Chuck Grassley Quotes

As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.

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.

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.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

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.

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.

The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.

In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body…. Judges who will bring to the Courts a present-day sense of the Constitution - Judges who will retain in the Courts the judicial functions of a court, and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.

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 do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed.

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

Independent judges have always frustrated governments that don't see why unelected arbiters of the law should stand in their way.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

There's no such thing as judicial supremacy.

Judges should interpret the laws according to what they say, not according to what the judges wish they would say. Judges are supposed to interpret the laws; they are not supposed to make them.

A Supreme Court justice needs to understand that he is not a politician. He needs to understand that the judiciary is a passive branch of government. His decisions should not proactively seek to set policy.

A judge's role is to ensure that the legislature remains within the limits of its assigned authority under the Constitution. Judges have no authority to second-guess the wisdom of the value judgments and policy choices the legislature has made.

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.

I want judges on the Supreme Court who will not use that position to impose their personal policy preferences or political agenda on the American people.

The proper role of the judiciary is one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it.

Conservative political opinion in America cleaves to the tradition of the judge as passive interpreter, believing that his absolute loyalty to authoritative law is the price of his immunity from political pressure and of the security of his tenure.

The debate over judicial nominations is a debate over the judiciary itself. It is a debate over how much power unelected judges should have in our system of government, how much control judges should have over a written constitution that belongs to the people.

Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court.

There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship, and I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.

When we surrender moral government to the courts, we have surrendered the very essence of freedom; we have surrendered its only real meaning, and we will not be free again until we get it back.