 And welcome to the William G. McGowan Theater here at the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States. And I'm pleased you could join us for tonight's program. Whether you're here in the theater or joining us through Facebook or YouTube. And a special welcome to our C-SPAN audience this evening. Tomorrow is Constitution Day, September 17th, commemorating that day. In 1787, when the delegates of the Constitutional Convention signed the document establishing a new government for the United States of America. At the National Archives, we have celebrated Constitution Day since 1956. Four years after installing the original parchment document in its place of honor in the Rotunda. Over the decades, we have celebrated the Constitution in many ways. Tomorrow we host one of my favorite events, a naturalization ceremony for new citizens of the United States. Just always a moving experience to witness people from all parts of the world stand in front of the parchment signed by our founders 232 years ago and swear to support and defend the Constitution. We also invite notable guest speakers to help us reflect on and understand the Constitution and its central place in our nation's history and in the present day. Today, we're especially honored to have with us this evening, the sitting justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has recently brought together his reflections on the Constitution and its separation of powers into one volume, a republic if you can keep it. We're pleased to welcome him here to the home of the original United States Constitution. Neil Gorsuch was born in Denver, Colorado, received a BA from Columbia University, JD from Harvard Law School, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University. He served as a law clerk to Judge David B. Santel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and as a law clerk to Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. From 1995 to 2005, he was in private practice and from 2005 to 2006, he was principal Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in 2006. He served on the Standing Committee on Rules and Practice and Procedure of the U.S. Judicial Conference and as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Rules of Appellate Procedure. He taught at the University of Colorado Law School and President Donald J. Trump nominated him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat on April 10th, 2017. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Honorable Neil McGill Gorsuch, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Thank you. It's wonderful to have you back. We're here just after you were seated in May of 2017 to swear in 150 national counterintelligence and security center staff in the Rotunda, so it's nice to have you back with us. It's always nice to be here and it's a wonderful place and I encourage all young people especially to come visit it. It's just across the mall from the Aaron Space Museum. It's not that far where everyone is. And if you're really lucky, I know kids get to spend a night camping out with the Constitution. How cool is that? So I've had a lot of friends who've had kids who've done that and they've really touched them, so thank you for doing that. So take us back to September of 2016 in Colorado as you do in the beginning of the book. What happened? Well, my life more or less changed in every conceivable way overnight. I was living a quiet and very happy life in a little town called Niewat outside of Boulder, Colorado, where I've been a judge for a decade on the 10th circuit. And then all of a sudden everything changed. And if you ask me to give you one story that kind of is emblematic of that, it would be this. So we had a sneak out of our home in Boulder and sneak into the White House. The President was very committed to it being a surprise and we wanted to honor his wishes. And how do you get into the White House unnoticed? It turns out it's pretty tricky and you got to go in through the kitchen. We went in through the kitchen of the White House. Now that turned out to be really neat because I'm a history buff like you. And down there you can see there are still scar marks from the fires in the War of 1812. There are still bullet indentations from bullets down there as well. So we snuck in through the kitchen and then the President very graciously allowed me to use the Lincoln bedroom as an office for the day. That's where I wrote my remarks for the evening in the announcement. At a table, at a desk on which there's a copy of the Gettysburg address written in Lincoln's hand. Wow. The President knew that my wife Louise is British originally, proud American now. And he gave her use of the Queen's bedroom for the day right across the hall. Or church she'll stay, the Queen stays. And he, before the announcement, you know, they asked us not to make any phone calls. They didn't want folks to know. But they had no problem with Louise calling her parents back in England. They figured five hours ahead it's the middle of the night. They'll never tell anybody anyway. So Louise calls her father and she says, Dad, you're never going to believe it. It's going to be Neil. And my father-in-law had stayed up to watch the news. And he said, Darling, I'm watching your American news and there's another fellow. And he's driving and he's at a gas station and he's driving on his way to Washington. And I'm pretty sure it's going to be him. In-laws. The other fellow is a dear friend of mine too. And Louise says, you know, Dad, I'm pretty sure it's Neil. I'm sitting in the Lincoln bedroom. And he quickly replied, yes, honey, but President Trump, the other guy might be down the hall. David, everything changed. Everything. Even your milk delivery. Yeah, that's a story in the book. So the Marshalls who are guarding our home and family, I owe a huge debt to their wonderful people who give their lives serving the country and the courts very bravely. But one night a truck apparently came up, sped up the house and a man jumped out and started running toward the house carrying containers with white substance inside of it. And Louise got a call the next morning and it was the company that delivers our milk. And they informed us that our usual milkman who had been serving us for years would no longer be coming to the house. Somebody else would be doing the job. And Louise said, did something happen? She went out to the Marshalls to ask, did something happen to which there was the terse reply, there was an incident, ma'am. And it took some cross-examination before it came out what had happened. And the final answer was, yes ma'am, he ended in the prone position. Louise being Louise took over one of those chocolate towers as an apology but I'm not sure he ever totally got over it. So just in the vein of station identification, let me remind you about the role that the National Archives played in your confirmation process. We were asked by the Senate Judiciary Committee to deliver everything we could that we had about you which turned out to be 13,285 electronic assets that were responsive to the request of these 2700 related specifically to your nomination for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and those records contained 19,438 pages, 522 Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and eight Microsoft Access databases. One alone had 156 attachments in four different formats. My apologies. And my apologies to all my friends and family and coworkers during this process. It was my law firm had to produce every document as a lawyer. I think I had signed or filed. My eighth grade teacher got assaulted by press corps coming out of school. On and on it went and to each of you and some of you are here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. My friends and my family just emerged from the woodwork. You talk about your loss of anonymity. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was something. I mean, one day I'm living quietly in Colorado and the next day everybody in America knows who I am. I think I was photographed more in about one minute than I had been in my whole life. And, you know, that's a little disconcerting at first. You're slurping your noodles at a restaurant and somebody at the other end of the restaurant is videoing you. That takes some getting used to. But then I realized that when God takes something away, he usually gives you something in return if you just look for it hard enough. And what I got in return, David, was an opportunity to see firsthand how much the American people love this country. How much they love our Constitution. How good and kind they are, the deep reservoir of goodness, the American people. I got letters of support from all across the country and even a package of socks. From someone who had seen me on television and thought my socks had fallen down too often. I mean, people would come up to me in a coffee shop early in the morning and I'm bleary eyed and they'd say, I think you need a joke. And they'd just tell me a joke. People come up and say I'm a huge supporter of this president or I don't support this president, but I wish you well. And I'm praying for your family. During that crazy process, I was on a flight between Denver and Washington. And it was one of those moments when I was feeling a little frazzled from it all. And I was seated next to a little girl. It was probably six. And the plane started to encounter some turbulence along the way. And she leaned over to me and she said, would you mind if I held your hand? And so we held hands for about 20 minutes through the turbulence. And at the end of it, she said, now would you like to draw? And we spent the next two and a half hours with her coloring book. And that was a wonderful moment for me of just being normal. Of course, at the end of the flight, her mother, who was seated behind us, recognized me. Two weeks later, I got my favorite thank you note ever. It was a drawing that the little girl had done of an airplane with two stick figures standing in front. Saying, thank you for holding my hand. And the two stick figures are holding hands. That's the American people to me. That's what I got to see. And I get to see day in and day out. And it's a humbling privilege. So tell us about the inspiration for this book. Well, it came during the confirmation process. My predecessor, Ant and Scalia, smoked a pipe at his confirmation hearing. I don't think we're likely to see that again. My old boss, Byron White, his confirmation hearing lasted 15 minutes. So did mine for the 10th Circuit. Things were a little different the next time around. And during the confirmation process, I was truly surprised, David, at how many people thought that a judge is really just a politician who wears a robe and should promise to do certain things and rule certain ways in cases they haven't heard. Now, everybody's got their favorite. They tell me, oh, you must abide precedent, follow precedent. And then they tell me their favorite precedent. And then in the next breath, they tell me, I must overrule this other thing over here that they don't like. And I meet with one person, they say that, and I meet with the other. And it's the exact opposite, of course. And I came to think, you know, it's one thing to think that judges occasionally, mistakenly, humanly air and follow their personal preferences over their honest views of the law's demands. And it's another thing entirely to think that's the way it should be. And that's the way it is routinely. And that there is no difference between a politician and a judge. And then I got to learning and thinking about this subject more. Where are we on separation of powers, the Constitution, civics education? And I was truly shocked. Only about a third of Americans can name the three branches of our government. Another third can only name one branch of government. And 10% of Americans apparently believe that Judith Shiland serves on the United States Supreme Court. Now those who are chuckling know that she has judged Judy. I happen to like Judge Judy. But she is not one of my colleagues. So the Archives does wonderful work. I visited some of the presidential libraries. They do wonderful work. The Constitution sent all sorts of wonderful organizations that are working in this area. But I thought I owed something back too. And I wanted to put down a few thoughts on paper about these subjects. So let's get into the meat of the book. You describe it as wonkiness, but actually this is so well written. And it is a terrific job in writing this for the general public. So let's talk about separation of powers. Where are we? So the separation of powers, it can sound pretty dry, can't it? Everybody understands that the First Amendment contributes to your liberty. We all get that. The Fourth Amendment. We understand that. But I don't think we understand or appreciate maybe every day, maybe as much as we might, how the separation of powers contributes to our liberty and the genius of it. Madison, who wrote the Constitution, didn't want to write a bill of rights, the First Amendment through the 10th. He thought if we got the structure right, we wouldn't need a bill of rights. And he thought that a bill of rights was really at the end of the day just a list of promises. And promises are only as good as the enforcement mechanism behind them. Now, here's how to test Madison in the real world. Bills of rights. Which one's your favorite? Well, the United States Bill of Rights is pretty good. My favorite is North Korea's. Yes, I said North Korea. It promises everything our Bill of Rights promises, David, and more. You get a free education, free healthcare, and my favorite, the right to relaxation. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Now, I'm not sure how that fares with the political prisoners over there, but there you are. Now, the truth is, though, that that Bill of Rights isn't worth the paper it's written on because all power is concentrated in the hands of one person, a tyrant, right? That was Madison's genius. He recognized that. So what am I? I am one-ninth of one-third of our federal government, which is one-half of the governments in our federal system. Divide power. That was the wisdom of Madison. Now, that all sounds pretty academic and maybe a little wonkish, and I confess when I learned all that in civics, which, yes, I'm old enough that I had to take, it sounded pretty dry. But as a judge, I came to realize and see in the real world the impact muddling up the separation of powers has on your liberty. Let me give you just a few examples. What happens when judges act as legislators? And instead of following the law faithfully, begin to make things up? Well, maybe the first real departure by the United States Supreme Court from the Constitution as it was originally written was Dred Scott. And in Dred Scott, the Supreme Court of the United States held that white persons have the right to own black persons in the territories of the United States. And they said that right could be found in the Fifth Amendment's due process clause, which guarantees you due process before your life, liberty, or property may be taken. Now, scour the Fifth Amendment as long as you want. It's not there. Dred Scott made it up. Now, the judges who did that thought they were doing so for a good reason, something more important. They thought that they were helping avert a civil war and that making it up was worthwhile. They acted as legislators. Judges make rotten politicians. They guessed wrong. And instead of averting the civil war, they helped contribute to it. Okay, that's one angle of separation of powers. What happens when the legislature gives up its power to make the laws and assigns it instead to the executive branch? Well, Madison knew that legislation, lawmaking, would be the greatest potential threat to liberty. And so he wanted it to be hard and deliberative and slow and careful and involve all of the people. Two houses of Congress are a due process. The president must sign or there must be a veto override demanding public involvement of the people's representatives selected by two different constituencies at different times. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to involve everybody. And modern political sciences established that it puts minorities at the fulcrum of power because their votes are often essential in that process to get legislation enacted. We have effectively a supermajority requirement thanks to our legislative structure. That's what Madison thought would protect your rights when you're a minority and unpopular. Well, what happens when you take that process and stick it in the executive branch? The president selected once, maybe twice. Doesn't have to be very public. It's going to be a lot faster, isn't it? You're going to get a lot more of it, aren't you? And you're going to have less say in the process. And minorities are going to play a very small role. The president just needs to win the majority. So you've elected yourself a king for four years, or maybe even worse. Some of the agencies don't even much respond to the president. So you are having law made by bureaucracy. Now, lest you think I'm exaggerating, let me give you a case. This is the sort of thing that persuaded me rather than academic theory, real facts with real people. A company called Caring Hearts, located in my home state of Colorado. I saw this in the 10th Circuit Judge, all this stuff's in the book. Caring Hearts versus Burwell. They provided home nursing care under Medicare. And they were accused of Medicare fraud by the government and fined $800,000. As you know, being accused of fraud by the government is a pretty serious thing. It can be a business ending proposition, life ending proposition really for people. They're lively hoods. Years of litigation go by and what do we find out? That Caring Hearts had abided all the rules, all of them, that the executive branch agency had made for them to abide. At the time they rendered their services. And the government was accusing them of violating rules that it hadn't even yet created at the time. It was making up rules so fast that even the government became confused. Second branch. What happens when the executive branch plays judge? I see cases in which veterans and immigrants, they're all in the book, veterans and immigrants have a winning legal argument. Veterans seeking benefits for PTSD, immigrants seeking lawful admission in this country. And I, as an independent judge, think they should win. They have a winning argument under the law. But we have doctrines now that say independent judges don't get to interpret the law. A bureaucrat does. And I, a Supreme Court justice, whatever that is, have to defer to a bureaucrat's interpretation of the law. You have a right supposed to have a right to an independent judge determine your rights under the law. That's lost. So separation of powers. I think it's vital to your freedoms. Those are three examples. And like the rest of our Constitution though, separation of powers is only as good as the people and the people have to want it and the people have to protect it. I think Reagan used to say that we're only one generation away from tyranny. So would you say that the three branches are equal? Is, are they in balance? Well, I'd like to say yes. They're supposed to be, aren't they? But I think some of the examples I just gave you make me wonder sometimes, David, whether we're transferring a lot of legislative and judicial power, whether it's running to the executive. I worry about that. I do. So I'm familiar with that data point about the number of people who don't know, can't identify the three branches of government. But to add to that, three-quarters of Americans can name all three stooges. Is that right? That's true. It's from the Annenberg study. You talk, you know, very cogently about originalism and textualism in the book. So let's talk about originalism and cases where originalism and interpretation worked or didn't work. Sure. Maybe we ought to start with what the heck is originalism. It's a boring term. All it is, though, is the idea that judges should interpret written laws according to their original public meaning, that those terms on the page should be respected as written. And it's really an idea that's ancient. In fact, if you look at the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, you will see 100 cases if you see one that say when it comes to a statute or a contract, we interpret that document according to its original public meaning. And so the question originalism poses is why would it be any different when it comes to a written constitution? Our founders rejected the idea of an unwritten constitution. They knew it well. They came from an English system. No written constitution. Our framers decided instead to put certain things down. Not many. There aren't many things in the Constitution. It's a short document. But they put down what they thought was vitally important and then left the rest to us, we, the people to decide. And they also allowed us, we, the people to amend the Constitution. And originalism tries to honor that writtenness of the Constitution. And so judges should not be in the business of making things up, adding to or taking away from the Constitution. So that's what originalism is. I hadn't heard the phrase originalism, David, in law school from a professor when I was there. Isn't that shocking? The first time I heard originalism was when actually Justice Scalia came to visit my law school when he was a young justice about my tenure now. And he gave a speech that really opened my mind. Of course, the Harvard Law Review didn't publish the speech. Had it be published by another school's law review. That's where we were 30 years ago on originalism. We've come some way, a long way. Now, why does originalism matter? Truth is it was one of those theories that like separation of powers sounded pretty dry and academic to me at the time. But as a judge, I've come to see how it affects your rights. Let me give you some examples. What happens when we depart from the original public meeting? The alternative is something people like to call a living constitution. Now, that actually sounds pretty good. Who wants a dead constitution? How about an enduring constitution? I like that. A lasting constitution. Your constitution, not mine. Living, who does living? The judges do the living. And here's what happens when judges do the living. They evolve your rights and some go away and some new ones appear. Now, if you doubt me, here are the examples. Take the Sixth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution says that you have a right to a trial by jury of your peers when you're accused of a crime. It says you have a right to confront the witnesses against you in that proceeding. Yet the Supreme Court in living constitution decisions have said sometimes you don't have a right to a jury. Sometimes other things are more important we think, so we're going to give you a judge. Your rights are balanced away. How about that right to confrontation? You usually get it, the living constitutionalists have said. But sometimes, sometimes there are other press of business. We need to move on. So that piece of paper written by a police officer out of court that you cannot cross-examine might be sufficient evidence to send you away for 20 years or more. Your rights taken away. Korematsu, one of the most infamous decisions in the United States Supreme Court. Japanese-American citizens rounded up and detained. How do you square that with the original meaning of due process? That's due process, right? Before your life, liberty or property may be taken, you get to go before a judge, some process of some kind, somewhere for somebody. None of that was provided. They thought something else was more important, the war effort. The Equal Protection Clause guarantee? I will ignore that too in this case to help the war effort. Something else we think is more important. Okay, some of your rights getting taken away. Then wait, there's more. They add stuff that isn't there. Dred Scott's my example for you there, which we've talked about. Where do you find the right to own persons in the due process clause? It's not there. So when it comes to originalism, it isn't political. It's not conservative. Are any of those results conservative, liberal? I think they're constitutional. And as an originalist, it's all about preserving the Constitution that you have written. And if you want to change it, you can. And we have. And I'm hardly here to tell you that the Constitution can't stand improvement, all right? We've had some terribly important improvements through the amendment process. We don't need judges to make it up. You can fix it and you have. You have given women the right to vote. You enacted the 13th and the 14th and the 15th amendments to the Constitution, ending slavery. Judges didn't do it. So why ask somebody else to do what you can do for yourself? And the Constitution starts with three words. And they aren't we the judges. They're we the people. Madison didn't intend. And you shouldn't want nine older. I can say that I just had a birthday. People sitting in Washington DC trying to rule a continental country of 330 million people. So Scalia's lecture was the rule of law as a law of rules. So what's your assessment of the rule of law in this country today? Well, I am if you can't tell an optimist. And I want to share a few facts on this one. A few figures, okay? Bear with me. People say to me, I mean pessimistic people all the time. And they say, oh, courts, this Supreme Court, that. All right. I say, yes, we can quibble about this or that case. Fine. But shouldn't we step back just a minute and look at the forest? Let's not focus just on the tree. I'll get to the tree in a minute, I promise. But let's look at the forest first. In this country, every year there are 50 million lawsuits filed. We are a litigious bunch. Now I am not counting your parking tickets. And I'm not counting your traffic speeding tickets. That's another 50 million, okay? Just 50 million lawsuits every year. All right. Now I'm going to move to the federal court system because I know that system better. But the numbers in the state court system are probably even more impressive. Of all those cases that went up in the federal court system, 95% are resolved by a trial court, a judge, and a jury done. That's the end of the case. Now I represented many losing parties. And anybody who's a lawyer for a while who tells you he hasn't is trying to sell you something. All right. They were not happy always with the decision of the court. They were upset by it. But they accepted it 95% of the time because they were heard. They were heard. And they knew that it was reasonable. They could accept it 95% of the time. That's pretty powerful, I think, evidence about the rule of law in this country. All right. Now let's talk about what goes up on appeal. I served on the 10th Circuit which oversees 20% of the continental United States. Two time zones. I served with judges who were appointed by President Obama back to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. One of my colleagues was appointed the year after I was born. The 10th Circuit is as diverse a group of judges as you will ever encounter on whatever metric you wish to assess diversity. It's a wonderfully collegial court, actually a model of collegiality in the judiciary known across the country for that. So we sit in panels of three. So we have to convince our colleagues of the outcomes. We hear 5% of those cases, right? We manage to reach unanimous agreement 95% of the time on cases. Fine. Now we're moving from the forest to a little cove. Now let's talk about the tree. The United States Supreme Court. It hears 70 cases a year. 70. I have colleagues out west who hear 70 cases in the morning and another 70 after lunch. And that's an easy day for them. Okay. Now these are the hardest cases in the country, the 70, the Supreme Court of the United States hears. They're tough. We only take cases usually when there's been disagreement between the circuits or the state Supreme Courts. The idea is to make sure that law, most of what we do is trying to ensure the law is the same across the country. The law, the same statute shouldn't be interpreted or the same provision of the Constitution shouldn't be interpreted to provide different rights and responsibilities in one part of the country than the other. That's what we do. 70 cases. There are only 70 of those every year. Think about that. That's incredible. That's incredible. Only 70. Fine, you say, all right, what about those 70? Fine, let's now we're down to the branch and we're getting to the needles. All right, 70 cases a year. There are nine of us. Not three anymore, nine. Not from 20% of the country, from all of the country. Appointed by five different presidents over the course of 25 years. Now I have to admit New York City may be heavily represented amongst us. But that's a whole nother discussion. I ask people, how do you think we're doing? 40% of the time in those 70 cases, we reach unanimous agreement on the cases our lower court colleagues have disagreed on vehemently. That doesn't happen by magic. That's hard work. That's collegiality. That's mutual respect. Try and get nine people to agree on where to go to lunch. All right, now we'll get to the needle. You all want me to talk about the five four decisions. Okay. They represent only about 25 to 33% of our docket. That's it. That's it. They say, oh, but they're more now than they're used. No, no. Those percentages are unanimity percentage of 40% and the five fours about 25 to 33%. Those figures have remained the same since 1945, more or less. Now back then, you history buffs will remember, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had appointed eight of the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. And if we're doing as well as they did, eight of them appointed by the same president, I think we're doing okay. And the truth is the only thing that has changed is that nothing has changed, David. And in those five four decisions this last year, bet you they don't tell you this either. There were 10 different combinations of justices forming those five four decisions. The rule of law in this country is one of the wonders of the world. It is the envy of much of the world. I'm not here to tell you it's perfect, but I am here to tell you we have a wonderful inheritance, a blessing, and we should appreciate that. Here, here. So etched over the entrance to the Supreme Court are the words equal justice under law. And you say in your book, few Americans can afford a lawyer. I couldn't afford my own services when I was in private practice. I really can't now. So comment on access to justice in this country. I'm not Polly Anish about America. I think we have a lot of good reason to be optimistic about America. And I do have a discussion in the book about access to justice issues because I think we should look with clear eyes at areas where we can improve. I worry when nobody can afford a lawyer. It takes way too long to get to trial if you're lucky enough to get into court. When you get there, you don't get a jury. And just look at how many things are now criminalized. I asked my law clerks, how many federal criminal laws are there? They came back and they told me there are about 4,045 federal criminal statutes. That's on top of everything in the states. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. But all the delegated legislative authority over the agencies, they get to make criminal laws now too. I like Caring Hearts, right? How many of those criminal laws are there? And they came back, they scratched their heads. They went to the library. I had to ask them a few times for an answer. I finally got this. Boss, they stopped counting. They stopped counting. They stopped counting, I think, in the 1990s. Even academics can't keep up. At that time, it was over 300,000 federal criminal laws created by agencies. Now, some of them are vitally important, but some of them, I give a couple of examples in the book. The Bostwick Consistometer, if your catch-up flows through it too quickly and you don't label it as substandard, that's a problem. That's a problem. If you sell mattresses and you tear off that tag, whoa, you're a federal criminal. I have law professor friends who say, literally, they think probably pretty much everybody over the age of 18 in America has probably committed a federal crime. I worry about access to justice. I worry about over-criminalization. I worry when the prosecutor can pick his victim rather than pursue crime. What do we do about it? That's a long discussion, but let me rattle through just a couple of ideas. I don't have all the answers, but these are things I think we all need to think about. Do you need a lawyer to do every little thing, write a will, help you with an uncontested divorce? Lawyers get to regulate themselves. They're the only profession that gets to regulate themselves. I think as lawyers we have to ask ourselves, do all our regulations really help our clients or some of them only help us? Does it really take three years of law school to become competent to provide any legal advice? In England, you can get a law degree in three years as an undergraduate or one year in a conversion course as a graduate student. Do we really need three years on top of four years of undergraduate education? A lot of young people I know come out with debt so high they can't afford to be Main Street lawyers. They have to go to work for big firms even if they don't want to. Us judges, we should look to ourselves too. Our rules. We have something called discovery, civil discovery, which is supposed to help people figure out what the case is about before trial. It turns out civil discovery often yields very little discovery and is sometimes anything but civil. And it takes a long time and it costs an awful lot. And I know people who call themselves trial lawyers who haven't tried a case in 20 years but they can write something called an interrogatory in civil discovery. They can write that interrogatory in iambic pentameter. They're really good at it. And I think we have to ask ourselves, why shouldn't you be able to get to trial before a jury of your peers in about six months? Pretty much every case. There's some of the things I think about. There's more in the book. So it sounds like it's a very serious environment but I know better having read the book. You guys have a lot of fun up there. I do think people have some... I know we live in a world where everybody wants to create enemies and divides and we all are subject to click bait, aren't we? But the truth is that the Supreme Court, like most courts in America, is a very collegial, warm and wonderful place to come to work. It's a tiny little place. Only a couple hundred people work there. Maybe a few hundred now, I don't know. But you get to know people. Their kids trick or treat in your office. You know, we flip hamburgers at the cookout. We even let the law clerks make fun of us and a skit at the end of the year. And boy do they. That's a whole other story. But of course, do we disagree? Yes. You've given us the 70 hardest cases in America. Of course we're going to disagree sometimes. But we do it civilly when we do. We do it collegially. And we have fun doing it. We sing happy birthday to one another. Poorly. But enthusiastically. We sing together at the holidays. We eat lunch together. An awful lot. Every day we have conference or argument. Lunch is available in the Justice's Lunch Room. Now, it's bring your own. We work for the government. And Justice Breyer, we don't talk shop. We don't talk shop at lunch. Justice Breyer's grandchildren seem to be a reservoir of nearly endless knock-knock jokes. And there are practical jokes too. I don't think Sonya would mind me telling this one. So one day we all line up in our rows as we go out to the courtroom. After we shake hands every time we gather. 36 handshakes. No matter how tense, no matter what's going on, there are 36 handshakes. That's been going on for 150 years. Well, one day we're lining up after our handshakes and Justice Sotomayor comes in and she's not wearing her usual beautiful robe. This one's got pinstripes on it and the New York Yankees emblem across her chest. Now, I guess the Yankees had done well recently. And she was pretty excited. But I think a few of my colleagues were a little nervous about this. And we're lining up to go into the courtroom and finally one of them says, Sonya, are you really going to wear that on the bench? And she says, no, but I was just waiting for someone to ask. When a new justice arrives, the most junior justice, everything's done by seniority in the courts. The most junior justice has to throw a party to welcome the new justice. And Justice Kagan, when Louise and I arrived, threw the most wonderful evening in which she made sure we had Indian food because she knew that Louise loves Indian food. And she got a chef she knew here in Washington to come and cook for us. And it was magnificent. When Justice Kavanaugh arrived, I knew he was kind of a meat and potatoes guy. And so dinner was going to be kind of boring. And I had to come up with something, something to liven up the evening. So I said, after dinner everybody follow me. And we went down to the great hall of the Supreme Court of the United States, that big marble hall. And I handed the chief justice a checkered flag. Well, now, Justice Kavanaugh is a huge baseball fan. He loves the Nationals. And their mascots are these presidents. They have giant foam heads. And they run around. And Jessica Bartlow, who's here tonight, my assistant of many years, a dear friend, came up with the idea. And she found out, you can rent them. So she went online and we rented two of the presidents. And we had a race in the great hall of the Supreme Court of the United States. Now that was one where I thought maybe you'd be better asked for forgiveness than permission. But I think it went over pretty well. We had them here in the rotunda, running around the rotunda. You did not. Yeah, we did. And I have a wonderful photograph of Abraham Lincoln looking at his autopsy report. So, we're all just people. Here, here. For me, the most important part of the book personally and professionally is your section on citizenship and civility. So talk to us about citizenship. So, civility and citizenship. I don't know when civility became a bad word or manners became a word that we don't even use anymore. Now, is our republic supposed to be a little raucous? You betcha, right? You betcha. And an elbow thrown here there is part of the game. After all, the whole point of a republic is that everybody can feel free to speak his or her mind and know confidently that you can, right? That doesn't happen everywhere in the world. And the whole point there is, is a marketplace of ideas. And we hope through a republic that the best ideas will emerge. So yeah, it should be a little raucous. But we shouldn't forget that everybody involved in the process is a human being too. And what is civility really other than a recognition of the equality of the other person I'm talking with? And I do worry when I read and I meet young people, the statistics are there too. 60, 70 percent of young kids say they don't want to get involved in public service because of the nature of our civic discourse today. Social media, I think it's really hard for you young people, much harder than when I was coming up. I read that 25 percent of parents moved children from schools because of cyber bullying. I do think we have to talk about this and we have to worry about this. America, America, and this goes to citizenship too. My wife's an immigrant. A lot of you maybe. What you know about it, you choose to become Americans. And what's special about America is we're bound together by ideas. Most other countries in the world, there's a common culture, a shared history, sometimes quite ancient. Here we have ideas that bind us together about the equality of all persons, about the unalienable rights of individuals. That the government is there to serve us and we're not there to serve the government. Those sorts of ideas. A limited government. And I just think we need to think about those things. George Washington, when he was a young person, was given 101 rules, 110 rules, 110 rules of civility and decent behavior in company written by the Jesuits in 1595. And he had to copy them out. We used to teach civics and we used to teach civility. Number 110, labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial conscience. That's a good one. They're not all quite that good. Another one, I don't know the number, is something like do not speak so vehemently or approach your opponent and debate so closely that you would do the other man's face with your spittle. Spittle. My teenagers would put it, say it, don't spray it. You know, I don't know if we need those rules, right? I mean, the little old-fashioned, I get it. But the rule that works for me is one, Louise's grandmother taught us after a long and eventful life. She said, you can have many regrets in life. I guarantee it. No avoiding it. Sorry. I hate to break it to you. There are going to be things you say or do that you regret. There are going to be things you left unsaid and you didn't do. You get a really, really regret. But the one thing in life that you will never regret is being kind. So you have a wonderful chapter on the art of judging in which you pay homage to your mentors. So I'll talk a little bit about what it was like to clerk for and then be a peer of one of your mentors. No, Justice Kennedy. Yeah. Young people, we've got a bunch of them in the audience, pick your mentors carefully. I used to teach ethics for many years at the University of Colorado Law School. And the one fact that always struck me, empirical work on young people, is that you will pattern your professionalism, ethics on your first bosses. So pick them carefully. You have to find a job. I know they choose you, but you choose them too. Be careful who you choose. I was very blessed to land Justice Kennedy as one of my first mentors. Cabe couldn't be luckier. Here's who Justice Kennedy is to me. So it's the first time a Justice and his law clerk have wound up sitting together. I got that for a year. That was really neat. And when I wrote my very first opinion for the Supreme Court of the United States, in a not very important case, we'll be honest. The new guy doesn't usually get anything but a 9-0. I circulated it probably late in the day, 5, 6 o'clock, and the Justice had gone home. And he works from home late. But he likes to work from home. And he found out that I had circulated my opinion. And he knew, because of the nature of the opinion, it was likely to be joined up pretty quickly by our colleagues. But he wanted to be the first. So he said to his law clerk, please would you fax over? Yes, fax over. Justice Gore, such as opinion. Well, for whatever reason, and I remember that fax machine when I was his law clerk, I think it was the same one probably, because that wasn't working that day. So he was in a conundrum. The fax machine was not working, and he wanted to join quickly that evening before someone else could. So he had the law clerk drive it out to his house. He read it, and he sent back a hand signed Joinder memo that evening. That's Anthony Kennedy. That's who he is. A model of civility and decency in respect for each person. And Byron White? Byron White was my other boss. At the Supreme Court. He was the first justice from Colorado. I'll always be the second. Byron White was, for me, my absolute childhood hero. He grew up on a sugar beet farm, in Wellington, Colorado. Small town. Just a few hundred people. Worked hard as a kid. Went to the University of Colorado and graduated first in his class. He also led the NCAA in rushing. And took the buffaloes. Yes, the buffaloes. And yes, they have a live buffalo as a mascot. To this day, it's pretty awesome. And only occasionally gets loose. He took the buffaloes to a bowl game. After that, he served in the Second World War. Bronze Star winner in South Pacific. Road scholar to Oxford. Graduated top of his class from Yale Law School. And was the leading rusher in the NFL and its highest paid player. Jack Kennedy's friend. And helped Bobby Kennedy desegregate the South. All before serving 31 years on the United States Supreme Court. Wow. You can see why he was my hero. So one day during our clerkship, we're walking along the hallways of the Supreme Court. Down on what they call the first floor, but it really feels like a basement. And that's where the portraits of justices are hung. And Justice White leans over to me. And he says, oh, Justice Gorsuch. He used to like to kind of have a little fun with his law clerks and he called us, Justice Gorsuch, oh. Little did he know. Little did I know. He said, Justice Gorsuch, how many of these old dogs can you name? And in honesty, I had to tell him about half. And then he said to me something that really shocked me and maybe depressed me a little bit at the time. He said, me too. He said, and that's pretty much how it should be. And I'll be forgotten soon enough. Ten years, nobody will know who I am, something like that. And that really, that shocked me down in my socks. I thought nobody would ever forget Byron White. I wonder how many of you remember him. And I certainly know that visitors to the Supreme Court of the United States often look pretty quizzically at his portrait now hung in that same hallway. And what I realize now, and I didn't realize then, is that the boss was trying to tell me something really important and quite joyful. Not at all depressing. The happiness in life has nothing to do with being remembered. That we will all be forgotten soon enough. And that what really matters is this great country and our Constitution. Those things endure. And the joy in life comes from serving something greater than yourself. That's what he was trying to teach me. Which is why in your ethics course, you have had a very interesting assignment that you gave your students to write their own obituaries. Yes, yeah. Well, just as before we leave him, what he was trying to tell me was what I think Webster said, that miracles don't come in clusters. And that what happened here for the first time is 6,000 years of human civilized history. A written Constitution by the people, of the people, for the people. Isn't something that we can take for granted will happen very often, not the obituary. So yeah, toward the end of the semester in my professionalism and ethics class, I would ask students to spend five minutes writing their obituary. And they'd usually start off snickering. What a corny exercise. And maybe it was a little bit. But after about five minutes, things got pretty quiet in that room, always. They got pretty serious about it. And then I'd ask a few brave souls if they wouldn't mind reading out what they'd written. And I'll tell you, not once did they ever write about how much money they made, what car they drove, how many clients they brought in, whether they were a rainmaker in their law firm, what their hourly rate was as a lawyer. They always wrote about being kind to their family, their friends, and maybe leaving the place a little better, at least no worse off than they found it. And I'd tell them at the end of the semester, do me a favor, do me one favor, keep that document, stick it in your desk drawer. And every so often when you're wondering what's it all about or feeling a little blue, take that out and assess how you're doing on the metrics that really matter. I do something similar. I have an epitaph from the tombstone of a lawyer in the early republic that I found in law school in the old Granary burial ground. Would you read it to us? Well, at least it's some big enough print that I can. So thank you. He was forgotten. He was forgotten as we all will be and should be as a judge. That was the other thing White was trying to tell me. You know, presidents should be remembered. Maybe even the occasional senator, congressman. The judges, our job is just to make sure the rule of law is passed down from one generation to the next, to hand you your constitution. Carry the baton for the day. As a lawyer, he was faithful and able. As a judge, patient, impartial, and decisive. As a chief magistrate, accessible, frank, and decisive. In private life, he was affectionate and mild. In public life, he was dignified and firm. Party feuds were laid by the correctness of his conduct. Columny was silenced by the weight of his virtues and Ranker softened by the amenity of his manners. Thank you very much for being on our stage this evening.