Friday, March 29, 2024

Cruz Calls for Justice Anthony Kennedy to Resign

Ted Cruz was on the Steve Deace Show when the subject of Justice Anthony Kennedy came up. Kennedy recently compared the refusal of people like Kim Davis to comply with his gay marriage ruling to the judges who resigned in protest of Nazi Germany. Kind of odd to compare yourself to the Nazi regime, don’t you think? Cruz responded:

DEACE: …To compare himself with Nazi Germany – what does that say?

CRUZ: Look, Steve, that was stunning. … I thought it was so stunning to have a Supreme Court justice compare his own lawless rulings to the draconian oppression of the Nazis is beyond stunning, and it’s worth underscoring – this is not you or me comparing the Supreme Court to the Nazis. This is Justice Kennedy comparing the Supreme Court to the Nazis, his own decision that was utterly lawless. And what he is saying to Christians is, ‘You will obey [inaudible] what we decree, or you will pay the price.’ It is a statement that embodies so much arrogance, so much hubris, so much contempt for our democratic process.

And you know, one of the things that’s also buried in what Justice Kennedy said – he says to all other officials, ‘You must obey the law.’ Well, Steve, you know well that courts don’t make law. Justice Kennedy’s opinion in which he laid down his view, that in his enlightened view, the definition of marriage that has been true for millennia that state legislatures have adopted across this nation, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman – his opinion that is no longer sufficiently enlightened is not law. People are not obliged to obey justices who are defying the Constitution, defying the law, who are committing acts of judicial tyranny. And I will point out that no less than Justice Scalia, in his dissent, made exactly that point, where he said, ‘This decision is a profound threat to our democracy. It is five unelected lawyers declaring themselves the rulers of 320 million Americans.’ And Justice Scalia predicted that state & local officials will refuse to obey this lawless decision because it is so outside the authority of the Supreme Court. And yet Justice Kennedy is telling us that the court is like the Nazis and we have no choice but buckle under their oppression, and it really is a stunning omission of how corrupt the court has become.

DEACE: …Is there a point where these rulings, statements become not just so unconstitutional [but] anti-constitutional that resignation and impeachment is in line for these judges?

CRUZ: Of course Justice Kennedy should resign. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s lawless decisions on Obamacare and marriage, I publicly called for a constitutional amendment subjecting Supreme Court justices to periodic retention elections just like you have in the state of Iowa, where you had three justices who lawlessly tore down the marriage laws in Iowa, and the people of Iowa rose up and threw those judges out. If Supreme Court justices are going to behave like politicians and try to make law instead of following the Constitution, they should subject to democratic accountability. And these statements from Justice Kennedy show the utter contempt he has for the rights of the people to pass the laws that govern ourselves.

Thomas Valentine is a researcher for the American Principles Project and a junior at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

More From The Pulse