Supreme Court Ruling Quotes

“Our system was not set up to for the government to be able to do with a man's kingdom what they want. It was set up to protect that man's kingdom, to allow him to feel that his borders, no matter how great or small, would always be secure and that he would always be allowed to defend them. The Supreme Court took that right away with their eminent domain ruling back in 2005. The governments have taken advantage of that eminent domain ruling, and you, the media, have failed at protecting citizens.”

— Tit Elingtin

“Many scientists have interfered with science in precisely the way courts always worried tissue donors might do. "It's ironic," she told me. "The Moore court's concern was, if you give a person property rights in their tissues, it would slow down research because people might withhold access for money. But the Moore decision backfired-it just handed that commercial value to researchers." According to Andrews and a dissenting California Supreme Court judge, the ruling didn't prevent commercialization; it just took patients out of the equation and emboldened scientists to commodify tissues in increasing numbers. Andrews and many others have argued that this makes scientists less likely to share samples and results, which slows research; they also worry that it interferes with health-care delivery.”

— Rebecca Skloot

“In the late 1860s, Myra Bradwell petitioned for a law license and argued that the 14th Amendment protected her right to practice. The Illinois Supreme Court rejected her petition, ruling that because she was married she had no legal right to operate on her own. When she challenged the ruling, Justice Joseph Bradley wrote in his decision, "It certainly cannot be affirmed, as a historical fact, that [the right to choose one's profession] has ever been established as one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the sex." Rather, Bradley argued, "The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother."40 Meanwhile,”

— Rebecca Traister

“Prior to the Reform Act, the Supreme Court had ruled that the guilt or innocence of the property's owner was irrelevant to the property's guilt-a ruling based on the archaic legal fiction that a piece of property could be "guilty" of a crime. The act remedied this insanity to some extent; it provides an "innocent owner" defense to those whose property has been seized.”

— Michelle Alexander

“The president typically never does comment on anything involving the Supreme Court cases, Supreme Court ruling, or Supreme Court finding, typically.”

— Ari Fleischer

“President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. 'A pardon,' the excerpt said, 'carries an imputation of guilt,' and acceptance of a pardon is 'a confession of it.'”

— Scott Shane

“The [Hobby Lobby Supreme Court] ruling raises the question of why, uniquely in the industrialized world, Americans have for so long favored an arrangement in health insurance that endows their employers with the quasi-parental power to choose the options that employees may be granted in the market for health insurance.”

— Uwe Reinhardt

“In a surprising unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ruled the police cannot search what is on your phone without a warrant. Court observers said a unanimous decision from this court was slightly less likely than Scalia winning the annual Supreme Court wet robe contest.”

— Peter Sagal

“We are delighted with today's State Supreme Court ruling allowing marriage equality in California. It is a true testament to advancing equality and to recognizing the right of all Californians to build a future with the person they love. We recently lost Mildred Loving, the woman whose marriage to a man of another race ushered in the Supreme Court ruling that made marriage colorblind. Today's ruling is another important reminder that love will overcome.”

— Karen Bass

“One of the things that I'm so proud of [about] that movie [Brokeback Mountain], was to see, within the past basically 10 years, how much has changed. When the Supreme Court [issued a ruling] just a little while ago, I felt like we had been part, a little part and parcel of that movement.”

— Jake Gyllenhaal

“The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government. The Supreme Court is not the supreme branch. And for God's sake, it isn't the Supreme Being. It is the Supreme Court.”

— Mike Huckabee

“It's a matter of balance of power. If the Supreme Court could just make a ruling and everybody has to bow down and fall on their faces and worship that law, it isn't a law because it hasn't been yet passed.”

— Mike Huckabee

“Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.”

— Mike Huckabee

“With this new stupid Supreme Court ruling, secret money can come in on an unlimited level from corporations. Nobody knows where it comes from. That distorts the political situation in our country tremendously. Most of that money is spent on negative advertising that is tearing down the character and reputation of your opponent, and it works, although most American people say, "We don't like negative advertising," it works.”

— Jimmy Carter

“I don't believe that Jesus would approve abortion except in the case of incest, rape or the mother's life in danger. But I had to enforce the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade so I tried to do everything I could to minimize the need for abortions.”

— Jimmy Carter

“Yesterday the Supreme Court lifted the ban on same-sex marriage in Kansas. They didn't give a reason for the ruling, but then again when a state is famous for a Judy Garland musical about a rainbow and a wizard who comes out of a closet, do you really need an excuse?”

— Jimmy Fallon

“I am bound by the laws of the United States and all 50 states ... I am not bound by any case or any court to which I myself am not a party ... I don't think the Congress of the United States is subservient to the courts ... They can ignore a Supreme Court ruling if they so choose.”

— Pat Robertson

“Nominees [to Supreme Court] shouldn't be expected to pre-commit to ruling on certain issues in a certain way. Nor should senators ask nominees to pledge to rule on issues in a particular way.”

— Chuck Grassley