Quotes About Federal Judges

#1. The Middle East is literally going up in flames, as is California, and Katrina's problems haven't been solved, and Congress' response is to criticize Federal judges.

Alcee Hastings

#2. Federal judges are just very reluctant to stick the government with responsibility.

Stewart Udall

#3. When Obama took office, Republican appointees controlled ten of the thirteen circuit courts of appeals; Democratic appointees now constitute a majority in nine circuits. Because federal judges have life tenure, nearly all of Obama's judges will continue serving well after he leaves office.

Jeffrey Toobin

#4. The liberals are fighting so hard whenever President Bush appoints any federal judges.

Steve Chabot

#5. Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.

George W. Bush

#6. The judiciary has fallen to a very low state in this country. I think your part of the country has suffered especially. The federal judges of the South are a disgrace to any country, and I'll be damned if I put any man on the bench of whose character and ability there is the least doubt.

William Howard Taft

#7. Last year, I was proud to be an original co-sponsor of legislation that would increase federal judges' salaries by more than 40 percent. It also built in a cost of living adjustment, so the Judicial Branch would not be dependent on the Legislative Branch for increases each year.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

#8. I believe the two biggest mistakes made by the Founders were giving Federal judges life-time appointments and permitting them to be confirmed without the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate.

John Jay Hooker

#9. I think that one of the motivating factors was in my last year of law school: we had a competition, and I won the competition; it was judged by several of the federal judges at the time. I got a tremendous amount of encouragement to pursue litigation from them at the time.

Robert Shapiro

#10. The best (remedy) I can devise would be to give future commissions to (federal) judges for six years with a re-appointability by the President with the approbation of both houses. If this would not be independence enough, I know not what would be ...

Thomas Jefferson

#11. As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.

Antonin Scalia

#12. In my legal practice, I have seen certain Federal judges controlled or influenced by large corporations ... , by large law firms ... on more than one occasion(, and) ... by special interests ... (some) ought to be thrown right off the bench because they are breaking every code of conduct ...

Orrin Hatch

#13. I am one who believes that the people's views and values are represented by those who they elect in the legislative branch and not unelected federal judges appointed for life.

George Allen

#14. I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best.

Robert Kennedy

#15. Frank Johnson was recognized as one of the great federal judges of American history, I suppose. He was a law-and-order judge. He was a classical, I think, conservative. But he believed that civil rights provided in the Constitution applied to everybody.

Jeff Sessions

#16. Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.

Rand Paul

#17. The only thing I daydreamed about was being an opera singer. But I was so skinny and so pathetic that that sort of wasn't going to happen.

Patti Smith

#18. Now I know that if you wait till you think you are ready, you'll wait all your life.

John Flanagan

#19. The transformation of the D.C. Circuit has been replicated in federal courts around the country. Obama has had two hundred and eighty judges confirmed, which represents about a third of the federal judiciary.

Jeffrey Toobin

#20. The business of America shouldn't be subsidizing business.

James Surowiecki

#21. Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.

Ron Paul

#22. The logic is often far-fetched - how does medical marijuana affect interstate commerce? - and some conservatives would like judges to start throwing out federal laws wholesale on commerce clause grounds. The court once again said no thanks.

Michael Kinsley

#23. Judges can determine fair justice far better than any inane federal mandate.

Rand Paul

#24. We must take root; send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day.

Henry David Thoreau

#25. There are congressmen in our congregation, judges, federal reserve governors. And there are also people who are homeless and some who are mentally ill. To be able to talk to each of those people is something that I've had to learn how to do over the years.

James Green Somerville

#26. They got back the Senate but we have the courts. By the nineties the Supreme Court will be block-solid Republican appointees, and the federal bench - Republican judges like land mines, everywhere, everywhere they turn. Affirmative action? Take it to court. Boom! Land mine. And

Tony Kushner

#27. God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

Oswald Chambers

#28. There are those on Wall Street and in the plutocracy who feel that Geithner is a hero who deftly steered the country from economic ruin. To many ordinary Americans, however, he is considered a Wall Street puppet and a servant of the so-called banksters.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

#29. Sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. I never tried my hand at that sort of writing but on this particular occasion such was my state of feeling, that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took pen in hand, and as usual I went ahead.

Davy Crockett

#30. Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role.

Paul Weyrich

#31. Of all the creatures on this planet none is more dangerous than a human being.

Robert A. Heinlein

#32. Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed people who can enjoy what they find, without question.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#33. Excellence isn't a one-week or one-year ideal. It's a constant.

Michael Jordan