Gingrich's Plan to Chastise Judges: Subpoena Them, Ignore Their Decisions, Slash Their Budgets
Corrected: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is elaborating on his plans for taming the federal judiciary.
On national security issues, Gingrich said at a Values Voters Summit on Friday, he saw no reason to obey some U.S. Supreme Court rulings, report CBS News and the Atlantic. “I would instruct the national security officials in a Gingrich administration to ignore the recent decisions of the Supreme Court on issues of national security,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich also told the summit and Face the Nation on Sunday that Congress could subpoena federal judges and ask them to explain their decisions. Gingrich thought the subpoenas could have “a sobering effect” on judges’ assessment of their powers.
He also had another proposal for chastising judges. The Atlantic has Gingrich’s quote: “Congress has the power to limit the appeals, as I mentioned earlier. Congress can cut budgets. Congress can say: ‘All right, in the future, the 9th Circuit can meet, but it will have no clerks. By the way, we aren’t going to pay the electric bill for two years. And since you seem to be—since you seem to be rendering justice in the dark, you don’t seem to need your law library, either.’ ”
Gingrich quote on ignoring Supreme Court decisions corrected on Oct. 17 to add the words “the recent decisions of” and to add C-SPAN video of his speech. Our original quote was based on a CBS News account that has since been updated.
Correction
Gingrich quote on ignoring Supreme Court decisions corrected on Oct. 17 to add the words “the recent decisions of” and to add C-SPAN video of his speech. Our original quote was based on a CBS News account that has since been updated.
