A Quote by Robert Bork

[The current governing judicial philosophy is:] If you want something passionately enough, it is guaranteed by the Constitution. No need to fiddle around gathering votes from recalcitrant citizens.
We may continue to expect the enjoyment of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, guaranteed by the Constitution. The citizens of Illinois have done themselves honor, in throwing the mantle of the Constitution over a persecuted and afflicted people.
You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.
All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.
Judgments that give an impression that we can disregard the Constitution for political expediency, or to solve what we regard as current problems, set a dangerous precedence which will make it difficult to govern in future or to make ordinary citizens to abide by the Constitution.
Two Soviets . . . were talking to each other. And one of them asked, "What's the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the United States Constitution?" And the other one said, "That's easy. The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering."
It is especially imperative for Congress to exercise careful judgment in this area, because of the difficulty under existing laws, in obtaining judicial review of Postal Service abuses. ...We strongly oppose the legislation's infringement of rights guaranteed under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens.
In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn't be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.
Obviously, our political system is profoundly corrupted by, among other things, the influence of money. But, at a deeper level, the current structure is flawed because it looks to citizens for only two things - votes and money. I don't think we will see any healing until citizens are viewed in a whole new way.
The laws are, and ought to be, relative to the constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and proceed against offenders.
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.
If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.
If I'm fortunate enough to get the nomination of the Constitution Party, I will take as many votes from Obama as I would from the Republican nominee.
We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time. For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.
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.
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