Howard Berman: “I think I just heard the Supreme Court of the United States analogized to the politburo of the Soviet Union, but I am…”

“I think I just heard the Supreme Court of the United States analogized to the politburo of the Soviet Union, but I am not sure. The Hostettler fix was tried before. It has never happened, but it was tried before and here is what Attorney General William French Smith said in a letter to Strom Thurmond back in 1982: "The integrity of our system of Federal law depends on a single court of last resort having a final say on the resolution of Federal questions. State courts could reach disparate conclusions on identical questions of Federal law, in this case interpreting the Constitution, and the Supreme Court would not be able to resolve the inevitable conflicts." If you want to do away with the supremacy clause, repeal Marbury v. Madison, and rip apart any uniform effort to enforce constitutional protections, you should vote for this bill. But one day, some liberal runaway court in some State, justices which we cannot impeach and that we did not confirm over in the other body, one day that court will come down and say that DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional because of the full faith and credit clause; and the losing parties, the people who want State control on the issue of who can marry, will not be able to appeal that to the U.S. Supreme Court under this bill. What a ridiculous situation.”