F. Lee Bailey Quotes

There's no question that Roberts will vote like William Rehnquist... If he swings, it will be from right to far right.

(Referring to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:) A fine, honest gentleman with whom I agree with on almost nothing.

Now the Senate is looking for 'moderate' judges, 'mainstream' judges. What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?

Through the selection of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Damon Leichty, President Trump has already remade the judiciary, moving our country away from activist judges and toward individuals who will uphold the Constitution.

Roosevelt got a chance to name an amazing nine justices of the Supreme Court. He was not namby-pamby on this question. He wanted people who shared his views, he wanted liberals, and he wanted lots of them.

Originalism is sort of subspecies of textualism. Textualism means you are governed by the text. That's the only thing that is relevant to your decision, not whether the outcome is desirable, not whether legislative history says this or that. But the text of the statute.

The nation will be shaped for decades by decisions that are made by President Bush and the Senate about the future of the Supreme Court.

The irony of the Supreme Court hearing on these cases last week and of the outright hostility that the Court has displayed against religion in recent years is that above the head of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a concrete display of the Ten Commandments.

We know that this man has a proven record of being a 'strict constructionist.' Our President has given us his word that he will interpret the Constitution rather than make new laws from the bench.

We all come to the [Supreme] Court with our bags fully packed. What we take out of them may not have been used before, but they were there.

Non-interpretivism (nonoriginalism) is merely a political argument for values non-interpretivists prefer to those in the Constitution.

The perception of the Supreme Court as a political court in most constitutional cases and many nonconstitutional ones derives from the fact that the justices form confident views without any empirical basis for them.

In 'Bush v. Gore,' five justices had a partisan outcome in mind and then made up the judicial principle to justify it, while claiming that the decision would not be precedent for any future cases.

Many progressives understand Scalia, and other conservative judges, in crassly political terms - as opponents of affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and campaign finance legislation. But what Scalia cared most about was clear, predictable rules, laid down in advance.

Sam Alito replacing Justice O'Connor was a very significant change. He is much more conservative. And, as for John Roberts, he is much more in the direction of protecting the rights of very rich people to donate money to campaigns than Bill Rehnquist ever was.

Conservatives who care about nominations of judges who practice judicial restraint are, constitutionally, restrained people themselves.

The American people have made clear that they want justices who have proven records of judicial restraint - exactly the kind of justices that Obama and Biden cannot abide.

Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure.

I think that one reasons I like Brett Kavanaugh is he was clearly one that was gonna interpret the Constitution.

If you're president, it's often your court appointments that seal your legacy with a capital L.

Conservative Justices have a history of not standing by their professed commitment to judicial restraint.

Trump knows where his strengths exist, and he is emphatically in favor of doubling down on them. This goes far beyond appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Trump's appointed extremist judges to the federal bench, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose decisions demonstrate a judicial philosophy far more concerned with the rights of corporations than marginalized Americans.

In general, liberals fear conservative judges far too much. In almost all areas, in fact, they dramatically overstate the stakes.

I feel that the justices that I am going to appoint - and I've named 20 of them - the justices that I'm going to appoint will be pro-life. They will have a conservative bent. They will be protecting the Second Amendment. They are great scholars in all cases, and they're people of tremendous respect. They will interpret the Constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted. And I believe that's very, very important.