Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have sought recognition to continue the discussion of the erosion of the very important principle of separation of powers. Our Constitution was devised with three branches: article I, the Congress; article II, the Executive, the President; article III, the judiciary. A very important concept in the operation of our constitutional government has been the separation of powers to provide checks and balances. During the course of the past two decades, we have seen a substantial erosion of the power of Congress. Congress's authority has been taken away in significant measure by the Supreme Court of the United States, which has, in effect, entered into the legislative process by disregarding the finding of fact that the Congress has undertaken and changed the standard for determining constitutionality of legislation. There had been in effect the rational basis test which had been in existence for decades. But then in 1995, in a case captioned ``United States v. Lopez,'' involving the bringing of guns onto school property, the Supreme Court overturned 60 years of precedent. In the case of United States v. Morrison, when the Congress had legislated to protect women against violence, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-to-4 decision--as was the Lopez case, 5 to 4-- decided that because of the ``method of reasoning'' of the Congress, the act was unconstitutional, notwithstanding a mountain of evidence, as noted by Justice Souter in his dissent.…”