Judges and Our Constitution
JUDGES AND OUR CONSTITUTION -- (House of Representatives - September 20, 2005)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for taking this time tonight to talk about this very important matter before our Nation right now.
The House of Representatives does not have a vote in this issue, but it does and should have a voice in the issue concerning the selection of the highest court of this land, and of all of the judicial appointments.
One of the duties of this House is to be a voice of the people of this country, because we of the elected officials in this House of Representatives, we are the ones that have the smallest districts and are closest to the people. Most of us are home every weekend talking to the folks back home. We have a good idea of the kind of capabilities that our people are looking for in their judges.
We have one of the great debates in history going on right now, with two potential justices to be appointed to the Supreme Court. We were here last week talking about this, and we told you that we would hope that everyone would watch the hearings that took place last week to see Judge Roberts. I predicted that Judge Roberts would be outstanding before the Senate, and I think my prediction was absolutely proven true. I think everyone acknowledges he showed great intelligence and great insight. He answered the questions appropriately. He asked to be excused from questions which were inappropriate for a judge to answer. He handled himself with charm and grace and intelligence, just exactly the way I predicted last week. I am not clairvoyant, I just know this man is the right man to be on the Supreme Court and to be the Chief Justice to lead that Supreme Court.
We know the Constitution gives them the vote. We hope that they will hear our voice. There is a lot of criticism that has been out there, and I want to ask the American people to think about just exactly what is the role of a judge in our society. I served for 21 years as a judge in Texas, a proud 21 years as part of the justice system of this Nation. I think what the lawyers that appear before a court and what the people who those lawyers represent want from a court is a judge that comes into the court with no preconceived notions, that will listen to the facts that pertain to the case, examine those facts carefully, apply the law and the facts, and come up with a solution. That is what they want from the judge. That is what the Founding Fathers wanted for the justices of our Supreme Court. They wanted them to examine American law as it relates to each set of disputed facts that comes before that court, and, from the American jurisprudence and the common law, come up with an interpretation of whether or not our Constitution has been violated under certain circumstances, and to examine the laws of the United States and make them proper.
I do not think anybody argues with that. I think that it would be totally inappropriate to ask a judge to make a pretrial statement before a case is brought before the court as to where he would stand on an issue without hearing the full presentation in the court, reading the briefs, and making a decision based upon what has been presented in the court and the law as it stands in the United States at that time. That is what we want from our judges. Judge Roberts is that kind of judge and will give us those decisions.
I think it is almost laughable if you know how the court works. When a man is hired as a lawyer for somebody else, when a client comes into a lawyer's office and says I want to hire you to represent me in a case, now you would not want that lawyer that you hired to represent you in that case to go into court and argue the other side of the case against you, because that is not what he is getting paid to do. His job is to be an advocate for his client. And yet the criticisms that we hear against Judge Roberts are that he made arguments as a lawyer for a side before the Supreme Court or before other courts in favor of or against certain positions that some Members of the Senate do not agree with; therefore, he is inappropriate to be involved in any case that has to do with that.
We will start off with the pro-life issue. They argue that Roberts is pro-life because of two arguments that he made while he was representing the United States of America as a deputy solicitor general in Rust v. Sullivan and Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic. Roberts' opponents argue that Roberts unnecessarily called for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in Rust, a case challenging Federal regulations which prohibit certain recipients of Federal funds from counseling patients on abortion. Critics argue that the case could have been argued solely on the basis of statutory construction of the provisions at issue. Critics also point out that Roberts coauthored the government's amicus brief in Bray, a private suit brought against Operation Rescue, which argued that Operation Rescue was not engaged in a conspiracy to deprive women of equal protection rights.
Who was he arguing for? His side, his client, the people paying him to make an argument for them. And who is someone sitting outside the courtroom, who are they to tell a lawyer how he should argue his case? Well, he should argue his case but not argue Roe. If he felt the interest of his clients were best protected and put forward by arguing against Roe, it is his job to argue against Roe.
If the next time he comes into court and someone has hired him to take the opposite position, that same lawyer would be arguing the other side of that case because that is what lawyers get paid to do. And an argument a lawyer makes in the courtroom and whom a lawyer represents in the courtroom, if that defines that lawyer, there is something wrong with how we think. That would be accusing every criminal lawyer in America of being a criminal because they talk in favor of criminals.
But if we do not have defense lawyers in criminal cases, we do not have a case because the State has the burden of proof in that case. The defense has no burden of proof whatsoever, but they have the right to representation under our Constitution.
Would we say that no lawyer would ever be fit for a court if he argued any position that might come before that court and we can tell what his position is going to be by his arguments in court? That, Mr. Speaker, is just one of the most ridiculous arguments that I think anyone could ever make. And anybody who would hire a lawyer to go into court to argue the other side of a case ought to fire his lawyer before the third word came out of his mouth and ask the judge to give him some more time to hire a decent lawyer to represent his position, and I think most lawyers would grant that.
And almost every argument that is made in this whole list of things that says Roberts is a right wing extremist, Roberts is anti-environment, Roberts is hostile to civil rights and affirmative action, Roberts is hostile to the rights of criminal defendants, Roberts is hostile to the first amendment of the establishment clause, all of these things are baloney because about 90 percent of their arguments are that he made this argument as an advocate for a client, which is his job. Lawyers argue every day in court as advocates for their clients when, in their heart of hearts, we cannot tell whether they are for what their client is for or against what their client is for. But, by golly, they make us think they are because that is their job to represent their client and convince the court that their position is valid. That is what they get paid for.
The other arguments they have in here are some arguments about dissents that were written by Judge Roberts on the court of appeals. Well, what do we want from a judge, a multijudge panel on the court? Do we want everybody up there that thinks exactly the same way on every issue? Then why do we need all of them? Why not just pick one every day, and we know we can get the same verdict every time because they all just think alike? Or why do we even need judges? If we have a set of criteria that we absolutely feel that everybody ought to have to be a judge, why do we not just program it into the computer, feed the facts and the argument into the computer, and if it does not fit the computer program, we spit it out and they lose?
That is not what a court is all about. That is not what a multijudge court is all about. It is about intelligent students of the law with experiences in the courtroom, both as advocates and as fair and impartial judges, who are able to go together, take their combined intelligence, make arguments to themselves as they discuss the case, and come up with the combined intelligence of those people and the combined opinions of those people, which may be diverse, which comes up, we have discovered, over and over and over in our courts of justice, comes up with good decisions that fit the appropriate actions that are necessary for the court.
If we have everybody who thinks just alike and there is a litmus test for every member of the judiciary, we do not need all those Supreme Court Justices. Let us just give one guy superpower and dictatorial power over the judiciary and move on.
I think that both sides would feel passionately about issues concerning the Court. But the reality is there is a place in that Court for diverse opinion, and if we do not have diverse opinion, we do not have a Court that can effectively give a broad-based analysis of the law that comes before it. And then to go and try to come up with stuff that does not mean a thing by saying he represented somebody is just on the verge of laughable, and I think in all reality the arguments that are being made are spurious at best.
I would encourage our colleagues in the Senate that they pass this case on, bring it up on the floor as soon as possible. We now have a Court that has basically two vacancies, one being filled until another Justice is selected and one that is empty. We have a Court that is going to work in October. I think it is important that we pass Judge Roberts out to a vote on the floor of the Senate, that they have an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate; and if Judge Roberts does not get the vote, then let us find somebody else to fit the job with an up-or-down vote on the Senate side. If he does get it, let us get him in to start working on the job so he can be ready as this Court convenes in October. And then let us get to work on our next Justice that is coming down, and let us not try to establish litmus tests.
Let us not try to make people walk the line of somebody's political agenda. Let us say, Mr. President, give us a fair and impartial judge that knows the law, knows how to find the law, knows how to interpret the American jurisprudence, not some foreign jurisprudence, but the American jurisprudence and the common law and come up with the solution to our problems in our Supreme Court, and we will have fair and impartial justices in the Supreme Court of the United States. But there should be no litmus test whatsoever that is required of these nominees.
And I hope the President will come up with a good nominee for this next vacancy; and if he comes up with one with the quality of Judge John Roberts and the ability of Judge John Roberts, we will have hit a home run in the two nominees that have been submitted to the Senate. And I hope for rapid confirmation of both so that we can put the Supreme Court back to work with a full house.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, first I want to say that I am happy to be privileged in that when Judge Roberts made his opening statement, and he started talking about balls and strikes, calling the balls and strikes, being the umpire, as far as I was concerned, it was over right there; he had won, because he understood the role of being a justice.
And he happened to use something that I had used on multiple occasions. You know, back in the small town where I started out as a judge, it grew to be a big town, we have a lot of baseball and girls' softball, and one time they said, hey, Judge, would you come out and call the balls and strikes; we lost our umpire.
And I said, friends, I call balls and strikes for a living. And I am not about to get up there and call balls and strikes at my daughter's softball game. But that is exactly right. That is understanding what a judge's job is. It is so very important that we have a judge that has the common sense of the American people to go along with a great intellect into the law.
It is just so very important that we have that kind of a judge that comes to the Court. This is exactly want we have in Justice Roberts. He is so impressive, I mean phenomenally impressive. So Judge Roberts stole that from me. But probably I would say stole it from lots of good judges. I kind of think that I was a good judge; but lots of good judges in the United States, because they understand the concept of what their job is.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, let us point out that when our founders as States decided they wanted to write a document that they were going to submit to govern our Nation by, the Constitution of the United States, they chose to sit in Congress as a group of diverse opinions representing their various States to come up with this document.
They did not ask a battery of judges to come in here and do that. They asked people that represented their States to come in and represent the interests, and they debated, as we debate here in Congress, the laws we designed, and the intent is clear, that they wanted a Congress to make the laws of this United States.
They, in Marbury v. Madison, set the precedent that said the Courts may interpret the laws that are made, to see if they comply with the Constitution of the United States, which is the sovereignty of our Nation.
Of course, our true sovereignty is in God; and it is clear as the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) points out, we stated the sovereignty that we look to in the Declaration of Independence, where we get our rights from. And they are not given to us by our government, they come from the divine authority of God. But they went forward on that and they established the Congress to make the laws.
And I agree 100 percent that is the intent of our founders, and that is the way it is supposed to be. That is the right and proper place. And the interpretation of Judge Roberts, so adequately and effectively and eloquently presented to the Senate to educate that bunch in the last week, proves that fact.
I want to say that I am honored to be here with these four gentlemen. These are some of my best friends. Let me point out that Judge Roberts is not from any of our States. We have no parochial interest in this whatsoever. We are just glad that we have got a great jurist coming forward.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov