This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, April 13, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

As Justice Stephen steps down, what was his record on political speech and other rights enshrined by the First Amendment.

At best, says John Samples, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative

Government, Stevens was an inconsistent defender of the First Amendment.

At worst, Samples believes Stevens

was just broadly deferential to government power.

Tony Morrow, writing for the First Amendment Center,

says that Justice Stevens was a friend of the First Amendment,

and he quotes Stevens as having said in 1993 that the five clauses of the First Amendment,

quote, combined to form a whole larger than its parts in a way that, quote,

advances a broader concept of liberty.

Did you just evaluate that?

Well, it's a striking comment that you, essentially the judge is reading into the actual language of the Constitution this so-called broader concept of liberty, which I think, and there's a fair amount of evidence with Justice

Stevens in his career runs the risk of the judge actually reading their own

values or ideas into the Constitution.

The judges in that case lack constraint, the constraint that can be given by the text

of the Constitution.

And it's not surprising.

I think Justice Stevens in his career,

the one thing that stands out is he really

was extremely deferential to what government wanted to do, even in core areas like

...