A Quote by Howard Zinn

The function of traditional history is to create a citizenry that looks to the top - the president, Congress, the Supreme Court - to make the important decisions. That's what traditional history is all about: the laws that were passed, the decisions made by the court. So much of history is built around "the great men." All of that is very anti-democratic.

Howard Zinn

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Howard Zinn
American - Historian
August 24, 1922 - January 27, 2010

Citizens United, I believe, will be regarded by history as one of the worst decisions this Supreme Court - or any Supreme Court - has ever made. It is distorting our political process and corrupting our government.

Brad Schneider

At issue here is a basic law which enables the Supreme Court to quash laws in extreme cases. Up until now, this right of the Supreme Court was not mentioned anywhere, but was just taken. At the same time, we want to enable the Knesset to overrule decisions of the Supreme Court.

Ayelet Shaked

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

If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions.

Marvin Ammori

In fact, Native American Rights Fund has a project called the Supreme Court Project. And quite frankly, it's focused on trying to keep cases out of the Supreme Court. This Supreme Court, Justice Roberts is actually, hard to believe, was probably worse than the Rehnquist Court. If you look at the few decisions that it's issued.

Robert A. Williams, Jr.

Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has entered national crises, often preventing presidents from doing what they want to do. Indeed, sometimes the court's verdicts are not vindicated by history. And yet presidents have complied with those rulings.

Nina Totenberg

We've never had our injustices rectified from the top, from the president or Congress, or the Supreme Court, no matter what we learned in junior high school about how we have three branches of government, and we have checks and balances, and what a lovely system. No. The changes, important changes that we've had in history, have not come from those three branches of government. They have reacted to social movements.

Howard Zinn

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.

Ralph G. Neas

Indeed, only one Supreme Court justice in history, one Horace Lurton, nominated by President [John] Taft, had more federal appeals court experience [than Samuel Alito].

Jon Kyl

Because it's important. Laws can be reversed, Supreme Court decisions can be overturned, gender classifications can continue.

Carolyn Maloney

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor serves as a model Supreme Court justice, widely recognized as a jurist with practical values, a sense of the consequences of the legal decisions being made by the Supreme Court.

Patrick Leahy

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.

Noah Feldman

Unlike tennis matches, Supreme Court decisions are tiebreaker-free, meaning the lower-court ruling stands without any high-court guidance.

Don Willett

The decisions I made are done. And history will judge whether or not they were correct. There's no such thing as accurate short-term history.

George W. Bush

Sometimes Supreme Court justices surprise you with their decisions - you think they're going to vote one way, but they vote a different way, and I keep an open mind about that. But I think a moral compass is really important for a Supreme Court justice, as it is for any political appointee.