Dick Durbin Quotes

Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has been the critical decisive vote on many issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation.

In my lifetime, it's the Supreme Court, not Congress, that integrated our public schools, that allowed people of different races to marry, and established the principle that our government should respect the value of privacy of American families. These decisions are the legacy of justices who chose to expand American freedom.

I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.

This is the most historic moment in Supreme Court history in our lifetime, no question about it. These are justices who are going to serve for decades.

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really 'empathy' and 'understanding.' He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.

It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.

Anytime we're talking about Thurgood Marshall, that's a good thing, I think, because it gives us an opportunity to go back, look at the history, and recognize what his contributions were.

I am very pleased with President Trump's selection of Judge Neil Gorsuch as his first appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The foundations of modern civil-rights law are exceptionally secure. Conservative judges nibble around the edges sometimes, and people still debate the constitutionality of affirmative-action programs. But almost no one seriously argues about the basic meaning or legitimacy of core civil-rights protections.

Many studies or theories by political scientists fit some subset of cases that a court decides, but literally no theory can account for all of them, particularly when it comes to studying a complex institution like the Supreme Court.

As the guardian of our rights, the Supreme Court makes decisions every year which either protect the individual or leave him at the mercy of more powerful forces in our society.

The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax

I'm one that believes that Samuel Alito appointment on the Supreme Court is a pivotal appointment. And because he replace Sandra Day O'Connor and because she was the fifth vote on 148 cases, you well could be a very key and decisive vote.

Not that I've always agreed with what she said - far from it - but Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been properly lauded, in my view, as a judge who approached her duties with open-mindedness and with a sensitivity that affects her decisions would have on everyday, ordinary people.

Well, let's see. There's-of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but...

If confirmed, Judge [Samuel] Alito could serve on the court for generation or more. And the decisions he will make as justice will have a direct impact on the lives and liberties of our children, our grandchildren, and even our great-grandchildren.

Her [Jurdge Sandra Day O'Connor] judgment has also been critical in protecting our environmental rights. She joined in 5-4 majorities affirming reproductive freedom and religious freedom and the Voting Rights Act.

History has shown that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did, in fact, dramatically change the balance of the court in many critical areas, such as abortion, the privacy debate expansion and child pornography.

As Harry Blackmun said when he wrote Roe v. Wade, 'Once a child is born, the child has basic constitutional rights: due process, equal protection of the laws.'

Judge Samuel Alito was born and raised in the great state of New Jersey. Our state has a legacy of producing outstanding jurists, most notably the late William J. Brennan, who ushered in our nation's recommitment to civil rights in the latter half of the 20th century.

Judge Roberts' civil rights record and views remained the most controversial and unexplained part of his record when the Judiciary Committee hearing concluded, just as his civil rights record and views had been the most controversial part of his record when the hearing began.

I'm concerned about the role the court will play in protecting individual rights in this and the next century.

Antonin Scalia knows that freedom of speech has consequences. And the consequences of freedom of speech are speech you don't like, that you don't want to hear, that you don't want to listen to.

If the Constitution says that marriage is between a man and woman, then things that are inconsistent with that would be inconsistent with the Constitution.

When it comes to the Supreme Court, the American people have only two times when they have any input into how our Constitution is interpreted and who will have the privilege to do so.First, we elect a president who has the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.Second, the people, acting through their representatives in the Senate, have their say on whether the president's nominee should in fact be confirmed.