Saying he convened the “With Prejudice: Supreme Court Activism and Possible Solutions” Senate hearing Wednesday with “deep disappointment,” Sen. Ted Cruz made good on his post-Obergefell threat and vowed to “reign in judicial tyranny” by imposing judicial term limits and retention elections.
The Dallas Morning News reports:
Cruz, speaking in grave tones, opened the hearing by tying the court's most recent decisions — especially on gay marriage and upholding Obamacare — to some of the court's most controversial decisions in its history.
“We have seen the court's imperialist sentiments previously,” Cruz said. Citing Dred Scott, which upheld slavery in 1857 prior to the Civil War, and Lochner, v. New York, a 1905 decision historians have tied to an era where freedom-of-contract legal principals blocked efforts by lawmakers to improve working conditions of the poor.
More recently, he cited the “invention” of the right to an abortion in the Roe v Wade decision, as the fountainhead for the modern court's slide into “lawlessness.”
National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman was one of three panelists called to testify before the subcommittee.
