Fiorina Did Refer to SCOTUS Decision As “Law of the Land”

Carly Fiorina’s recent interview with Jan Mickelson on WHO Radio on Friday is getting some attention namely because of what she denied.

“Here in Iowa when you say Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land that sets us off because Iowans got bludgeoned by court decisions here, and we went through Civics 101 and we don’t accept propositions that court decisions are the law of the land,” Mickelson said.

“Actually, with all due respect Jan, I think that is a quote from someone else, not from me. I know there are many Republican candidates, Kasich among them, who have said those exact words, but there is no doubt, there is no doubt that we have a problem with our judiciary,” Fiorina responded.

MIckelson later circled back to the original question after she discussed the importance of appointing the right judges, “so you never said that?”

“I am not aware of having said that. I am aware of other candidates saying that. I think this probably came up with the recent decision on gay marriage. My comment on that was we must exert enormous energy towards protecting religious liberty in this country, and that means every state has to pass a religious freedom protection act. We have had those pass in many state, and I stood strong and defended Indiana when everybody was piling on Indiana, but it is clear we have to pass those laws at the state level, as well as, the federal level,” Fiorina said.

She did refer to a Supreme Court decision as “the law of the land,” and that comment was made in the context of the Supreme Court decision on marriage that at the time was still a month out from being released.

“I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land, and however much I may agree or disagree with it, I wouldn’t support an amendment to reserve it. I very much hope that we would come to a place now in this nation where we can support their decision and at the same time support people to have, to hold religious views and to protect their right to exercise those views,” Fiorina told Caffeinated Thoughts after a Dallas County Republican event in May.

“I think this is a nation that should be able to accept that government shouldn’t discriminate on how it provides benefits and that people have a right to their religious views and those views need to be protected. We need to protect religious liberty in this country,” Fiorina added.

Now granted she said this before the Supreme Court ruled on marriage, but her statement is pretty clear. “I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land.” The way it was framed it appeared she believed that regardless of how the court ruled.

Mickelson’s question wasn’t about her opinion about whether she agreed with the ruling or not. It’s about whether she believes the judicial branch is supreme. She is asked a lot of questions and gives a lot of interviews so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she probably forgot.

That said she owes Jan Mickelson’s listeners some answers about her view of the judiciary.

Exactly - The Supreme Court can be wrong.

1) Dred Scott v. Sandford:

In his majority opinion Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote:

“[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it.”

This was only the second time (to that date) that the Supreme Court had ruled an act of Congress unconstitutional (the Missouri Compromise of 1820), the first being the case Marbury v. Madison wherein the court ruled the Judiciary Act of 1789 invalid (or at least a part of it). Many constitutional scholars consider this 7-2 decision the worst in US history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

2) Plessy v. Ferguson:

In this case (1896) the Supreme Court in a 7-1 vote gave explicit constitutional sanction to the idea of the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case was from Louisiana. This was “settled law” until overruled by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954! In a stinging dissent Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote:

[I]n view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.

Of course Justice Harlan was vindicated. Though outnumbered his opinion eventually became law. I used to cite his dissent in my classes as one of the greatest ever written. That dissent always brings the words of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes to mind “… A dissent in a court of last resort, is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

3) Korematsu v. United States:

In this case the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold Executive Order 9066 which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps (a nice way of saying concentration camps) during the Second World War regardless of citizenship! Justice Jackson was one of the three justices to dissent. Justice Jackson was also one on my heroes but we’ll save him for a later day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

Again, in each case these decisions were “settled law.” And in each case the majority decisions were inimical to our ideas of liberty. In conclusion please pay heed to the words of Learned Hand who served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge.)

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

You’re right, of course, if we don’t also get some high-level officials who understand and are committed to the obligations of their oath, and if we don’t have a huge mass of citizens prepared to step up and support those individuals who are being targeted and attacked.

That kind of open ended financial commitment is not exactly "as low as you can go" when it comes to thresholds sustaining marriage. At this point, the statutory strategy seems the best bet to me. The "Kim Davis" political element of local action does support that initiative, in that it exposes the tyrannical aspects of the gay agenda.

As an aside, I just wish the Family Research Council had a clue about this 'parent one and parent two' gambit. So far, they've missed the point about it that tie into this issue directly.

It doesn’t usually cost any money to simply do your duty and keep your oath.

Defending a lawsuit costs a local government big money that doesn't go into basic services. Even State and Federal agencies are afraid of the cost. You just waive your hand.

However, if it does, that just the price of liberty.

So you preference is stupid tactics akin to recommending charging with a banzai sword against a line of automatic weapons. I prefer winning to fruitless battles. Sounds like you're not paying for them.

If our forefathers could pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, and back it up with their actions, so can we.

After which they didn't just walk up to the British magistrate and hand him a rope. Speak for yourself. I already did.

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