do. It’s a matter of the law and it matters. Now, go back to your question.  

Jenny Martinez:  I’m gonna go back to the question. So she asked something you changed your mind on  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Oh yeah. Oh, I knew what I was gonna say.  

Jenny Martinez:  This is what good law clerks do. And I’m gonna tell you something that you changed your mind now, which is that you, you, over the course of your decades on the bench, your opinions about the death penalty changed and you ended up writing a, a very famous opinion about that. That’s true. Can  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  You, because when I went there, I said in the, in the, in the, uh, uh, the, you know, the, uh, confirmation process, I said, I, I, they wanted to know what are my views on the death penalty? And I said, I wouldn’t go into that except to tell you the following. That if I went to the court in my mind that I was going to do my best to overturn the death penalty, I shouldn’t take the job because the law is what it is at the moment. And I, I shouldn’t do that. And I’m not, I don’t feel that strongly about it. Well, over the 28 years I saw enough of them that I thought, well, I think it’s fair to say, despite what I said earlier, I can write what I think now. And I think it’s a nightmare. And, and I wrote it and I wrote what I saw, and I said, I think it’s inconsistent with the basic principle of the Constitution, which is you have to have a fair system.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And I don’t see how you’re going to have a fair system, a system that is not arbitrary and, and, uh, not, that doesn’t have all kinds of flaws in it, uh, uh, and also have the death penalty. So I think we should reconsider that. That’s what I wrote. Now, it’s only about 80 pages or 70 pages, so you’re welcome to read it any time you would like <laugh> and and you will see the arguments that I based it on. I, I I did change my mind about that other thing was actually interesting. Show you what’s being on the court is like. And it’s not really there now, but it is when you’re on the court. Uh, Clarence Thomas and I were on the same side in a case. I can’t remember exactly what it was, and I was gonna write the majority. Okay. Then I changed my mind after I got into the case.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And it’s not writing p well. So I called up Clarence and said, Clarence, I think I’ve changed on this. And so it’ll end up your writing the majority, and I’ll write it. The sent. Do you think you think it’s okay? Uh, if I send mine around right now, I could do it. I’ve written it. See, normally the majority goes first. But, uh, he said, I don’t care. I said, we better ask the chief. So Quis is the chief. So of the conference, I said, said to Quis, after the conference, I explained, I said, I’ve changed my mind. I’m gonna be in the dissent, but I’ve written the opinion I’d like, I might as well circulate it now so Clarence can see what it says. And, uh, is there anything wrong with that? And so he says to Clarence, uh, you, what do you think? He says, no, I don’t care. And uh, Rehnquist says, uh, well fine. He says, it’s no big deal. It’s no big deal. So I say to Clarence, I say, Clarence, we have discovered the first goddamn thing around here that isn’t a big deal.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  That’s the true,  

Student Question 1:  True. Thank  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  You. Absolutely.  

Jenny Martinez:  All right, next question.  

Student Question 2:  Hi. Thank you so much for being here. Um, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your opinion on the leaking of the Dobbs decision, and tell us a little bit about like what the internal reaction to the court was to that,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  What the reaction to the court was. Oh, well, I, I joined three of us, uh, uh, justice Kagan. Justice Sotomayer r and I wrote a combined dissent,  

Student Question 2:  No, sorry. Specifically about the leak of the decision early on.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Oh, the leak of the decision. Terrible  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  What else do you want me to say?   

Student Question 2:  I guess I was just hoping you could kind of color us like the story about how that, I don’t know.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Internally there, I mean there are a lot of people who have access to the opinions probably in the hundreds. I mean, there are a lot of staff and it can happen there. It happened. I was a great p great, great pit.  

Jenny Martinez:  What do you, what effect do you think that leak will have on the court going forward?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  People be more careful.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Oh, it will, I mean, the reason’s obvious that the, the way, the way it works. Look, when I was on the First Circuit, judge, judge Wisdom, you want a really great judge. John Wisdom was a great judge. That was the old Fifth Circuit. They still tell you about the old fifth Circuit and the old fifth Circuit after Brown. They were the ones that really desegregated the sow. I mean, they were the ones, it was Tu and, and uh, John Wisdom and uh, uh, uh,  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  God, they’re a bunch of them. And uh, uh, they, they, they did a and they had a hard job, you know, uh, the people in the south, uh, were used to, uh, segregation. And they were not too nice to the people who were in the process of desegregating. Well, John Wisdom came up and sat with us. Uh, I liked him very much and in the first circus. And he, he said, uh, we were talking about writing opinions. He said, when you really think the majority is wrong, you think it’s just terrible. Here’s what you do. You go and you write an opinion which says how awful they are, and says, why you think they’re terrible, why they’re completely wrong. And you write all that down. And then when you finish, you read it. And after you read it, you throw it in the waste basket.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And then when you throw it in the waste basket, you sit down and write your dissent. Okay, got it. And that’s, uh, I learned that, alright. And that’s how I in fact try to behave. And, uh, I think, uh, that when I’m really annoyed, if you want the secret, if you ever interested, if I’m really annoyed at something, it seems to me the best thing for me to do in dissent is to write an opinion where a child of two would have to say I was right. And if I can do that, I might get somewhere. And, uh, so, uh, uh, but this is a pretty strong dissent in dissent the three of us wrote. And, uh, uh, uh, Roberts wrote a kind of, uh, middle thing of just saying 15 weeks, instead of 24 weeks, it should be the, uh, time the fetus becomes viable.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And a lot of European countries have that. And then there were five people who said that they should overrule the, uh, two cases and that the matter of abortion should be decided, uh, uh, by the votes. By the votes in the state, by state, and in the country. It shouldn’t be decided by the judges. And they overruled Casey and they overruled Roe. And, uh, was I happy about that? Well, if you read the dissent, you will see. I was not very happy about it. Did I convince a child of two? I might have done, but unfortunately they didn’t have votes in the majority.  

Student Question 2:  Thank you.  

Jenny Martinez:  Let’s go over here.  

Student Quesiton 3:  Thank you very much for coming today, sir. We really appreciate it. Um, I saw that you have two bachelor’s degrees in P philosophy, and I’m wondering if, uh, there are any philosophers, uh, that you studied during your undergraduate years and at your time?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Oh, right over here. Right over in the Flo. Is it still there? It was, it was in the, uh, this place, by the way. You know what they had here? Movies. Oh, really? <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Every Sunday we were here at five o’clock and the first thing we would see every Sunday, the Road Runner cartoons. And uh, hey, where are they? I mean, I, I walk into this building and, and I expect to see a road runner cartoon too. All right, well, any case, the philosophy corner, uh, was, uh, where am I? Uh, yeah, yeah, it’s over that direction. Uh, it’s, uh, it was, uh, right in the middle of the quad in the far side. Okay. And, uh, oh, I liked it. It was Donald Davidson was the main professor there, and Goheen and, uh, uh, mother shed and some others. And, and at that time, people were very interested in. 

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And uh, uh, then I went to Oxford and I studied, uh, with, you know, Austin. Oh no, they were good. They were very, very good. It was a great period for philosophy. I loved it. And I, and I thought, well, philosophy’s good for law. Why? Well, what coins you really, should I really say what this is? Or that was my question, is you really want to hear what the pH theory of meaning was? You, you, yeah, they do. Raise your hands if you want to hear it. Okay. <laugh>. Alright, fine. I mean, as I understand it, that doesn’t mean it’s right. Alright, <laugh>. So the, the, uh, uh, we, we used to think of it and Davidson was his pupil, uh, became a great philosopher. Uh, the web theory what that you had, it was his theory of truth. It just like a great web, a web of, of, uh, and some things more towards the center are, uh, very hard to change.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And things out towards the edge, they’re a little easier to change. So if you have, uh, some kind of experimental and it shows that the rapid is actually purple and not now, you could believe that without changing too much, maybe there was something wrong with it, whatever it was. But you start changing around with things in the center, uh, while you’re gonna discover, you’re saying a and not a and that’s not gonna work. And you won’t be able to deal with the world if you change too much too fast. Uh, cuz these different parts of the web of truth is connected with the other. I think laws a lot like that. Why? Because when you’re deciding a case, you should take into account, in my opinion, what the result here means. Not just for this case, at least on the Supreme Court, not just for this case, but how is it going to affect other parts of the law?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And when you say other parts, it’s not just the substantive parts. There are procedural parts, there are law firms, there are lawyers who have to give advice to their clients. There are the clients who, if you start overruling too much, you will suddenly discover that those clients are out there telling their lawyers, Hey, let’s try to overrule this one. Let’s try to overrule that one. And then you have to start thinking about how the system is law is going to work if you start changing too much too fast. That’s my view of it. Anyway. Uh, and go through the different parts, the law professors, I mean, the, the way the law always used to work, and I think it still does to a degree, there are three basic parts to it. They’re the lawyers, the judges, and the law professors. And the judges go and they decide a case.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Then the law professors get ahold of that case. They decide and say why it’s all wrong. And, and after they say that, or they may say it’s right, but they say not call. Right? I mean, and then the lawyers will read what the law professors say as well as the case. And then they will go to the next case before the, the judges and the judges through the, through the, uh, lawyers will get what the law professor has been saying and what the practicing lawyer thinks. And that way law evolves slowly and we hope in a direction that is positive for the people who live in the country under that system of law. And, uh, that’s why, uh, I, I’ve always thought that since I, you know, I I since I was a law student probably, and I think that was the basic theory of how that was the basic approach that heart, the sacks and the others, uh, took, uh, towards, uh, what law was about and where you were trying to get and uh, how you’re trying to make, uh, life, uh, better, uh, for the average person, uh, less conflict, uh, more prosperity.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  They can live together decently. And it isn’t just that this result is good, a pragma pragmatic person. It is not someone who just says, oh, this result is good. It is a person who says this result is the right result after considering all kinds of interactions between different parts of law and the implications that your decision here will have for that thing over there. And you can’t do all of that in every case, but you can try and the lawyers can help. Okay. That’s the, that’s the philosophy. One of the philosophy. That’s the philosophy. Thank you.  

Student Question 4:  All right, next question over here. Hi Justice Breyer. My name is nta and I’m a first year here at Stanford Law School. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I learned that former Justice Douglass would just write his dissents and walk out of the courtroom. And I believe he said, the only soul I have to save is my own. And the only what, the only soul I have to save is my own. And I wanted to know in regards to your time, either on the First Circuit or also on the Supreme Court, how you would approach convincing your colleagues that your approach was right, not just through dissents, but also working with them in general. And I know you talked about talking and listening and I wanted to see if you used that same approach or what was, what  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Really was you No, no, I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t, look Douglas supposedly were the biographers. I don’t know, but Doug Douglass was there when I was a law clerk. But, uh, some of his early opinions, they, they’re pretty good. I mean, they’re take both sides of the thing. Then he unfortunately thought he was gonna be president of the United States. And, uh, that is not good for a person’s ego. And, uh, uh, there we are. So whatever happened, happened, uh, the, the, uh, uh, convincing people, it’s what I said, it’s what I learned from Kennedy. Uh, you, you, uh, you you get a view and you begin to have a more solid view after you read the, uh, uh, briefs and you talk to your clerks and they’ve looked at it in considerable care. And, and then you go into the oral argument. Now the oral argument is really for the judges to ask questions.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And uh, we will, but a good question is a question that I think you, the lawyer know something I don’t know. And it will actually help me decide the case. And uh, uh, it’s a hard question that I don’t have the answer to. That’s a good question. Another fairly good question is you say something designed to show your colleagues where you’re coming from. A really bad question is you’re bored and you just want to show off, don’t do it. Okay. And the, the, the worst thing about the Supreme Court is that it’s not good for a person’s ego. Yeah. But I learned the truth of that in the third year, uh, where I went to some kind of a drinks party or something with young lawyers and a young lawyer comes up and says, oh, justice Breyer, are you right? Such good opinions, they’re just wonderful.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Will you sign my program? So I signed his program and he turns off as he goes away, he turns to his colleague or its friend and he says, Hey, that makes four. Okay. That’s what it’s like. All right. Got it. <laugh> and, and, uh, uh, but, uh, you then are in the conference, we’re in our conference on Friday for the cases that we heard on, uh, Tuesday and Wednesday and the first thing, or by ourselves and, and the, the chief justice starts, we each have a book for each case, a little notebook, which has everybody’s name in it, and it’s face to write down what they say. And the chief will say the case, the issue is so and so, and I’m thinking this and that. And we then go around the table and it’s cla now it was Clarence and then it was me and Sam Alito and uh, um, Sonja Sotomayer and uh, Kagan and uh, um, uh, Gorsuch and uh, Kavanaugh Republic and, uh, Amy.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:   Vera. Vera. And uh, nobody speaks twice till everybody speaks. Once I was junior justice, that means at the end for 11 years. Hmm. That’s cuz there was no new appointment then for 11 years. I almost hold the world’s record. It’s actually held by story. I missed it by 11 days. So I thought of writing to Alito and saying, could you please refrain from taking your oath for 11 days so that I can go down in history? Is the answer to a trivia question. <laugh>. But, but, but, but, but alright, so, so you see now after everybody’s gone around, there’s some back and forth. Now the back and forth better not take the form of ha ha ha I have a better argument than you. Once that’s implied, the other person thinks, no, I have a better argument than you. That’s gonna get us exactly nowhere. Alright?  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  So what you do is listen to what they said and then see if you can work with that and maybe improve it. Or maybe, or maybe, and sometimes by this time, people of their minds fairly made up, but not completely. And it will often change the way they look at the case. And it will sometimes change the answer from a to, not a, not too often, but sometimes. And that is a good discussion. And when you were there was a lawyer in the oral argument, sometimes go look at the second circuit courtroom that learned, hand built and uh, go, go look at that. And you will see, and we did this in Boston too when we built our new courthouse. He has the bench right down there at the same eye level. So the judge, the same eye level as the lawyer is what you really want in that oral argument, which you rarely get, but you do sometimes get him to forget he’s representing his client when we have bankruptcy cases.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Get him to tell us what’s really gonna happen. Cuz he knows, cuz he’s in bankruptcy and you are not Steven. And so, so, so you sometimes get this very good discussion of, uh, cuz they’re tough issues and, uh, that, that, that goes on. Alright, same in conference. See, get people to forget if you can what they were thinking. See, we’re working on this together, we’re working on it together, and, and, and let’s try this. And sometimes you’ll get people to, you know, write and say, I don’t know, I’m gonna try writing a draft. And who gets assigned? Well, the chief assigns who writes the draft, but he has to do it. So everybody writes one, everybody writes two cases, everybody writes three. So he’s pretty constrained. You see in what, what he can assign. And I learned my very quickly how I could get it assigned to me when I’m junior. If it’s a four, four case, you know how I get it assigned to me?  

Student Question 4:  No, I don’t.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Well, I just say, I’m not sure <laugh>, you see, then they have to assign it to me. <laugh>. Well, I I, I learned that and never did that again. But, but, but, but, uh, so so you, you want to create, and I would say it was, I mean I, from my personal point of view, because we saw things very, even if we disagreed, we saw things pretty similarly, uh, was when Sandra was there, uh, Sandra O’Connor and David Suder. And, uh, but trying to get people to work together on this say, uh, that that’s important and it’s not impossible and it’s not something just say, forget about and walk out of the room. Please, please. And if you say what is the main characteristic I think you oughta have as a Supreme Court justice character and character means you pay attention. I mean, this is all corny, but it’s true. Okay,  

Student Question 4: Thank you.  

Jenny Martinez: Over here

Student Question 5:  Uh, hi Justice Breyer. Uh, I’m Eduardo, I’m a third year law student here at Stanford. And, uh, it’s been wonderful hearing your perspectives thus far this evening. Uh, I thought I’d take, take the opportunity at the microphone to share a little bit about the experience of my generation. I’m, uh, taking as a launching pad your references to things that you might say to high schoolers, to young people. And I think that that’s a helpful place to start because while we might not be high schoolers, we are young and over the last six to seven years, uh, we’ve come to develop many of our views about the Supreme Court. It was six or seven years ago that we watched, uh, president Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland be steamrolled by Senate Republicans before Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination came to the floor the following year. Only a number of years after that, we watched those same Senate Republicans flat their own procedures to bring forward another nomination.  

 

Student Question 5:  A couple years after that we watched, uh, what some would call the work of generations of political activism come to the floor in the Dobbs case to remove a nationwide right to choose. And so there’s lots of young people who have, you know, listened to your speeches, who have watched the Supreme Court at work over the last half decade or so, whose only understanding of the body is one of, of, of worry, of anxiety. And you don’t need me to be the one to tell you, but there’s a legitimacy crisis facing the Supreme Court in the eyes of many Americans. You served, uh, for many esteemed years on the court and now you’re a citizen again, like the rest of us. And I’d love to get your opinion on what do you tell a generation of people who worry about the legitimacy of the court that has shown us these events over the past couple of years? What do you say, uh, to that worry?  

Justice Stephen Breyer: No. Uh, quite, I don’t know how much to say, but I want, I want to, I want to disagree with you on one point, which I think is important, uh, where I would disagree with you. And by the way, 99% of the public will think you’re right, <laugh> uh, uh, but uh, the appointment of a judge is not the Supreme Court. It’s the president who appoints and it is the Congress who, uh, confirms and they are highly political institutions. So it doesn’t surprise me one little bit that all kinds of, should I say monkey business and various stuff I won’t characterize. It goes on in that Congress now, which you listed a few. I want you to keep that in mind cuz I’m gonna about to say something, show you something, uh, and it will show you my, my I’m not, uh, you’ll see. Okay. All right. And I’m asked a lot about the, the, the confirmation process for the very reasons that you brought up very reasons. And I say, but I was not, uh, a confirming person. I was a confirmed person. I was not an appointing person or nominating person. I was a nominated person. So to ask me about that aspect of the process is like asking for the recipe for chicken Olive king from the point of view of the chicken <laugh>.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  But I did work in the Senate on the staff, and indeed it’s highly political. And what I thought as I sat there, and I remember this, I promise you, 28 years ago or 29 or whatever it is now, I mean, I sat there and that table, which I wasn’t used to being on the staff, see on the staff, you sit behind the center, you whisper tower. So nobody’s paying attention to you, okay? But when you’re nominated, you are sitting in front of 17 people and there’s television and you don’t know what’s gonna happen and everybody’s telling you, oh, that you have an easy confirmation to you. Maybe it depends on what those people think out there. And I don’t know what they’re gonna think. But my experience working in the Senate leads me to think that the questions that will be asked are the questions that the senators think their constituents want asked.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  And if they start asking other questions or don’t ask those, they won’t be senators very long. And they’re good at that. And the reason I bring it up, and the reason I relate it to what I said, the high school students, and to you and to you is hey, the people that talk to are not always the senators. They’re not. You wanted the person X being made, don’t tell me why I said this. Uh, speaker <laugh>, you wanted that. Okay. Hey, when we were run working there, there was an inside part and an outside part. The inside part is who talks to him inside. And the outside part is who’s supporting this person, whose vote you want, and who does he listen to and why? And so forth. And that’s why I emphasize to the high school students and to you the importance of talking not to the people necessarily in charge in the Senate.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  You can write ’em letters and so forth, find out who thinks they’re right and or eggs them on. And you won’t have successful conversations with all of those people. But by getting to know them, you might help a little. Okay? That’s that part. That’s not the court. Now the person is appointed. First thing you think of, I’m appointed, I walk in that room or I walk in the court and I think, oh my God, how did I ever get here? I don’t tell anyone. That’s what I’m thinking. But, but, uh, how? And there we are. And for three years or two years, or five years, Douglas thought and Suder, David Suder said he thought at least three you’re sitting there thinking, I wonder if I can really do this job. Hmm. Don’t tell anyone you think that, but you do. And then eventually you get used, you think, well, I can do my best.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  That’s what I can do. And I think that is, whether you agree with them or whether I agree with them or not, once they’re appointed, once they’ve been there for a couple of years, they’re judges and the pressure is on to do not what is political, but to do what they think is right as a judge. Now, that may be the opposite of what I think I recognize that, but it’s a big country and people think all kinds of things in this country. And my mother used to tell me, which I’ve said a thousand times, that we’re a country of every race, every religion, every national origin, every different point of view. And she used to say, and you may not like this, but she used to say, there’s no view so crazy that there isn’t somebody in this country that doesn’t hold it. And she would add, cuz we were from here, you know, she, she would add, they all live in Los Angeles, but nonetheless, <laugh>  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  Nonetheless you from you see the point. You see the point, right? Right. Are you from Los Angeles? Yes sir. Not you, not you. Absolutely not. Not you, you’re not one. No, no. You were not there in the days of the Brown Derby when all of the waiters and waitresses came out dressed like hot dogs. I mean, you were not there at that time. Okay, so, so, so, uh, my point is that the, the, the judges do in my experience, think that what they’re doing is correct as a judge. Okay? Now you can say, how could they have thought that? If I want to say, oh my God, how can they have thought that, you know, when I say, how can I have thought that after I get home in the evening, I’m talking to Joanna, be careful. Uh, we get along reasonably well. I might have preferred how we got along.  

Justice Stephen Breyer:  So what, so what it is an institution, does it work perfectly? No. What institution does, but over time, if somebody comes and says, oh gee, it’s just hopeless. I I’m not prepared to go along with that. I’m not prepared to go along with, it’s just hopeless. I am prepared. And this might have been Arthur Goldberg, I’m, uh, prepared to say, okay, what can I do? What can I do next? How can I help? And the one time I went for Senator Kennedy, he had some kind of anniversary and they were up in Hyannis and they had all the old staff members there. And there must have been about 200. And this was a talk he gave that wasn’t written by anybody else. And he said his father told him that what you do is you, you, you do your best. You give what you have and you get people around you who want to help you give something and you try to produce something they want to help. Help who, help the people who need help, help the people you’re working for help the help the country help, help, help. Okay. So that’s stuck in my mind. And that’s why I tell those high school students what I tell them because I, I do believe in that. I bel maybe it was Grant’s school, maybe it’s low, I don’t know. But I think we can. And that’s the best statement. I love Obama when he said, yes we can. I love that. And so there we are. See, it’s a complicated answer.  

Jenny Martinez:  Thank you. Thanks. All right. I think that’s a note to end on cuz our time is up. But please join me in thanking Justice Breyer.