Jeff Sessions

Regardless of whether or not the precedent justified the decision in Maloney, and I think we can argue about that, but the point is that decision would eviscerate effectively the protection, the constitutional protection to keep and bear…

I have seen some of that in our Committee. Could you briefly give me this answer and see if I am correct?

Under no circumstances should the judiciary become the handmaiden of the executive.

Mr. Halbrook, you wrote the brief on behalf of 55 Senators in the Heller case and your view, I guess, was accepted.

President Bush actually relied on the historic interpretation.

Just because you may like the direction somebody bent the Constitution this year in this case does not mean you are going to like it in the future.

But is it not true that when the Constitution was written, it made provision for the habeas corpus, that it would never interpret it as applying to enemy combatants that were captured on the battlefield?

I am not sure I am comfortable with a judge who thinks things are just a series of perspectives.

If you respect the Constitution, if you clearly respect it, you will enforce it as it is written.

I think you're calling us to a higher level of discussion on these issues because they go to the core of who we are as Americans.

I think the foreign law matter is a big deal to me.

Even the dissent had a different standard.

I think it was in violation of the rule, in my judgment as a practicing lawyer.

I think, for the record, a number of significant articles should be in the record.

We passed the bill and we extended it, and all of us had some angst and worry.

The fiat of a government official, though senior in rank and doubtless honorable, cannot displace the judicial obligation to enforce constitutional requirements.

I said I wanted to vote for it, and we did. We extended it for probably longer than we should have.

I think that is something that we should take seriously. That was a valid comment.

But I do think, as Justice Roberts said, the best way to end discrimination is quit doing it.

American people rightly are concerned that on important social issues that are not clearly stated in the Constitution on important legal issues not clearly stated in our law seem to be decided by unelected lifetime appointed courts.

If the decision by Judge Sotomayor becomes law, any city--maybe not Vermont, but any city or State in America could virtually, I believe, fully ban all firearms.

I believe we have tried to meet our goal. I had a goal at the beginning and people would say this is one of the most fair and effective hearings we have ever had.

It's a problem for people. We ask about abortion. It's not explicitly referred to in the Constitution, but you say that's a fundamental right.

I think we have a--this is a big issue and I--in your opinion, you said it was settled law.

You said that in your testimony earlier, that 'in Supreme Court parlance, the right is not fundamental.'