Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I will vote against the nomination of Jane Stranch to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. While several aspects of Ms. Stranch's record concern me, I will be voting no primarily because of Ms. Stranch's responses during her nomination process that demonstrate that it is proper for American judges to rely on contemporary foreign or international law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

Reliance on contemporary foreign law to interpret our Constitution undermines democracy, American sovereignty, and the rule of law. In American democracy, the people are sovereign. The Constitution was ``ordained and established'' by ``We the People of the United States.'' As Chief Justice Marshall explained in McCulloch v. Maryland, ``[t]he government proceeds directly from the people'' and is established ``in the name of the people.'' When judges look to foreign nations to find new limitations on what laws the American people can enact through their elected representatives, they undermine democracy and make the will of the American people subservient to the opinions of foreign judges. Furthermore, because there are so many sources of foreign law available in the world, judges often pick and choose foreign citations that correspond with their own personal politics, preferences, and feelings in an effort to create the illusion that the judges' personal political agenda are somehow mandated by law.

Under our Constitution, the people's right to govern themselves and make laws through their elected representatives is limited only by the Constitution itself, not by the opinions of foreign judges. In recent years, however, some judges have looked to foreign nations to strike down democratically enacted laws. For example, in Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court ruled that legislatures cannot impose capital punishment for heinous crimes committed by individuals under the age of 18. Justice Kennedy's majority opinion emphasized the ``weight of international opinion'' and cited the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, among other sources. Just this year, in Graham v. Florida, the Supreme Court relied on ``the overwhelming weight of international opinion'' to find that life sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile criminals who commit crimes other than homicide.

This trend of American judges overruling the will of the American people in favor of the opinions of foreign judges is worrisome. I was therefore disappointed in Ms. Stranch's statements to the Judiciary Committee that seem to endorse this practice. Specifically, Ms. Stranch took the position that American judges may use foreign law in their opinions ``for such purposes as extrapolating on societal norms and standards of decency, refuting contrary assertions or confirming American views.'' She actually praised the Supreme Court for what she called its ``restraint'' in citing foreign law, and argued that the Supreme Court's recent use of foreign law in cases such as Roper and Graham should be a ``model for the lower courts.'' This is a very troubling view.

The Supreme Court's increasing reliance on the opinions of contemporary foreign judges has not been restrained, and should not be a model for American judges. Rather, American judges interpreting the U.S. Constitution should constrain themselves to interpreting the text and meaning of that document alone. Because Ms. Stranch's answers indicate that she will rely on foreign law as a pretense for imposing her personal political beliefs on the American people, and because reliance on contemporary foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution threatens democracy, American sovereignty, and the rule of law, I will vote no on this nomination.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source