Frank Lautenberg Quotes

I believe at its core we have a Constitution, as our Supreme Court's first great justice, Marshall, said in 1819, and I quote, "intended to endure for the ages to come and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."

I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

The Constitution is what the judges say it is.

The Constitution is a living, breathing document that can speak to you and nobody else.

My touchstone for every question is the Constitution.

The Supreme Court is our ultimate check and balance.

The [Supreme] Court did not interpret the Constitution—the court amended it.

The real difficulty is not with the Constitution but with the judges who interpret it.

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.

The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.

I think it is up to the judge to say what the Constitution provided, even if what it provided is not the best answer, even if you think it should be amended. If that's what it says, that's what it says.

I think it makes no difference whether or not I endorse it. The Constitution is as the Supreme Court interprets it and I must conform to this and do my best to see that it is carried out in this country.

The Supreme Court overrules, distinguishes, and upholds prior precedents. Sometimes it ignores them. But it does not - cannot - 'defy' them.

Judges are either partial to the Constitution or they aren't; they either believe that the document is perfect in its form and that rights like free speech don't ebb in and out of style - or they believe that it's an anachronistic document in a world that needs a malleable, living Constitution.

Judge [Samuel Alito], there's a genuine struggle going on well beyond you, well beyond the Congress, in America about how to read the Constitution.

Today, no less than five Supreme Court justices are on record, either through their opinions or speeches (or both), that they will consult foreign law and foreign-court rulings for guidance in certain circumstances. Of course, policymakers are free to consult whatever they want, but not justices. They're limited to the Constitution and the law.

As a government lawyer, Samuel Alito wrote that he personally believe very strongly the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion.

If we do our job right, the Supreme Court won't be made up of men and women who are on the side of the little guy or the big guy; rather, the Supreme Court will be made up of men and women who are on the side of the law and the Constitution.

It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.

Our country is being radically altered, step by step, by Justices who are not following any law.

Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?

According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I [the Lord] have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles.

You either believe in the Constitution, or you don't.

The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.