http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/debates/transcripts/u221003.html
GORE: And Governor Bush has declared to the anti-choice groups that he will appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who are known for being the most vigorous opponents of a woman's right to choose.
Here's the difference: He trusts the government to order a woman to do what he thinks she ought to do. I trust women to make the decisions that affect their lives, their destinies and their bodies. And I think a woman's right to choose ought to be protected and defended.
LEHRER: Governor, we'll go to the Supreme Court question in a moment. But, to make sure I understand your position on RU-486, if you're elected president will you not throw appointments to the FDA, you won't support legislation to overturn this?
BUSH: I don't think a president can unilaterally overturn it. I think the FDA's made its decision.
LEHRER: That means that you wouldn't throw appointments to the FDA and ask them to reappraise it?
BUSH: I think once the decision's made, it's been made, unless it's proven to be unsafe to women.
GORE: Well, Jim, you know, the question you asked, if I heard you correctly, was would he support legislation to overturn it. And if I heard the statement the day before yesterday, you said you would order -- he said he would order his FDA appointee to review the decision. Now, that sounds to me a little bit different. And I just think that we ought to support the decision.
BUSH: I said I would make sure that -- that women would be safe to use the drug.
LEHRER: All right, on the Supreme Court question, should a voter assume -- you're pro-life. You just stated your position.
BUSH: I am pro-life.
LEHRER: Should a voter assume that all judicial appointments you make to the Supreme Court or any other federal court will also be pro- life?
BUSH: Voters should assume that I have no litmus test on that issue or any other issue. The voters will know I'll put competent judges on the bench, people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy.
And that's going to be a big difference between my opponent and me. I believe that -- I believe that the judges ought not to take the place of the legislative branch of government, that they're appointed for life and that they ought to look at the Constitution as sacred. They shouldn't misuse their bench. I don't believe in liberal, activist judges. I believe in -- I believe in strict constructionists. And those are the kind of judges I will appoint.
I've named four Supreme Court judges in the state of Texas, and I would ask the people to check out their qualifications, their deliberations. They're good, solid men and women who have made good sound judgments on behalf of the people of Texas.
LEHRER: What kind of appointments should they expect from you, Vice President Gore?
GORE: Both of us use similar language to reach an exactly opposite outcome. I don't favor litmus tests, but I know that there are ways to assess how a potential justice interprets the Constitution. And, in my view, the Constitution ought to be interpreted as a document that grows with our country and our history.
And I believe, for example, that there is a right of privacy in the Fourth Amendment.
GORE: And when the phrase "strict constructionist" is used, and when the names of Scalia and Thomas are used as benchmarks for who would be appointed, those are code words, and nobody should mistake this, for saying that the governor would appoint people who would overturn Roe v. Wade. I mean, just -- it's very clear to me.
And I would appoint people who have a philosophy that I think would make it quite likely that they would uphold Roe v. Wade.
LEHRER: Is the vice president right? Is that a code word for overturning Roe v. Wade?
BUSH: Sounds like the vice president is not very right many times tonight. I just told you the criteria in which I'll appoint judges. I've had a record of appointing judges in the state of Texas. That's what a governor gets to do. A governor gets to name Supreme Court judges, and I've given...
Agreed. For five years I have hoped that Bush would make such appointments as soon as he had the chance to do so. I have often said that we should be patient until that opportunity arose, because it was a good sign that he did not put up a bunch of weak or compromise candidates during his first term, as his Republican predecessors did.
Until the current controversy I had no reason to doubt that Bush would keep his word. He has indicated many times that he understands just how basic judicial appointments are for the future of our country.
That Bush has broken a principal election campaign issue is a concern, but I personally don't care if he was elected based on a plank of better health care on Mars. What has gotten under my skin is his seemengly careless appointment to one of the most important positions in government of an unqualified crony who has demonstrated no committment to excellence, much less its achivement at any time in her long career, no willingness to go the extra mile for anything, unless it is on retainer and her staff is doing the heavy lifting, and no committment to conservatism as demonstrated by her refusal to join, on partisan grounds, the Federalist Society.
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004c.html
10/8/04 - second debate
And you know why he gets that count? The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things. That's just not right.
BUSH: I own a timber company?
(LAUGHTER)
That's news to me.
(LAUGHTER)
Need some wood?
(LAUGHTER)
. . .
GIBSON: Mr. President, the next question is for you, and it comes from Jonathan Michaelson, over here.
MICHAELSON: Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?
BUSH: I'm not telling.
(LAUGHTER)
I really don't have -- haven't picked anybody yet. Plus, I want them all voting for me.
(LAUGHTER)
I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.
Let me give you a couple of examples, I guess, of the kind of person I wouldn't pick.
I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words "under God" in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.
That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America.
And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists. We've got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution.
And I suspect one of us will have a pick at the end of next year -- the next four years. And that's the kind of judge I'm going to put on there. No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution.
Thank you.
GIBSON: Senator Kerry, a minute and a half.
KERRY: Thank you, Charlie.
A few years ago when he came to office, the president said -- these are his words -- "What we need are some good conservative judges on the courts."
And he said also that his two favorite justices are Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas.
So you get a pretty good sense of where he's heading if he were to appoint somebody.
Now, here's what I believe. I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I don't believe we need a good judge of that kind of definition on either side.
I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision.
What I want to find, if I am privileged to have the opportunity to do it -- and the Supreme Court of the United States is at stake in this race, ladies and gentlemen.
The future of things that matter to you -- in terms of civil rights, what kind of Justice Department you'll have, whether we'll enforce the law. Will we have equal opportunity? Will women's rights be protected? Will we have equal pay for women, which is going backwards? Will a woman's right to choose be protected?
These are constitutional rights, and I want to make sure we have judges who interpret the Constitution of the United States according to the law.