When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.But because President [Bill] Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed.

I believe you [Samuel Alito] and others would look and say that the role of the courts is limited and it's not to decide political matters.

I'd pull my little brother on our motorcycle on an inner tube behind it. We would go fishing, we would hunt some, growing up.

Among the most famous of these Supreme Court cases of exercise of political power I believe are the cases of Roe V. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two 1973 cases based on false statements which created a constitutional right to abortion.

I think we just need to stick to our knitting on the topics and the subjects the American people care about.

In recent years, even as the court has become an increasingly political body, the Senate is not focused on preserving any perceived ideological balance when Democrat presidents have appointed people to the court.

We are at our best when we help the weakest. The weak make us strong.