Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Quotes

I have not reached a considered position on the question of court-packing. Although I don't think we should be laughing at it.

The politics of judges is getting to be red hot.

The court stands less than tall when it defers hearing a case for political reasons.

One single object... will merit the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation

The federal judiciary is an irresponsible body … working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction ...

Judges are terrible politicians.

We in Congress don’t have much influence on the Supreme Court. We confirm judges and then we never hear from them. They don’t call. They don’t write.

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…

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

The Supreme Court of the United States is too important to our democracy for it to be understaffed for partisan reasons.

A president shouldn't tell the judiciary what to do.

Americans revere both the Constitution and an independent Court that applies the document's provisions. The Court has done many excellent things in our history, and few people are willing to see its power broken. The difficulty with all proposals to respond to the Court when it behaves unconstitutionally is that they would create a power to destroy the Court's essential work as well.

There has been a sea change in the way Democrats view and talk about the Supreme Court. Democrats used to respectfully disagree with the justices. Now they call them illegitimate and corrupt, partisan and extreme.

There is only one excuse for packing the [Supreme] Court and that is to change it.

The primary job of the Supreme Court justice is not to uphold the will of the majority of the moment. The primary job of the Supreme Court is not to reflect the popular opinions of the day.... The Constitution is a decidedly anti-majoritarian document in wonderful and important ways that intentionally protect our rights and our liberties. And the role of the Supreme Court—in protecting those rights and liberties—is sometimes precisely to frustrate the will of a majority.

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.

Members of the Supreme Court have lifetime tenures because they're not supposed to do politics.

While abolishing judgeships and lower federal courts is a blunt tool and one whose use is warranted only in the most extreme of circumstances... it is one of many possibilities to check and balance the judiciary.

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.

If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions.

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

The experience I don't want to see repeated occurred in 'Bush v. Gore.' The Court divided five to four. There were four separate dissents, and that confused the press. In fact, some of the reporters announced that the decision was seven-two. There was no time to get together.

I am angry - mad - at the Chief Justice, John Roberts.

I think my legacy will be in what most people don't like about me: my style - the separation between judge and lawyers, judge and politics, the real independence of the judiciary from the executive, from the legislative, from money. I'm criticized in Brazil because of that. In the end, I hope to prevail.