MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: Thank you, Rachel. It"s great to be on again.

MADDOW: It seems to me that Senate Democrats may be trying to use these hearings as a way to demonstrate to the country and make a case to the country about what it means to have a very conservative court. What sort of rulings you get when you have a conservative court. Is that in part the strategy here?

KLOBUCHAR: I think you"re going to hear that. I think you"ll still see when the questions start, though, Rachel, traditional questions of this nominee, of her background. But there is no denying. When you have someone like Judge Posner, not exactly a liberal, that went back and looked at the justices and found that four of the five most conservative justices since 1937 are on this court right now, I don"t think that"s really disputable that this court has grown very conservative. So my question really is what is Elena Kagan going to do about this in terms of bringing some real world experience?
And I"d say two things. First of all, came out well today, she"s a consensus builder, supported by solicitor general back the last 24 years, including Republicans. She"s also someone that has known at Harvard as bringing people together, diverse points of view. So maybe we could actually get some of those opinions to tilt 5-4 the other way.

The second thing is that she"s someone with real world experience. And that"s what I pointed out today. You know, I would love to have someone in that room with those justices who says, what are you guys thinking, you know? You think Lilly Ledbetter when she was discriminated against for years and years was supposed to, in few months after they started giving her male counterparts higher salary, was she supposed to rifle through their drawers and look at their pay stubs? Was she supposed to start asking them, hey, what are you guys making?

So I think having some real world experience and having someone who is incredibly smart but at the same time gets along with people to bring some of that experience to bear in those discussions where you and I can never go. I think that will be a good thing.

MADDOW: In terms of the overall ideological balance of the court, that interesting point Judge Posner made. And the observation that others have made that Justice Stevens himself has even made that essentially with each new justice who has been nominated over the past several decades, the court has shifted a little bit to the right. Nobody has been more to the left than their predecessor in a very, very long time.
I wonder if it"ll be an appropriate line of questioning to determine whether or not she"s actually going to be to the right of Justice Stevens on many of the social issues that tend to mark a justice as liberal or conservative.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, you know, everything is really open court for questioning of the judiciary committee. I think you"re going to hear all kinds of questions. I think she has pretty much said she"s not going to say how she"s going to rule on a specific case. But I think it"s going to be very interesting because in her hearing when she was up for the solicitor general job, she fairly opened, answered questions well. And so, I think you"ll hear a lot of good questions on both sides of her on all these issues.

But, again, your point, one of my favorite examples of this court was actually the Exxon Valdez case, which is incredibly relevant today with 32,000 plaintiffs. It took them years and years to even get any payouts to fishermen, 8,000 of them died during that time. And the Roberts Court basically takes a $5 billion jury verdict and knocks it down to $500 million. And so, those are the kinds of decisions my colleagues will be talking about.
But again, I would, when the questions start, you"re going to hear all kinds of things, especially from the other side about Saudi Arabian gifts to Harvard and all kinds of a grab bag of those kinds of attacks. But I think you will hear defense and some attacks on the Roberts Court.

MADDOW: Do you have any clear sense of what the Republicans will be choosing as their line of attack against her? Obviously, the initial pick and then withdrawal of the General Boykin to me, the biggest red flag I could possibly imagine. It was like they chose Orly Taitz to come in there and question her. Do you have any sense of what direction they"re going?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I think the general thing you"re going to hear, the military issues, even though the whole time she was there, the military were able to recruit on campus. But I think you"re going to hear that and then you"re going to hear this political thing, which I think is really interesting, because you look at Sandra Day O"Connor, pretty much revered by people of different stripes. She was actually the elected Senate majority leader Republican in Arizona, or my colleague John Cornyn has served as a judge and he"s also as a senator.

So, you have people that have been in roles where they advise presidents, John Roberts. But then they play different roles, as well. So, I think they are playing on that ground, but at the same time, then you look at her career as a whole, as Lindsey Graham actually suggested you do, which was an interesting beginning of his opening where he cited Robert C. Byrd and said, you know, if you look at one incident--you may not agree with this guy--but when you look at his career as a whole, that"s how you examine a man or a woman. I think he was saying that for a reason because he was saying, I don"t agree with everything Elena Kagan says, but there are some things I agree with.

So, I don"t think you"re going to hear around--across the board attacks from the Republicans. I think Lindsey Graham will ask interesting questions. You also have the fact, Rachel, and the Republican side that someone you"ve talked about quite a bit on this show, Scott Brown, introduced her today along with John Kerry. So, you clearly see some voices that are taking a little
different tact.

MADDOW: Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, of course, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee--I know it"s going to be a really busy time in the Senate. And we hope you"ll come back and talk to us during this process.

KLOBUCHAR: I would love to do that again. Thank you.

MADDOW: Thank you.

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