Cass Sunstein Quotes

During my time as a judge, as a justice, and as attorney general, I've had one overarching goal, and that is a strict interpretation and application of the laws and the Constitution. I would be Madisonian.

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.

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.

Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like 'the right to bear arms.'

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.

My judicial philosophy is fidelity to the law.

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.

A Supreme Court justice is sometimes a liberal on one issue and a conservative on another.

It is better that the law should be certain than that every judge should speculate upon improvements in it.

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.

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

I believe Judge Kavanaugh will be a justice whose adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law will be a credit to the Court and all Americans.

I think it's important for the American people to know that the position of originalism isn't itself an originalist position.

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

I believe Judge Kavanaugh is a well-qualified conservative jurist, and I commend President Trump for his commitment to naming Supreme Court justices who are committed to the rule of law.

Stability in law - particularly constitutional law - is critically important; the Supreme Court would do well to remember that.

For those of us on the front lines fighting Washington's power grabs, Judge Gorsuch's commitment to interpreting the Constitution and the laws as they are actually written is welcome news.

To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story.

For those whose exclusive norm of constitutional judging is merely fair reading of language applied to facts objectively viewed, 'Brown' must either be flat-out wrong or a very mystifying decision.

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.

The place to find the explanation for the liberal-activist mindset of the courts is in the political arena.

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

One of the litmus tests for judicial conservatism is the idea of judicial restraint - that courts should give substantial deference to the decisions of the political process. When Congress and the president enact a law, conservatives generally say, judges should avoid 'legislating from the bench.'

Judges are the people who have to protect the rights of individuals, have to protect the rights of minorities, have to protect the rights in the Constitution, have to protect the requirement that the executive and the legislature not simply exercise raw power but adhere to standards of reasonableness and constitutionality.