John Jay Hooker Quotes

Federal judges will never be so wild, so absurd, so mad as to pretend that they are superior to the legislative power of America.

Having been on the front lines of the confirmation battles involving Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, I know firsthand what is at stake when the Senate exercises its 'advise and consent' power over federal judges.

The Founding Fathers provided a way to reverse unpopular Supreme Court decisions: a constitutional amendment.

I've got that hands-on experience with federal judges and how important it is to have judges like Neil Gorsuch, who will take a rule-of-law approach to the decision-making process. I think he's eminently qualified.

Many voters think about the makeup of the Supreme Court when they are choosing a president. The justices deal not only with constitutional issues but also with social issues that were unknown to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago.

The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.

Over the course of 19 years on the Supreme Court, I learned some lessons about the Constitution of the United States.

What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature.

Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role.

Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence -- people do.

Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each successive wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.

I advocate the appointment of [Federal] Judges by the Senate.

The base that Marshall built in law, and in tradition, transcends his life and animates the rest of American history. Part of the genius of John Marshall, is that in a very real sense, he invented the Supreme Court.

It has been the judiciary that has preserved the Constitution rather than the other two separated powers.

If judges were just secret legislators, declaring not what the law is but what they would like it to be, the very idea of a government by the people and for the people would be at risk. And those who came to court would live in fear, never sure exactly what governs them except the judge’s will. As Alexander Hamilton explained, "liberty can have nothing to fear from” judges who apply the law, but liberty "ha[s] every thing to fear" if judges try to legislate too.

It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments…

Where trial-court and appeals-court nominees were once routinely confirmed on voice vote, they are now routinely subjected to ideological litmus tests, filibusters, and vicious interest-group attacks.

Judicial activism must be lessened, and the judiciary should do its work and let politicians work.

The American people should be the one to decide which direction the Supreme Court will go.

Democracy demands that judges confine themselves to a narrow sphere of influence - that is why the late Alexander Bickel called the judiciary the 'Least Dangerous Branch.' In a world governed by a proper conception of their role, judges don't play at being legislators - they leave that job to our elected representatives.

There's no such thing as judicial supremacy.

We had so many different presidents, including Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln - there were other founders like Hamilton, Adams - who made it very clear that the courts can't make a law. The Constitution is expressly clear that that's a power reserved to Congress.

I am very proud of our Supreme Court - it is one of the best worldwide. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, we have seen a certain imbalance in the relationship between the judiciary, the parliament and the government. The Supreme Court behaved in an activist way. We have to debate the degree to which such Supreme Court activism is appropriate.

When conservative judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in the Constitution. When liberal judges strike down laws (or impose new laws), it's because of what's in the New York Times