REMARKS BY SEN. LAUTENBERG:
Mr. President, I rise today to respond to some recent
remarks by a member of this body, and the Majority Leader
of the House, about the judges who preside in our federal
courts.
Article III, Section One of the United States Constitution
says:
The Judicial power of the United States shall be vested
in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as
the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
That seems pretty clear to me. Judicial power is vested
in our courts – not in Congress.
The Constitution gives the Senate a role in the appointment
of judges. We are supposed to provide advice and consent.
But once a judge is seated on the bench, his or her
decisions are not subject to our approval.
And the Founding Fathers set up that way on purpose.
They wanted to make sure that court decisions would
be based on legal grounds - not political.
Today there is an orchestrated effort to smear the
reputation of the judiciary, especially federal judges.
This effort is being waged by Republicans in Congress,
as a prelude to an attempt to change the rules for confirming
judicial appointments.
In order to justify the “nuclear option,”
they are trying to paint judges as “activists”
and “out of control.”
In reality, it is the leadership of this Congress
that is out of control and endangering the future of
a fair court system.
Mr. President, in this chamber yesterday, one of our
colleagues said Americans are becoming “frustrated”
by the rulings of judges and accused them of making
“raw political or ideological decisions."
Our colleague then went on to say:
“I wonder whether there may be some connection
between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions,
where judges are making political decisions yet are
unaccountable to the public … that it builds up
and builds up and builds up to the point where some
people engage in, engage in violence.”
These remarks are almost unbelievable.
Yet they echo the words last week of the House Majority
Leader.
Speaking of the judges in the Schiavo case, the House
Majority Leader said, “The time will come for
the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."
These are inflammatory words.
They ignore the fact that our Founding Fathers wanted
judges to be insulated from political pressure.
And they are words that could easily incite violence
against judges.
On Sunday, a columnist in the House Majority Leader’s
hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, wrote:
“It is time for him to stop sputtering ill-tempered
threats, not only at the judiciary but also at the U.S.
Constitution, which he repeatedly has sworn to uphold.”
Mr. President, to make matters worse, there have been
two recent episodes involving violence against judges.
In Chicago a man fatally shot the husband and mother
of a federal judge who had ruled against him in a medical
malpractice suit.
And in Atlanta last month, a man broke away from a
deputy and killed four people, including the judge presiding
over his rape trial.
Were these judges who suffered terribly because of
their official duties “activists”? Were
they “out of control”?
The message being sent out to the American people
by the other side of the aisle is not only irresponsible,
but downright dangerous to our nation’s judges.
Like the nuclear option, the goal here is to have
judges make political decisions rather than legal. They
are trying to intimidate sitting judges. And they are
trying to change Senate rules to get bad judges on the
bench.
I vow to fight this nuclear option as well as these
irresponsible threatening statements.
In my view, the true measure of democracy is how it
dispenses justice.
In this country, any attempt to intimidate judges
not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy
as well.
I call on every member of this Senate to repudiate
these attacks against the federal judiciary and the
United States Constitution.
Originally
published Apr. 6, 2005.
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