A Quote by Jeff Greenfield
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.'
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Scorecards are common in the political process, but they are inappropriate in the judicial process. The most important tools in the judicial confirmation process are not litmus paper and a calculator.
Conservatives who care about nominations of judges who practice judicial restraint are, constitutionally, restrained people themselves.
Narrow scope of judicial power was the reason that people accepted the idea that the federal courts could have the power of judicial review; that is, the ability to decide whether a challenged law comports with the Constitution.
We should evaluate judges and judicial nominees based on the general process for applying the law to any legal disputes, not on the specific result in a particular case or dispute.
A Judicial Bureau of Investigation under an independent Judicial Complaints Commission, should be set up to investigate complaints against judges.
[Louis] Brandeis is often painted as an acolyte of judicial restraint, or the view that judges should uphold laws whether or not they like them.
I have no doubt that if confirmed, Judge Gorsuch would help to restore confidence in the rule of law. His years on the bench reveal a commitment to judicial independence - a record that should give the American people confidence that he will not compromise principle to favor the president who appointed him.
It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is...If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each...This is of the very essence of judicial duty.
Now that judges embrace forcibly starving someone to death, Congress should use its appropriation power to starve the judicial budget.
Conservatives . . . may decide to join the game and seek activist judges with conservative views. Should that come to pass, those who have tempted the courts to political judging will have gained nothing for themselves but will have destroyed a great and essential institution. . . . There are only two sides. Either the Constitution and statutes are law, which means their principles are known and control judges, or they are malleable texts that judges may rewrite to see that particular groups or political causes win.
I do think the whole question of judicial accountability is a complicated one. On the one hand, you want to encourage judicial independence. And it's always, I think, problematic when an unpopular decision triggers a recall election. Because it sends a disempowering message to judges. On the other hand, it's the only way that voters have to rein in someone whose views are really so out of the mainstream of public opinion that they jeopardize the legitimacy of the judicial process.
Judicial abuse occurs when judges substitute their own political views for the law.
If judicial review means anything, it is that judicial restraint does not allow everything.
Some have argued that the President is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate. 'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.
Supreme Court nominees should know that this exercise of judicial restraint is the key ingredient of being good judge, as the Constitution constrains judges every bit as much as it constrains we legislators, executives and citizens in their actions.
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.
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