I would hope all senators, Republicans and Democrats, would ask very substantive questions because this is, after all, a lifetime position.

I take him at his word that he will steer the court to serve as an appropriate check on potential abuses of presidential power.

intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, privacy and access to justice.

This hearing is the only opportunity for the American people to examine what kind of justice John Roberts will dispense.

I wanted to make sure he understands there’s a lot of discrimination in the United States today. We have laws that try to redress that and is he going to be open to the application...

Now the Senate has to rise to the challenge and do its work, … No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

I felt better after I said it.

The amount of time is less important than the good-faith effort that will be needed in improving the Patriot Act to strike the right balance in respecting Americans liberty and privacy, while protecting their security.

Nobody is above the law, not even the president of the United States. This is against the law.

These trap and trace orders, though, were not used to identify or record the contents of the communication,

With Enron and WorldCom and others, this is the last time in the world that the Senate should weaken conflict-of-interest standards.

definitely somebody who has a very clear philosophical legal view.

Members of this committee have asked a number of questions of Mr. Flanigan about these incidents, but each set of responses leads to more questions.

It would be a mistake to be decided by Congress. It should be decided by the voters.

You’ve said [Justice Robert H. Jackson] was one of the justices you admire the most.

We have reached the point that if you have a medical record, credit card or computer, you have a privacy problem,

The president cites Judge Roberts’ work in this post as one of the reasons he made this nomination, and the committee will want to square these varying accounts to get as close to the truth...

settled law of the land.

Life would be a lot easier if he’d be more forthcoming.

Freedom and security are always at tension in our society. We tried our best to strike the right balance. Now it’s time to return to discussion of what aspects we got right and what modifications...

Time-Warner can do their entertainment any way they want. But the news should be competitive and objective. And secondly, I’d want to see what happens in the cable business. An awful lot of cable users...

We should have been eagerly telling that part of the world, especially the Muslim part of that world, that we here in America are generous, are good people, and we are strongly committed to help...

Despite my misgivings, I have acquiesced in some of the administration’s proposals because it is important to preserve national unity in this time of crisis and to move the legislative process forward,

It’s far more important to do it right than fast. In this case, I suspect we’re doing both.

Access to these highly accurate tests helps convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent,

It would have been unseemly to go forward with a hearing on his successor this week.

I’m not even going to comment on something that disgusting, … Really, I’m thinking of my black grandchild and I’m going to hold (off).

I don ‘ t know of anybody who would tell you in that committee, that they were satisfied with the responses. So I would describe myself as unsatisfied, and I have to be satisfied before...

I want to hear … what controls the FBI has in place when Carnivore is used to ensure the program is operated only as authorized by the court order. This keeping in mind the fact...

There’s a real potential of criminal conduct here, there will certainly be grand juries looking at this,

What strikes some people as ‘indecent’ or ‘patently offensive’ may look very different to other people in another part of the country.

I want to know why many at the White House and many of the calls that they’ve made on her behalf seem to assume such assurances were made. She says they were not; I want...

There are many good things in this Patriot Act … but not enough. Now we have six months to get it right.

If you believe you need new laws, then come in and tell us.

We could have the scope going back to the Kennedy assassination – how many gunmen there were,

The upcoming hearings are a chance for some accountability and for some answers that have been lacking from the administration about its policies on torture and about the prison abuse scandals. There is much to...

If the defense of South Korea depends primarily on land mines, then that’s no real defense.

There are a lot of good legal thinkers who question the reasoning that went into Roe, not the result, but the reasoning, … Is this, in his mind, settled law? He is going to be...

Our federal laws do not need to reach each and every minor, inadvertent, and harmless computer abuse,

Our criminal justice system is not working as it should when innocent people are convicted of serious crimes and then spend decades — or have even reached the end of death row — before the...

I want an end to this thing. But where are we? Do we know what the rules are going to be?

The Judiciary Committee has been hard at work preparing for expedited hearings on this important nomination, and there is no doubt that this last-minute revelation is a hindrance to that preparation,

regrettable that they were not able to take the time to review the documents that now have been provided to the Senate.

Are you sending us a message?

This is a needlessly provocative nomination. Instead of uniting the country through his choice, the president has chosen to reward one faction of his party, at the risk of dividing the country.

At a time when the Republican Party has control of all three branches of the federal government, my worry is that the system of checks and balances may become short-circuited,

I’m hoping that the one bright light in all of this might be that this letter will give us further evidence to find out who is doing this, … You’re looking for a needle in...

Although electronic commerce is beginning to blossom, it is still in its infancy. Stability is the key to its reaching its full potential, and creating new tax categories for the Internet is exactly the wrong...

We will be going on a very fast pace. But we’re doing one that is reasonable.

It appears that the letter sent to me may contain enough spores to kill well over a 100,000 people, but it also may well have evidence, fingerprints or anything else,