[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[May 13, 1994]
[Pages 909-912]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing the Nomination of Stephen G. Breyer To Be a 
Supreme Court Associate Justice and an Exchange With Reporters
May 13, 1994

    The President. Good afternoon. Today I am proud to nominate Judge 
Stephen Breyer to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
    I believe a President can best serve our country by nominating a 
candidate for the Supreme Court whose experience manifests the quality 
in a Justice that matters most, excellence: excellence in knowledge, 
excellence in judgment, excellence in devotion to the Constitution, to 
the country, and to the real people. It is a duty best exercised wisely 
and not in haste.
    I have reflected on this decision now for the last several weeks, 
about 37 days. I have been well served by the White House Counsel, Lloyd 
Cutler, and the other members of our legal staff who have worked very 
hard, by our Chief of Staff, Mr. McLarty, who's kept the process going 
in an orderly way, and by others who worked on it. We have worked hard 
to achieve the pursuit of excellence. In that pursuit, I came again to 
Judge Breyer, who serves today, as most of you know, as the chief judge 
for the United States Court of Appeals for the first circuit. And I will 
nominate him to be the Supreme Court's 108th Justice.
    Without dispute, he is one of the outstanding jurists of our age. He 
has a clear grasp of the law, a boundless respect for the constitutional 
and legal rights of the American people, a searching and restless 
intellect, and a remarkable ability to explain complex subjects in 
understandable terms. He has proven that he can build an effective 
consensus and get people of diverse views to work together for justice's 
sake. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford, a graduate of Oxford 
University, a magna cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School. He 
served the late Justice Goldberg as a law clerk, spent 2 years in the 
Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, and served as chief 
counsel

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of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where he had the opportunity 
to work with Senators of both parties.
    Judge Breyer has had a private law practice, has written dozens of 
scholarly articles, published in distinguished law reviews and legal 
texts. And he's been a member of the Federal Sentencing Commission. For 
more than a decade he served with true distinction on the U.S. Court of 
Appeals in the First Circuit. His writings in areas ranging from the 
interpretation of legislation and analysis of the sentencing guidelines 
to the underpinnings, regulation, and the interplay of economics and the 
law reveal a keen and vital mind. His record displays a thirst for 
justice. His career personifies both public service and patriotism.
    As you know, I had a wealth of talent to choose from in making this 
nomination. In addition to Judge Breyer, whom I considered very 
seriously for this position the last time I had a Supreme Court 
appointment, I'd like to take just a moment to comment on two of the 
gentlemen who made this decision a difficult one for me.
    Secretary Babbitt was attorney general and Governor of his State, 
and during that time, a colleague of mine. He was a candidate for the 
Presidency in a race which everyone acknowledged raised the serious and 
substantive issues of the day. He has been a very effective Secretary of 
the Interior for me, one of the most sensitive, complex, and difficult 
posts in this administration. He would bring to the Court the 
responsibility and discipline of service in public life. He would bring 
a feel for law at the State level and, most important perhaps, for life 
at the grassroots. Although I know he would be a good addition, indeed, 
a superb addition to the Court, frankly, I came to the same conclusion I 
have every time I've thought about him: I couldn't bear to lose him from 
the Cabinet, from his service at Interior, from his service as an 
adviser to me and a vital and leading member of our domestic policy 
team.
    Judge Richard Arnold, the chief judge of the eighth circuit, has 
been a friend of mine for a long time. I have the greatest respect for 
his intellect, for his role as a jurist, and for his extraordinary 
character. I think a measure of the devotion and the admiration in which 
he is held is evidenced by the fact that somewhere around 100 judges, 
one-eighth of the entire Federal bench, wrote me endorsing his candidacy 
for the Supreme Court. But as has been widely reported in the press, 
Judge Arnold has cancer and is now undergoing a course of treatment. I 
have every confidence that that treatment will be successful. And if I 
am fortunate enough to have other opportunities to make appointments to 
the Court, I know I will be able to consider Judge Arnold at the top of 
the list.
    Five decades ago, Judge Learned Hand defined the spirit of liberty 
as the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and 
women, the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own bias, 
the spirit which lies hidden in the aspirations of us all. When our 
citizens hear about Judge Breyer's nomination and learn about his 
background and beliefs, I believe they will join me in saying, here is 
someone touched by that spirit of liberty, who believes in the 
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who is graced with the intellectual 
capacity and the good judgment a Supreme Court Justice ought to have, 
and whose background and temperament clearly qualify him to be an 
outstanding Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
    So I will send his nomination to the Senate for confirmation with 
great pride and high hopes.
    Q. Mr. President, you have forgone the opportunity to name someone 
with greater political experience, such as Secretary Babbitt. What makes 
you think that Judge Breyer will be able to reshape the Court or forge a 
new consensus----
    The President. No, I think, Judge Breyer actually has quite a lot of 
political savvy, and I would say two things. First of all, as you know, 
when I talked about Senator Mitchell, I would not have offered the 
position to Senator Mitchell if he were running for reelection and were 
willing to stay as majority leader of the Senate. And I felt the same 
way in the end about Secretary Babbitt. I mean, here's a man that is 
dealing with issues of incredible magnitude, especially in the West, a 
very important part of our country. And so I just couldn't bear to think 
about that.
    And then, the more I thought about Steve Breyer and the time I spent 
with him last time I had a vacancy on the Court, the more I realized he 
had proved that he had the kind of political capacity and judgment we 
need because he'd been exposed to the full range of issues working here 
as the chief of staff of the Senate

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Judiciary Committee. He obviously has a lot of political skills because 
of his reputation as a consensus builder on a court where most of the 
appointees were made by Republican Presidents. And look at the people 
supporting his nomination. I mean, he's gotten Senator Kennedy and 
Senator Hatch together. I wish I had that kind of political skill. 
[Laughter]
    Q. [Inaudible]--between two others who might not be as easy to 
confirm enter into your selection process?
    The President.  No. I'm convinced all three of them would have been 
handily confirmed. I know--I mean, I've heard all this, but I'm 
convinced all three of them would have been handily confirmed. I have no 
doubt about it whatever. And I spent quite a lot of time on that.
    Q.  Mr. President, in the end, why do you think that there was so 
much--maybe it's our fault as much as it is your aides' fault--so much 
confusion in which direction you were leaning? Earlier in the week we 
thought that Secretary Babbitt had the best choice. Then later, it was 
Judge Arnold. Now, of course, you've made your decision.
    The President. Because you all didn't talk to me. When we have these 
appointments that only I make, especially if it's something where, with 
all respect to my aides, I think I know as much or more about it as they 
do. And I told you all, they worked hard for me, and they did a 
wonderful job. There's an enormous amount of work to do, but--one of the 
best jobs I ever had was teaching the Constitution of the United States 
to law students. I care a lot about the Supreme Court. I read people's 
opinions. I read articles. I read letters that people send me about 
prospective candidates. I think about this a lot, and I care very deeply 
about it. And I was going to take whatever time I had to take to think 
this through.
    In the course of those conversations with my staff, I always try to 
take, when we get down to the finals, where I'm down to three or four 
folks, I try to take every strong suit I can about a candidate and work 
through it, every weakness and we work through it.
    But I think, you know, on these Supreme Court cases--we may never 
get another appointment, but if I get another one you're just going to 
have to ride along with me because in the end, I'm going to make the 
decision. I'm going to do what I think is right.
    But I've told you what happened today. All three of them had a great 
claim. I couldn't bear to lose Bruce Babbitt. With Judge Arnold, I think 
we have to have the progress of his health ultimately resolved. He is a 
magnificent man, and I think a lot of the stated opposition to him was 
based on a misunderstanding and was flat wrong. And I would have been 
happy to defend him against all comers from now to doomsday. But I think 
I have done the right thing by my country with this appointment, and I 
feel very good about it.
    Q. Mr. President, when you look at the mark that you want to leave 
on the Court, what specifically does Judge Breyer bring to the Court?
    The President. I think he brings three things that I think are 
important, besides the ability to get people together and work with 
them. I think he brings, one, a real devotion to the Bill of Rights and 
to the idea that personal freedoms are important to the American people. 
And I think he will strike the right balance between the need for 
discipline and order, being firm on law enforcement issues but really 
sticking in there for the Bill of Rights and for the issue of personal 
freedoms. You know, this country got started by people who wanted a good 
letting alone from Government. And every time we think about doing 
anything around here, we have to recognize that Americans have always 
had a healthy skepticism about Government reaching into their lives. I 
think he understands that.
    The second thing I think he understands is the practical 
implications of governmental actions that the Court may have to review. 
I know that some of his writings have been a little bit controversial in 
some quarters in analyzing the economic impacts of governmental actions 
and things of that kind. But I think that he shows that he really 
understands that.
    The third thing that I think he can do is cut through the incredible 
complexities that surround so many of the issues that we're confronted 
with in our world today and render them simple, clear, and 
understandable, not only--first of all, to himself, secondly, to his 
colleagues, and thirdly, to the American people. I think it is important 
that the American people have confidence in the Supreme Court and feel 
that somehow it is accessible to them. And I

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believe that Judge Breyer will do a good job of that.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 6 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House.