Federal Court Quotes & Sayings

The Supreme Court, in 2005, emphasized and contrasted the great power of Congress under the Commerce Clause to regulate interstate commerce versus much more limited federal power under the discarded Articles of Confederation. — Barbara Ann Radnofsky

It [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted. — Barack Obama

In 1962, the Supreme Court banned organized prayer from public schools. Since then, federal, state, and local courts and officials, including public school administrators, have joined in a nationwide search and destroy mission for student religious practices. — Ralph E. Reed Jr.

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. — Jerry Falwell

I think it's a typical hidden agenda of the Liberal party ... They had the courts do it for them, they put the judges in they wanted, then they failed to appeal
failed to fight the case in court ... I think the federal government deliberately lost this case in court and got the change to the law done through the back door. — Stephen Harper

The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year-old precedent that basically corporations couldn't give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don't like it. The Federal Election Commission can't do anything about it. — Lois Lerner

The rules of war for federal court were contained in the 86 rules of federal civil procedure, the rules of the local federal court, and the courtroom rules of the particular federal judge. — Kenneth Eade

My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don't think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society. I've thought a lot about it, and my position probably doesn't please anyone. I think the government should stay out completely. I will not vote to overturn the Court's decision. I will not vote to curtail a woman's right to choose abortion. But I will also not vote to use federal funds to fund abortion. — Joe Biden

The Supreme Court had the choice not only which way to rule, pro- or anti-gay marriage rights, but also how they were going to rule. They could have ruled just federalism, saying, "This isn't a matter for federal; this isn't a federal issue at all. States should decide it." Or they could decide it on equal protection grounds and say that, "Gay discrimination is wrong." — Barack Obama

I have represented farmers in federal court during the Iowa farm crisis. A farmer from Butler County. I don't think Sen. Grassley had that life experience. It's just a simple difference of who we are and where we've come from. — Bruce Braley

The circus doesn't stop. A federal appeals court has postponed the recall election. How stupid are we? Even our recalls get recalled. — Jay Leno

In matters outside the courtroom, courts have decried differential treatment between print and broadcast media. New York City mayoral candidates Mario Cuomo and Edward Koch tried to exclude selected members of the media in 1977 by limiting access to their campaign headquarters to those who had received invitations. Ruling in American Broadcasting Cos. v. Cuomo, a federal court observed, "once there is a public function, public comment, and participation by some of the media, the First Amendment requires equal access to all of the media or the rights of the First Amendment would no longer be tenable."44
In 1981, a federal court in Georgia struck down a judge's order excluding television crews from a White House press pool. The court said the order violated the press and public's First Amendment right of access to White House events. It felt television coverage "provides a comprehensive visual element and an immediacy, or simultaneous aspect, not found in print — Marjorie Cohn

More intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, preciselly because they lead rather than follow. — Fareed Zakaria

As scientists linked smoking to cancer, the tobacco industry was under particularly pointed attack, which might have heightened Powell's alarmism. As a director at Philip Morris from 1964 until he joined the Supreme Court, Powell was an unabashed defender of tobacco, signing off on a series of annual reports lashing out at critics. The company's 1967 annual report, for instance, declared, "We deplore the lack of objectivity in so important a controversy ... Unfortunately the positive benefits of smoking which are so widely acknowledged are largely ignored by many reports linking cigarettes and health, and little attention is paid to the scientific reports which are favorable to smoking." Powell took umbrage at the refusal by the Federal Communications Commission to grant the tobacco companies "equal time" to respond to their critics on television and argued that the companies' First Amendment rights were being infringed. — Jane Mayer

In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes. — Thomas Sowell

If the court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, is that a 'liberal' result enabling gay couples married in states where gay marriage is legal to enjoy the same economic advantages that federal laws now grant to straight couples? Or is it a 'conservative' ruling, limiting the federal government's ability to override state power? — Jeff Greenfield

Infiltrating the records of a state penitentiary as well as the state and federal court systems was much more fun than deciphering art. -Phil Roach — Aleatha Romig

In 'Citizens United v. FEC', the Supreme Court ruled that sections of the federal campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold imposed unconstitutional restrictions on the First Amendment rights of corporations. — Eric Schneiderman

As long as my record stands in federal court, any American citizen can be held in prison or concentration camps without trial or hearing. I would like to see the government admit they were wrong and do something about it, so this will never happen again to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color. — Fred Korematsu

Treating only terminal cancer patients, the Rand (anti-cancer) vaccine produced objective improvement in 35% of 600 patients while another 30% demonstrated subjective improvement. FDA stopped the vaccine's use in a federal court hearing where neither the cancer patients nor their doctors were allowed to testify. — Barry Lynes

The Obama administration came into Utah and said, 'We're not going to listen to what the U.S. Supreme Court said. 'We, the federal government, are going to recognize marriages in the state of Utah and Utah state law explicitly does not recognize as marriage,' and that was really, in my view, an abuse of power. — Ted Cruz

I'm not only a lawyer, I have a post doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I work in serious scholarship and work in the United States federal tax court. My husband and I raised five kids. We've raised 23 foster children. We've applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. — Michele Bachmann

Controlling the interpretation of the Constitution is vital to the leftist agenda of expanding the federal government's power. That means keeping the federal judiciary as liberal as possible and treating the U.S. Supreme Court's liberal legacy as sacrosanct. — Joseph Sobran

The way that same-sex marriage should reach the federal level is that it absolutely should be decided by the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. It's a 14th Amendment issue. There's no argument about it. — Tony Kushner

How to check these unconstitutional invasions of rights by the Federal judiciary? Not by impeachment in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines advanced by the Supreme Court are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations? — Thomas Jefferson

Cranks are much too important. They are part of the other America - Greil Marcus's old, weird America. A charlatan is a crank with a book deal and a radio program and a suit in federal court. A charlatan succeeds only in Idiot America. A charlatan is a crank who succeeds too well. A charlatan is a crank who's sold out. — Charles P. Pierce

Conservatives have been mad at the Supreme Court since it decided to desegregate the schools in 1954 and seen fit to blame the federal bench for everything that has happened since then that they don't like. — Molly Ivins

The first branch, the legislative, consists of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate; this branch writes the laws of the United States. The executive branch, which consists of the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, the Executive Office of the President, and all of the cabinet departments, is tasked with enforcing those laws. The judicial branch, which consists of the United States Supreme Court and the federal courts as designated by Congress, has the responsibility of administering justice through a court system. — Ben Carson

The federal judiciary is unlike the other branches of government. And once confirmed, a federal judge serves for life. And there's no court above the Supreme Court. — Patrick Leahy

The Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer. The current justices have all been chosen from the lower federal courts. A nominee with relevant non-judicial experience would bring a different and useful perspective to the court. — Harry Reid

They got back the Senate but we have the courts. By the nineties the Supreme Court will be block-solid Republican appointees, and the federal bench - Republican judges like land mines, everywhere, everywhere they turn. Affirmative action? Take it to court. Boom! Land mine. And — Tony Kushner

I did not go to the Supreme Court on behalf of a class of women. I wasn't pursuing any legal remedy to my unwanted pregnancy. I did not go to the federal courts for relief. I went to Sarah Weddington asking her if she knew how I could obtain an abortion. She and Linda Coffey said they didn't know where to get one. They lied to me just like I lied to them. Sarah already had an abortion. She knew where to get one. Sarah and Linda were just looking for somebody, anybody, to further their own agenda. I was their willing dupe. For this, I will forever be ashamed. — Norma McCorvey

Even a member of the state district attorney's office, Keva Landrum-Johnson, had sent a letter urging the federal Department of Justice to become involved. "More likely than not, the court will quash the indictments and the State will be left with no viable option other than to recharge some or all of the defendants on lesser offenses," Landrum-Johnson wrote presciently on August 8, 2008, five days before Judge Bigelow did just that. "Admittedly, my office bears much of the responsibility for the position we are in now." Landrum-Johnson, — Ronnie Greene

I could have spoken from Rhode Island where I have been staying ... But I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson, and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to make and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the federal court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference. (On sending troops to enforce integration in Little Rock AR High School) — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your - you know, I'm 67. — William Rehnquist

Since 1974, the Right has begun to insist that free speech is a kind of asset, a form of wealth. For that reason, they say, rich people, institutions, and corporations are entitled to dominate national discourse and drown out anyone who has less money. After the Court's 2009 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, this has begun to transform American politics, cementing domination of the process by rich individuals and institutions. — Garrett Epps

Is the United States going to decide, are the people of this country going to decide that their Federal Government shall in the future have no right under any implied power or any court-approved power to enter into a solution of a national economic problem, but that that national economic problem must be decided only by the States? We thought we were solving it, and now it has been thrown right straight in our faces. We have been relegated to the horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sometimes local, state and federal laws so clearly run afoul of the Constitution that the court must step in and strike them down. In most cases, the court performs this admirably and with great restraint. — Mike DeWine

You get a lawyer whether you're in a military tribunal or whether you're in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest - with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make. — Joe Biden

Relief, fear, and humiliation. Her parents paid for a pricey prep school education in D.C. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown with a degree in political science. She breezed through law school and finished with honors. A dozen megafirms offered her jobs after a federal court clerkship. The first twenty-nine years of her life had seen overwhelming success and little failure. To be discharged in such a manner was crushing. To be escorted out of the building was degrading. This was not just a minor bump in a long, rewarding career. — John Grisham

The record in the Federal Court discloses that (the NCI) took sides and sought in every way to hinder, suppress and restrict ... (a) treatment of cancer. — Benedict Fitzgerald

What is so powerful here is that we have the first federal appellate court and it's a case coming out of Utah affirming in the strongest, clearest, boldest terms that the Constitution guarantees the freedom to marry and equal protection for all Americans and all means all, including gay couples. — Evan Wolfson

Perhaps sensing the dismal failure of its efforts to show that 'established by the State' means 'established by the State or the Federal Government,' the Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as inartful drafting.' This Court, however, has no free-floating power 'to rescue Congress from its drafting errors.' — Antonin Scalia

I filed a brief as a friend of the court in the U. of Michigan to keep affirmative action at the U. of Michigan, which I attended the law school. And I was one of the original sponsors of making the Martin Luther King birthday a federal holiday. — Dick Gephardt

Well my question is if the federal courts don't have jurisdiction over a constitutional question then who the hell does? — Jesse Ventura

accommodate, within reason, the religious practices of workers and applicants unless they impose an "undue hardship" on the business. It is the latest in a line of Supreme Court cases that have elevated religious rights over secular interests, whether exercised by powerful corporations, government agencies or prison inmates. The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia stressed two points that outline the role religion can have in the workplace. Employers must do more than handle religious practices in the same way they do secular ones, he wrote, because federal law gives faith-related expression "favored treatment, affirmatively obligating employers" to accommodate things they could otherwise refuse. Moreover, he wrote, an applicant or employee alleging religious discrimination doesn't have to prove the employer was motivated by bias. — Anonymous

Appointing a sitting federal appellate judge also gives a president a unique twofer opportunity, creating a lower-court vacancy that the president can fill with a second (presumably supportive) appointee. If a sitting federal appellate judge placed on the Supreme Court is in turn replaced by a sitting federal trial judge, a president can turn a single Supreme Court vacancy into three judicial appointments. — Anonymous

I also believe that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of all federal questions. — Judy Biggert

Today most habeas involves the federal courts overriding state convictionswhere it used to be mostly the reverse. — Anthony Gregory

A federal court has ruled that the U.S. Postal Service must reduce its stamp prices. The change in stamp prices is expected to affect as many as seven Americans. — Conan O'Brien

It would mean a continuation of his relentless expansion of federal government power; more explosive increases in his crushing, multitrillion-dollar inter-generational debt; a weak foreign policy coupled with his evisceration of America's military; and the likelihood that more Obama-appointed Supreme Court justices would assure a left-leaning majority on America's top court for at least a generation. — Aaron Klein

I think, again, on issues of energy, how are we going to fully utilize our energy resources in this country? What is the role of the federal government in higher education? What kind of justices would you appoint to the Supreme Court, not just because we have a vacancy now, but at least one or two potentially in the next four to eight years? — Marco Rubio

Indeed, only one Supreme Court justice in history, one Horace Lurton, nominated by President [John] Taft, had more federal appeals court experience [than Samuel Alito]. — Jon Kyl

Why shouldn't two new Justices be appointed each administration? A re-elected President would then have four opportunities to appoint. At the beginning of each administration, the two oldest Justices would automatically hand in their resignations, to take effect at the President's convenience. Thus new blood would be infused into the Court at regular intervals without rancour, and the Court would normally be renewed every 16 years ... Whenever death or retirement occurred, the President would have an extra appointment. — Harriet Boyd Hawes

America should meet its obligations in the form of Social Security, Medicare, our ability to pay our military, legally binding legislation that allows unemployment compensation, the judiciary, the federal court system, the federal prison system, all those kinds of things have to be paid for. — Bill Johnson

We had planned to integrate a Web browser with our operating system as far back as 1993( filing its first court responses to federal antitrust) — Bill Gates

Virginia and Maryland attorneys argued this is a national problem and needs a national solution. I'm hoping that with a federal court agreeing this is inequitable, Congress will now act and do the right thing for the District. — Walter Smith

From the late 1940s, into and through the '50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country. — Noam Chomsky

The logic is often far-fetched - how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? - and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks. — Michael Kinsley

The Community Relations Service would be another pro-civil rights Federal agency attempting to make people do what the policy of the Federal Government demanded that they do. Moreover, in title II of the bill, this Service is made an agent of the court without due thought as to the effect on legal and judicial procedures. — John Sparkman