The outcome of that process would have an impact on determining the law's constitutionality, he said.
"It is a change about the democratic spirit and transition, and the establishment of constitutionality," he said.
"If there is one feature of affirmative action programs that favors their constitutionality," he said, "it is that they grow out of the democratic process".
"I think he referred to the question of his constitutionality," he said, before breaking into a huge grin, as if he knew Maddow wasn't going to buy that.
The Court considered it "too vague a test of constitutionality" and said: "Such a test hinges on the court's view of the reasonableness of the law in question, and requires the court to intrude into the legislative sphere of Parliament as well as engage in policy making".
The law's constitutionality, the president said, had been affirmed by legal scholars across the political spectrum, as well as by two conservative appeals court judges.
With Congress and the Bush administration at odds over the legality of eavesdropping on Americans without court warrants, the legislation could produce a timely ruling by the court on the program's constitutionality, Mr. Schumer said.
Regarding the president's health care reform plan, which has become even more of a conservative flashpoint on the campaign trail this week than usual as the Supreme Court took up its constitutionality, Mr. Santorum said Mr. Romney could not be trusted to make an argument against government-mandated health care because he signed off on a state-run health plan as governor of Massachusetts.
How can the Court maintain public confidence when the nation is divided, when the Court is going to decide on the Constitutionality of say, the individual mandate.
Some academics and politicians and many in the news media, he says, mistakenly impugned the constitutionality of its program.
