Grassley Compares Supreme Court to a 'River Flooding Its Banks'
National Law Journal
Grassley Compares Supreme Court to a 'River Flooding Its Banks'
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday railed against significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions from the past term, saying the unified votes of left-leaning justices "give rise to an appearance that their loyalties are to each other and to their preferred principles and policies, rather than to the Constitution."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, added his voice to sustained criticism from conservatives on Capitol Hill about the court's same-sex marriage and health insurance subsidies cases.
"The Supreme Court, like a river flooding its banks, is not staying within its proper channel. I strongly encourage all justices of the court to exercise the self-restraint that the Constitution demands and the Framers ultimately anticipated,” Grassley said in the floor speech. “Ultimately, that will be the only way that the court will retain the necessary powers to preserve the Constitution.”
Grassley didn’t offer any proposals during his critique of the high court—unlike Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican and presidential contender, who has pitched a few ideas to confront what he and other conservatives deem judicial activism.
At the end of the term, Cruz called for a constitutional amendment to subject the justices to retention elections. Last week Cruz presided over a hearing to solicit solutions to the “activism” of the high court.
Grassley on Tuesday didn’t limit his remarks to Supreme Court rulings. He also said would-be liberal justices deceive the Senate by disavowing their commitment to a "living constitution with a meaning that changes over time."
"When Supreme Court nominees come before the Judiciary Committee for confirmation, they know better than to say that they will enforce their own views," Grassley said. "They know they wouldn't be confirmed if that's what they said."
Grassley quoted then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan from her confirmation hearings. "They tell us that it is 'law all the way down.' But when they get on the bench, all bets seem to be off."
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"...unified votes of left-leaning justices 'give rise to an appearance that their loyalties are to each other and to their preferred principles and policies, rather than to the Constitution.'"
Convenient that Grassley ignored the conservative justices' penchant for ruling in favor of ideology and theocracy over the Constitution.
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