Political Quotes

“Only one colleague is present. He is the congenial junior Senator from Florida. I thank my colleague. I want to make one more point. That is on the issue of the Supreme Court taking more cases. Here again, if there was transparency, America would be outraged at the workload on the Supreme Court, as the Court has moved from one clerk, to two clerks, to three clerks, to four clerks. And I do not begrudge them the time between the session ending in late June and the first Monday in October, where they travel and lecture and write books. But I am much concerned about the circuit splits. For anyone who may be watching on C-SPAN2--and I know my aunt and sister are watching--these cases are very important because if the Third Circuit, having Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, decides a case one way and the Ninth Circuit, governing the Western States, decides it another way, and the case arises in Wichita, KS, nobody knows which precedent to follow because the circuits are autonomous. There are many important cases which the Supreme Court does not decide when there are circuit splits and they have time to decide them. They have time to decide the conflict between the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Terrorist Surveillance Program. They have time to hear the case involving the 9/11 terrorist attacks and sovereign immunity. But these are the statistics which are very informative: In 1886, the Supreme Court decided 451 cases.…”