Activist Judges Quotes

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 ...

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

I don't think we need political activists on the Supreme Court or any other level of court.

Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.

Like the vast majority of Americans, I've opposed same-sex marriage, but I've also opposed unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference. Americans are a tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage and it is a debate about activist judges who make up the law rather than interpret the law.

The Supreme Court is an ideal legislature for the intelligentsia.

When conservative judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in the Constitution. When liberal judges strike down laws (or impose new laws), it's because of what's in the New York Times

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written.

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.

Installing an activist liberal majority on the Supreme Court will put religious liberties at risk for generations to come.

I think it's very important that we protect marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage. And the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the Constitution.

American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.

In our nation there is nothing in between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution

I have written this treatise because there are judges who decide cases according to their own will rather than by the authority of the laws

Activist judges and local officials in some parts of the country are not letting up in their efforts to redefine marriage for the rest of America-and neither should defenders of traditional marriage flag in their efforts.

A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

The fact that the most arbitrary powers of the English executive must always be exercised under Act of Parliament places the government, even when armed with the widest authority, under the supervision, so to speak, of the Courts. …. Parliament is supreme legislator, but from the moment Parliament has uttered its will as lawgiver, that will becomes subject to the interpretation put upon it by the judges of the land.

There can be no activist judges from any political party.

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.

Consider in Washington, around the country today we are talking about balanced budgets, paying down our national debt, getting the economy going, defending ourselves, activist judges. Newt Gingrich did all those things when he was speaker. We got tax relief. We got balanced budgets. We got, you know, job creation. We paid down our national debt.

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

Intention and construction of words shall be taken according to the vulgar and usual sense

I strongly believe that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman. I'm troubled by activist judges who are defining marriage. I've watched carefully what's happened in San Francisco where licenses were being issued, even though the law states otherwise. I have consistently stated that I will support law to protect marriage between a man and a woman. And obviously these events are influencing my decision.

A constitution is not to be made to mean one thing at one time and another some subsequent time when the circumstances may have changed…. the meaning of the Constitution is fixed when it is adopted.

When we are dealing with words that also are a constituent act, like the Constitution ... we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. It was enough for them to realize or to hope that they had created an organism; it has taken a century and cost their successors much sweat and blood to prove that they created a nation. The case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience and not merely in what was said a hundred years ago.