Political Quotes

“I, too, rise in opposition to this amendment. We have had amendments and even bills on the floor in the past that were just as misguided, and they all take the same form or a similar form: either an amendment to say that no fund shall be expended for the Justice Department to argue for this in court or against that in court. That's one form of the amendment, and this is one of those. Or, we've had court-stripping bills: No court shall have jurisdiction to consider an appeal in the case of X versus Y, or no court shall have jurisdiction to consider a case on a subject matter of--whatever. All of these are wrong and misguided, whatever the merits of the specific claim may be, because they are violations of the separation of powers and of the proper functioning of the different branches of government. The Justice Department must argue for the executive branch's interpretation of the law and for its opinion as to constitutionality. That's its job. Our job is to enact laws. The judiciary's job is to state what the law is. The executive branch is to enforce the law, and for the Justice Department, on a nonpolitical basis--not dictated, certainly, by Congress; we don't want to politicize the Justice Department--to argue in defense of the Constitution as it sees it. Therefore, this amendment is wrongheaded. An amendment or a bill to strip the court of the ability to make a decision as to constitutionality on a given subject would be just as wrongheaded.…”