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.
Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges would like it to mean, is going to be called an 'extremist.' That person will be said to be 'out of the mainstream.' But the mainstream is itself the problem.
The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means, today, not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.
There's no question that Roberts will vote like William Rehnquist... If he swings, it will be from right to far right.
The core constituency that Republicans must satisfy in high court nominations is the party's social conservative base, which fundamentally cares about issues, not diversity, and has accepted white men who practice the judging it admires.
If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.
It is necessary to establish the proposition that the [Constitution's] framers' intentions with respect to freedoms are the sole legitimate premise from which constitutional analysis may proceed.
The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.
I am a constitutionalist. I believe in the constitution. I don't believe in altering the constitution.
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.'
I think that one reasons I like Brett Kavanaugh is he was clearly one that was gonna interpret the Constitution.
I am an originalist, to begin with. So, I am a constitutional conservative. I believe that the Constitution enshrines some universal ideals that make our country strong and that are consistent with truth, and so that's the basic thing.
I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.
The Supreme Court today is plagued by a vision of the Constitution which is cramped and narrow.
Saying the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution.
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.
Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.
I keep hearing the argument that some things are constitutional while other things are not. The idea is that we should be in favor of all the things that were decided over 200 years ago by a bunch of slave-owning cross-dressers who pooped in holes.
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.
(Referring to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:) A fine, honest gentleman with whom I agree with on almost nothing.
I don't think we should have justices appointed that decide what they want to hear. It's all about the Constitution the way it was meant to be. And those are the people that I will appoint.
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.
A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.
Liberal judges tend to be expansive about things like equal protection, while conservatives read more into ones like 'the right to bear arms.'
Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document....The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences.
