A Quote by Antonin Scalia

More importantly, the Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. 'If Congress enacted into law something different from what it intended, then it should amend the statute to conform to its intent.' In the meantime, this Court 'has no roving license ... to disregard clear language simply on the view that ... Congress 'must have intended' something broader.

Antonin Scalia

Quote Topics

Amend Broader Clear Conform Congress Court Different Disregard Forgets Governed Government Importantly Intended Intent Language Law Lawmakers Laws License Means Meantime Men More Must Our Ours Roving Should Simply Something Terms Then View Will

Quote Author

Antonin Scalia
American - Judge
Born: March 11, 1936

I want judges on the Supreme Court who will respect the words and the meaning of the Constitution, the laws enacted by Congress and the laws enacted by state legislatures.

John Cornyn

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

Benjamin Franklin Fairless

In our system of government, the Supreme Court ultimately decides on the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress or of presidential actions. When their actions are challenged, both Congress and the president are entitled to have their positions forcefully advocated in court.

William Barr

The 112th Congress passed only 220 laws, the lowest number enacted by any Congress. In 1948, when President Truman called the 80th Congress a 'Do-Nothing' Congress, it had passed more than 900 laws.

Juan Williams

It's clear that the laws intended to allow victims to have their cases heard - including our civil rights laws, our criminal laws and our civil justice laws - too often have the opposite effect. These laws are clearly rooted in a false assumption that those in power can do no wrong.

Cal Cunningham

A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

Thomas Paine

For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.

John F. Kennedy

Under our constitutional system, the executive executes the laws that Congress has passed. It should not be executing laws that Congress has rejected.

Charles Krauthammer

The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to give Congress '[a]ll legislative Powers' enumerated in the Constitution. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them.

Antonin Scalia

Justice White's conclusion is perhaps correct, if one assumes that the task of a court of law is to plumb the intent of the particular Congress that enacted a particular provision. That methodology is not mine nor, I think, the one that courts have traditionally followed. It is our task, as I see it, not to enter the minds of the Members of Congress - who need have nothing in mind in order for their votes to be both lawful and effective - but rather to give fair and reasonable meaning to the text of the United States Code, adopted by various Congresses at various times.

Antonin Scalia

A Supreme Court nomination and appointment is not a roving commission to rewrite our laws.

John Cornyn

Congress is where Americans are supposed to have our big, messy political fights. That's because the people who make the laws need to be hired and fired by the people. Don't like the laws? Fire the lawmakers.

Ben Sasse

Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.

Archibald Cox

You let Congress make the laws. You work with the Congress as the president to make sure that those laws are accurate and to the best of our ability, but you don't turn it over to the federal judges to make those laws.

Corey Lewandowski

John Boehner has to start taking a macro step towards the American people, away from the more radical elements of his party. You know, it's almost a form of anarchy. We have a law that was passed by Congress. We have a law that the Supreme Court said was legal. It's been implemented. And I'm sorry they don't like it. There's been a lot of laws in the past the Democrats didn't like. But that's what this country is about. You pass laws. And if they are deemed legal, you respect them and you move forward.