MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

MSNBC "Hardball With Chris Matthews" Interview With Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Interviewer: Chris Matthews

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MR. MATTHEWS: Let's bring in Senator Chuck Schumer. He's, of course, a top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Schumer, you've been through a lot of these fights. Are these the usual suspects --

SEN. SCHUMER: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: -- that are coming at you? Here's Rush Limbaugh. I've got let you (go at ?) him, because Rush Limbaugh has a lot to say. Here he is. I want you to respond to it.

RUSH LIMBAUGH (Conservative radio talk show host): (From audiotape.) Here you have a racist. You might want to soften that and you might want to say a reverse racist. And the libs, of course, say that minorities cannot be racists because they don't have the power to implement their racism. Well, those guys are wrong, because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one -- you getting this, AP? -- Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

MR. MATTHEWS: Is this the enemy you want, Senator Schumer, the big guy on radio?

SEN. SCHUMER: I don't think you had to be a great genius to figure out that Rush Limbaugh would come out against just about any nominee that the president chose. Sotomayor is a moderate. She has been supported by Republicans throughout her career. In fact, on the 2nd Circuit, most of her colleagues regarded her as moderate. Ninety- five percent of the time she agreed with the Republican nominee who was part of the three-judge panel that she was part of. And she's a great, great choice.

And, you know, to pick one case where actually Sotomayor was siding with the City of New Haven, this wasn't a judge coming in and imposing her own view and saying you had to change things, but rather this is what New Haven wanted; this is what the district court had said.

MR. MATTHEWS: The judge ruled in that case, along with her fellow judges, that it was okay for her -- they weren't going to overrule what the City of New Haven did when it threw out that test for the firefighters' promotions because they were trying to proceed in the area of civil rights. They were trying to equalize a situation. They were pursuing the goals of Title VII.

Do you like that judgment? Do you like the fact that as long as you're trying to do the right thing, you really can't be overruled? That's what they seemed to be saying there?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, I think this is a careful area of the law. And, of course, we always have, throughout our law -- it's part of our legal system for years and years and years that race gets special consideration because of the long and tawdry history of racism in America, and now the courts are examining how far you can go in that direction.

But to say that Sotomayor's decision was racist would mean that lots of judges on lots of benches were racist. It would mean that the City of New Haven was racist. I mean, it goes way overboard, and it's the kind of incendiary language that just doesn't work against somebody like Sotomayor, who meets the standards of both legal excellence and being a moderate judge.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, what's your standard for affirmative action these days? Is it fair testing or similar results? In other words, if you put a test out and it turns out that not enough African- Americans do well on the test, then there's something wrong with the test. Is that a fair standard?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, you know, again, it depends on the situation. The test has to have a relationship to the job itself. The test has to show whether you can do the job well. You don't necessarily throw the test out if a disproportionate number of any race succeed or fail. But at the same time, there's going to be a (lean ?) in the law to try and include minorities in places where they have been traditionally excluded.

MR. MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about her quote of eight years ago. I know we all make comments years ago we wish we hadn't said that way, but here's hers. And I'm sure it's going to come up before your committee among the Republicans especially. Quote -- this is the judge -- "I would hope that a wise Latino woman, with the richness of her experiences, would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Won't that be used by people on the conservative side to say she's an activist, she's using her role to even the odds or to give a break to minorities, because she wants to do that?

SEN. SCHUMER: No, I think what she -- I think what she's saying is that, in some instances, her experiences or experiences of judges do matter. Look, rule of law comes first. And no matter what your experiences are, you have to follow rule of law. Judge Sotomayor's seven and 10 -- 17 years on the bench show that she follows rule of law. She's hardly an outlier in any way.

But at the same time, within the bounds of rule of law, people's experiences matter. And I think most Americans would say once you meet the two standards of excellence and moderation -- you have legal excellence; you really know the law inside-out -- clearly she does -- moderation -- you're not too far right, you're not too far left -- diversity of experience matters. And there's nothing wrong with that, provided it doesn't supplant rule of law.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, here's the other lightning rod. Here's the statement she made, as you know already, at Duke University four years ago, and it's got critics again charging her with judicial activism. Here it is on tape, Senator.

JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: (From videotape.) All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with court of appeals experience, because it is -- court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know this is on tape, and I should never say that, because we don't make law, I know.

MR. MATTHEWS: What do you think? She found out -- she realized, like we often do, "My God, I'm on tape. I'm saying we make law; we make policy." Should judges make policy, Senator?

SEN. SCHUMER: Chris, the next sentence that she said -- and this is typically what the far right has done; they've done it to me, they've done it to just about everyone else -- they cut the sentence in half. I don't have the quote in front of me here, but her next sentence is, "That's not what I believe. That's not what I aspire to."

In other words, she's saying even though it may be that courts of appeal sometimes decide policy, that's not what the law ought to be. And that one's just going to be (the rug ?) by that next sentence, which will become public as they make a fuss about this. They'll just pull the rug out from under the arguments.

And I have to say this. These are very slim reeds to base opposition to a nominee, who has so many powerful arguments for her. These sort of little snippets that don't tell the whole story, that don't show any kind of perverse sense of going beyond or around the law, how are they going to prevail against somebody who has the life story that she does, who has the legal brilliance that she does? You don't make Yale Law Review on a whim. In fact, it's blind. In other words, you write essays. They don't know your name. They just pick the best essays. There she was, somebody who has clearly been a moderate, supported by 23 Republicans when she was last in the Senate. And they're sort of grasping at straws.

And the point you made earlier is a good one. The politicians, whether it's Sessions, McCain or anyone else, are not lashing out against her. It's sort of the spokespeople for the party, and their job is to try and stir the pot. I think they're going to do a lot of stirring, and I don't think any of it is going to stick. I would predict she's going to be confirmed by a large majority, almost every Democrat and a good number of Republicans.

And one more thing, Chris. This is much more a test of the Republican Party than it is Sotomayor. Her record is clear. Her record is extensive. She's a top-notch jurist. If they can't support someone like her, then that says how out of touch and out of the mainstream they are, not what she is.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, let me ask you one last point. You said several years ago -- and I do pay attention to your thoughts about this -- you once said, "Let's stop nickel-and-diming these nominees, focusing on peccadilloes, because there is a legitimate debate here over judicial philosophy."

SEN. SCHUMER: Correct.

MR. MATTHEWS: "And if we have a different philosophy, fair enough; we have the right to vote against them."

Aren't the conservatives on your committee and in the Senate at large fully entitled to oppose this nominee, regardless of how qualified she is academically, no matter how great her biography and her American story is, if they don't like what they've read in her rulings? Aren't they qualified and entitled to say, "Not this one"?

SEN. SCHUMER: Well, look, anyone can do that. But let me just say this. Her rulings are very moderate and mainstream. I do believe you look at the rulings, and you're right. We shouldn't look and see if someone in 1973 got a jaywalking ticket and make a huge fuss about that. That demeans the process. But when you look at her rulings and you see how mainstream they are, and then they would say, oh, they oppose her, it says something about them.

So they have a right to oppose her, but then I think people have their right to make a judgment on "Is this Republican Party so much the party of 'no' that they can't even support someone like Sotomayor, who has a record of moderation, a record of excellence, and, yes, who has a compelling life story and different experiences than most people who rise to that level?"

MR. MATTHEWS: Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, thanks for coming on "Hardball" tonight.

SEN. SCHUMER: Thanks, Chris.

END.

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