Ted Cruz Will Repeal Supreme Court, Replace It With His Dad
“If the court tries to do this it will be rampant judicial activism. It will be lawlessness, it will be fundamentally illegitimate,” he said.
Fortunately, Cruz has a mighty fine solution for the Supreme Court's lawlessness, which he first floated last October: a constitutional amendment stripping the Supreme Court of its right to issue decisions on marriage equality.
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He's also got another plan he introduced in Iowa, which should work:
“Every one of us is concerned about the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision likely coming in June,” he said. “The first thing and I think the most important thing every one of us can do, is pray. Lift up in prayer.”
But in case he and his followers are unable to pray the Court away, a little tweaking to the Constitution to uphold those "constitutional liberties" he's so fond of ought to do the trick. None of this would be necessary, of course, but for the Democratic Party's partisanship -- a line that got some very non-partisan applause:
“Unfortunately, the modern Democratic Party has elevated extreme partisanship, and in particular, this is all part and parcel over the fight over gay marriage. And because of their partisan desire to mandate gay marriage everywhere in this country, they also want to persecute anyone who has a good faith religious belief that marriage is a holy sacrament, the union of one man and one woman ordained as a covenant by God.”
Cruz also trotted out some of his favorite catchphrases, like "stand with Israel" and "Common Core" (still not a federal law, but by golly, he's still going to repeal it when he's president), and "conservative principles" and "all those other Republicans who wanna be president suck because they're not me." (That last one is slightly paraphrased. Slightly.)
As Think Progress notes, the idea of "jurisdiction stripping" is one social conservatives have flirted with for decades, because they think certain issues should not be decided by the courts, on account of how the courts always end up ruling against them, UNFAIR! So even though conservatives do not hesitate to run to the judicial system for help when it suits them -- like, for example, Speaker of the House John Boehner's lawsuits against President Obama for being president, or trying to sue away Obamacare -- when the courts don't side with them, it's "judicial activism" and must be stopped and tort reformed.
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Cruz also gave social conservative version of history to play the "religious liberty" drinking game. Again:
Religious liberty is not some fringe view. It is the basis of this country. America was founded by people fleeing religious persecution and coming here seeking the freedom to worship God with all of our hearts and minds and souls.
Yeah, that's not exactly how we remember it from our U.S. History classes, but history has a liberal bias, so we're probably wrong about that too. Besides, Ted Cruz's dad was saved by Jesus and says America is a Christian nation of which his boy is destined to be president, and he's obviously a better authority on the Constitution than some dumb unelected Supreme Court justices. And as Cruz noted in Iowa, "When you nationalize a federal solution, whether it’s Obamacare or anything else, you don’t allow differences." And because certain states have a difference of opinion with Cruz -- like how they do not believe that it is OK to legalize discrimination -- that proves the need to strip the Supreme Court of its judicial authority and let the states decide, except for the states that decide wrong. In which case, those decisions really ought to be made by President Ted Cruz and his dad, don't ya think?
