On the recordJune 7, 2012
Mr. President, would the Chair advise me when 5 minutes have elapsed. I wish to add a few more words to what has already been said by some of our most distinguished lawyers in the Senate; that is, it is not controversial that, since 1803, the doctrine of judicial review, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, has held in essence that it is the responsibility of the judiciary, the Supreme Court, to say what the law is. Congress has its role and the Court has its role and they are different. We can tell one reason they are different is because Congress is elected every 6 years in the Senate, every 2 years in the House. We are accountable to the people for our decisions, for the policies we vote for and against. That is why we are called the political branches of government, as is the executive branch. The President stands for election. In essence, every Presidential election, every congressional election is a referendum on the people and the policies they embrace. The role of the Supreme Court and Federal courts is very different, as we all know. It is kind of remarkable to me that we are having this conversation, but it is necessitated by the fact that the President and the distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee have--at different times and different places--questioned the legitimacy of the Supreme Court performing this function, which Chief Justice John Marshall wrote about in 1803 in Marbury v.…





