A Threat to Two of Our Supreme Court Justices

Floor Speech

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Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Having listened to the gentleman ahead of me, Mr. Louie Gohmert and some of the discussion that he had, I would pick up with the beginning here, Mr. Speaker, with one of the places where he left off, and that is what happened before the United States Supreme Court yesterday and the statements that were made by the minority leader of the United States Senate.

I may have a bit of a different perspective than some in this House or Senate or across this land, but here is the language that was deemed offensive from Senator Schumer. I watched the video, and he was pointing. He pointed at the United States Supreme Court, and he used the names of two Supreme Court Justices. He said this: ``I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.''

That was stunning. It was stunning to hear two Justices called out in that fashion before the Supreme Court. And I know that there was a crowd over there that was happy to hear those words. But as a constitutionalist and former chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, I am troubled by the effort to try to sway judges through what appears to be verbal intimidation before the Supreme Court.

I have stood on those same steps and delivered any number of speeches, but I always confine them to the constitutional principles that were involved. I wanted the Justices to hear my speech. I didn't want them to ever hear it as a threat. I wanted them to hear it as a rational approach in a way as if I were actually arguing before that Supreme Court, before that Bench.

They are all well-learned and very, very capable people who are deeply steeped in our Constitution and in case law. They have their different philosophies, and that is clear. We often see a 5-4 decision on the Court.

Mr. Speaker, I thought when I first arrived in this town a number of years ago, I looked forward to going over to the Supreme Court to hear what I expected to be the profound constitutional arguments before that Bench. So I began going over there for some of the important cases, with that expectation. I recall sitting there, listening to an argument before the Court, and I understood--actually, this would be the Kelo decision before the Supreme Court. The Kelo decision is the decision that I believe amended the Constitution by the Supreme Court decision.

It was this. Let's see, New London, Connecticut. There was property there that was owned and utilized by owners who didn't want to sell that property to the developers. The local government wanted that property in the hands of the developers because they would develop that property into, I believe, a shopping mall, and then the taxes would be the revenue going into local governments. So local governments had an incentive in encouraging the development of the property, but the property owners sat there with a constitutional guarantee in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution that says: ``nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.''

That was the guarantee that, first of all, only governments could confiscate property. They needed to maintain that within their own possession, and it has to be for a public use. It can't be for a private use. It was a private business that they handed that property over to in New London, Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, when I listened to the argument, I expected the argument would go back to the very language of the Fifth Amendment, and that would be argued, perhaps, certainly, on both sides. And I come down on the side of: The Constitution means what it says, and it means what it was understood to mean at the time of ratification by the people who voted to ratify it.

We can't go back and assign different definitions to words or simply say that it is a living, breathing Constitution that can adapt itself to changing times. If that were the case, there wouldn't be a provision to amend this Constitution provided by our Founding Fathers. The Constitution is an intergenerational, contractual guarantee between one generation of Americans to the next generation of Americans.

So, I hoped to hear those--in fact, expected to hear--those arguments before the United States Supreme Court. What I heard instead were arguments that were made to Justice O'Connor, and I think they considered her to be the swing vote. And she came down on, I believe, the constitutional side of it in the end. But there were just little tweaks that had to do with her background.

She was raised on a ranch. I think it is a B&B ranch down in southern Arizona, and I think it goes across into New Mexico, as I recall. I read her books years ago. And some of the ranch land that she grew up on was part of the Gadsden Purchase that came in right at the end of the U.S. and Mexican war.

But growing up on a ranch, property values matter, and property rights matter, and water rights matter in that part of the country. And her book is replete with those kinds of narratives. It is a really interesting way to get some insight into Justice O'Connor. But she understood this case in a way I didn't know until later.

But I came down here to the floor, and we brought a resolution in the House of Representatives, a resolution of disapproval to what was called the Kelo decision. In that Kelo decision, it upheld the decision of local government in New London, Connecticut, to confiscate private property, houses and residences that had a deed, and to take that land and compensate them for what they deemed the value was--condemnation-- and hand them over to the private investors so they can take that land, develop it, and make money with it. That is completely contrary to the reason that we have that guarantee within our Fifth Amendment.

As I listened to those oral arguments and saw how they were focused on Justice O'Connor, I understood what was going on. And that is, they weren't profound constitutional arguments; they were personalized arguments that were designed to get to the psyche of the swing Justice who was there. Of course, it wasn't Justice O'Connor, as it turned out.

By the way, I have been critical of some of her decisions--not on this one.

Mr. Speaker, I want to put this narrative in the Record because I think she is worthy of some significantly positive comments. And one of the decisions that she had made--a different one, obviously, I was railing away on my disagreement with the rationale that Justice O'Connor had come down with. And so someone in the room said: You shouldn't criticize her until you walk a mile in her shoes.

And I said: I would be happy to walk a mile in her shoes. I will walk a thousand miles in her shoes. Appoint me to the Supreme Court, and I will walk with her. And I bet you I can convince her.

I made some remark like that. And then, as I was talking, I said: You know what? If I can't do that, why don't I just invite her to dinner?

So I followed through. I gave my word I would do that, and I went back to my desk in my office and sat down and wrote a letter to Justice O'Connor that invited her to a dinner, just to sit down, have a conversation, get to know each other, be civil with each other, and listen to each other's philosophical discussion.

I sent the letter over there, not expecting to get an affirmative response. But what I did get was an invitation to come to her chambers and do a lunch there. I don't remember the year, but I know the date was March 18 of whatever year it was, in the earlier part of the previous decade.

So, I went over at that time, and she had a lunch all prepared. She had baked a pie that was, I presume, for me because it was fresh. It was cut and served right there in her chambers. And we had a delightful discussion.

She took me from each of the portraits of the Chief Justices and walked me through the history of the Courts, from the beginning all the way up to what was current at the time.

When I left that gracious dinner with Justice O'Connor, I decided she has a good judgment on her; she has a good set of character; she has a compassionate heart, a deep understanding of history and law. And disagreeing with her, that is all it is, just disagreeing with the rationale.

But I am forever grateful that I took the trouble, and I am really grateful that she accepted the request that I made and then invited me over there to dinner.

So, I wanted to put that in, that our Justices are human. And when they get threatened, those threats sometimes cut deep, and the family feels that.

These threats that were delivered yesterday in front of the United States Supreme Court were threats that, might I say, intimidate judges. The judicial branch of government, the American Bar Association, everybody involved in that feels that. And they pride themselves in their independence.

But I better conclude the Kelo decision before I get too far from it. In any case, the Kelo decision came down, and they allowed for the confiscation of private property handed over to other private interests in order to generate tax revenue for local government.

That case still stands. But I was furious that they would do such damage to the Constitution in a 5-4 decision. By the way, Justice Scalia has said that he believes that case will be overturned one day.

But we brought a resolution of disapproval to the floor. It is the only time that I know we have done that and spoken out in that fashion on a Supreme Court decision. I noticed that at that time the gentleman from Massachusetts, Barney Frank, came down to give his speech. I was queued up next.

Mr. Speaker, I sat right here with my notepad ready to take notes because I expected to get up and rebut most everything that I heard Mr. Frank say. We found ourselves in disagreement on issue after issue, so it was my full expectation that when he was finished talking, I would have a page full of things to stand up and rebut. That has been my style, and we had had many debates like that.

But as I listened to Mr. Frank that day, I realized he had exactly the same opinion that I had. He expressed it a little bit differently, but he came down in support of the resolution of disapproval and in support of the Constitution and in support of the property rights that are there in the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. Speaker, when I stepped up here to this particular podium, my speech really was to reject the decision made by the Supreme Court. And when I spoke that in the Record, I said effectively what they have done is they have pulled the words out of the Fifth Amendment ``for public use.''

``Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation,'' and the effect of it was to pull the ``for public use'' out of there. Now, the effect of the Fifth Amendment after the Kelo decision just says ``nor shall private property be taken, without just compensation,'' which means the government can't come in and take your property away from you, unless they write you a check, but they can give it to anybody they want to in the private sector.

Whatever their motive might be, it was approved by the Supreme Court with the Kelo decision. And I think that will be abused at some point and a more reasonable Court may be seated at that time and restore the Constitution on the Kelo decision.

But my real point here is that we can't be seeking to intimidate the Court. They are human. Justice O'Connor--a gracious heart and a nice lady. And we used to have receptions over there with the Committee on the Judiciary and members of the bench just to take some of the temperature down between the natural disagreements that exist between the legislative branch and the judicial branch of government.

Mr. Speaker, when you have the minority leader, the most powerful, highest ranking Democrat in the United States Senate, go stand before the Supreme Court, point his finger at that building that was behind him and say, ``I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.''

Going forward with an awful decision means Chuck Schumer has already decided what he thinks the Court decision is going to be on the requirements that are part of the, I will say, the abortion laws that are coming out of Louisiana. And I have been one of the lead voices on pro-life issues here in this United States House of Representatives.

There is on my lapel a heart that represents the heartbeat bill. It is a bill that I introduced in the previous Congress, and that bill protects unborn babies. It essentially says this: If a heartbeat can be detected, the baby is protected.

And we know that the heartbeat is the first, certain sign of life. When that heart starts to beat, you know that there is a live baby there. You can't call it anything else. It is a live baby.

And this little baby has all the components of a growing human being. It just needs to develop them out to full size and to full term.

And anybody who has picked up and held--especially a loved one--a newborn baby and gazed with awe at the miracle in their hands has to know that that baby's life didn't begin at the moment of birth or at the moment of first breath and that that baby's life began well before a minute before the baby was born.

Mr. Speaker, I know when I held my firstborn son, I looked at him in awe. There was an aura about him. The miracle was in my hands. And I thought: How can anybody take his life now? He is a few minutes old. How can anybody take his life now? How could they take his life a minute before he was born, or an hour before, or a day, or a week, or a month before he was born? Or a trimester or three trimesters before he was born? At what moment did his life begin? Because human life is sacred in all its forms.

And we only have to choose when did life begin. It is not that hard a question. Because it is a continuum; it is a gradual growing continuum from the moment of conception on.

But that heartbeat says this is a live baby here. And when that heart stops, we call that death. When the heart starts, we know that is life. Even though life began at the moment of conception, medically, we can't pinpoint that precisely enough, but I am willing to go there if we can get there.

Right now, we are at heartbeat. And in the last Congress, I was able to get 174 cosponsors, and those 174 cosponsors all signed on with an expectation that we would protect all babies. When a heartbeat could be detected, the baby is protected.

We didn't make exceptions for rape or incest or any other provisions. These babies are sacred. If there was a crime committed that resulted in conception, that is on the rapist; that is not on the baby. And those babies are as precious to God as my own grandchildren are to God; and, of course, my grandchildren are extraordinarily precious to me.

So I hope one day we get to that and that question.

But as we move on, with this superaggressive utilization of freedom of speech and Senator Schumer, I look back at some of this discussion. And Chief Justice Roberts had a response, which is exceptionally rare, to have a statement come out of the Supreme Court. But out of the Chief Justice, he said, and I quote: ``Threatening statements of this sort, from the highest levels of government, are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.'' And Justices, quote, ``will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.''--Chief Justice John Roberts.

I appreciate that language that the Justices will ``continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.'' That language will live a long time in the way that that is adeptly put together, and that is how it needs to be.

If we want to convince the Supreme Court to take a new look at things, we need to make the constitutional arguments, Mr. Speaker, not the threatening arguments. And where I come from, when somebody threatens you, that means that you are done doing business with that person, and they are very unlikely to get cooperation.

But there is another part of this that, even though there would be a measure of justice involved if the decisions made in the Supreme Court went against the interests of Senator Schumer, I would like to reiterate here into this Congressional Record, and I hope it echoes across this land, that, if you think you are going to get even with somebody, the result in this business, whether it is in the legislative, the executive, or the judicial branch of government, if you think you are going to get even with somebody, you invariably hurt the wrong people.

And so that is not an avenue that has merit, and I hope that and I expect that that wisdom exists within all of our Justices, all nine of them over there, that payback to Schumer can't be in the cards from any decision that would come down from the Court, it has got to be balanced and objective, as described by Chief Justice Roberts, and that they ``continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.''

I believe the Justices will stick to that, and I am hopeful that Senator Schumer will learn not to utilize those tactics anymore.

This is the American Bar Association, the ABA. Their comments came down to this. They said they are ``deeply troubled'' by Schumer's remarks, that ``there is no place for threats--whether real or allegorical.''

And then the ABA, American Bar Association, continued with this: ``Personal attacks on judges by any elected officials, including the President, are simply inappropriate. Such comments challenge the . . . independence of the judiciary and the personal safety of judicial officers. . . . ''

Well, Mr. Speaker, I know that is true. I know that when you turn up the dialogue and you hear this radical rhetoric coming out of elected officials in particular, things do happen out in our society. And the Chief Justice is concerned that there could be acts of potential violence that could be stimulated by that kind of dialogue.

And I am hopeful that--Senator Schumer seemed to dial it down on the floor of the Senate today. That is good. I didn't notice that he had called upon people to refrain from violence and refrain from threats. He did say that he is from the Bronx and they talk a little more clearly there than other places. I don't doubt that. But this language went to the world, and the world saw it today, Mr. Speaker.

And so I am hopeful that Senator Schumer will call upon his supporters to calm down, be logical, make constitutional arguments, and refrain from that kind of rhetoric.

And here are the consequences. I had some serious rhetoric applied against me over the last 1\1/2\ years, and each of those situations that were--a good number of them were manufactured firestorms that were fired at me.

But also, we saw Members of this House of Representatives that went forward and said, when people go into a restaurant, when they stop to get gas and you see them there, if they happen to be--I am not sure exactly how they defined it, but if they happen to be conservatives, go confront them, make their lives miserable. That kind of discussion was delivered from people who sit over on this side of the aisle, and it had its physical results.

It had its physical results, at least in my case, where I sat down in a restaurant last April, and from completely outside my peripheral vision, I was assaulted. That individual has been convicted of assaulting a Federal officer, or a United States Congressman. There is a provision for that.

And, by the way, today, he goes before a Federal judge in Sioux City for sentencing.

So I won't comment any more on that, because I don't want to be accused of seeking to influence a decision that may or may not have been made, but it is ironic that I am here today having this discussion on Senator Schumer while there is an individual being sentenced for assaulting me back in Iowa, which I believe is a clear result of this kind of radical rhetoric that was poured out.

And it wasn't based on truth, in my case, when they attacked me. It was planned. It was orchestrated. It was ginned up. And then you have people out there that take that seriously.

And so that is what happened that day, and the sentencing is taking place today. I will trust the judge to make an objective decision. I have written my opinion in longhand and sent that to the court for their consideration. That is where I will leave that recommendation. I have had my chance to weigh in.

But let's take this a little further, Mr. Speaker, and that is on this concept of freedom of speech. Now, there are those that want to censure Senator Schumer, and it sounds like Senator Hawley is going to introduce a censuring motion tomorrow in the Senate.

I am of the opinion that the most important freedom we have is a robust freedom of speech and that, if we let that be diminished by intimidation tactics, let alone by any kind of laws that would perhaps be found unconstitutional--but watching the Kelo decision, maybe not be found unconstitutional.

I want the body to understand this, Mr. Speaker, that freedom of speech is a precious, precious right, and our Founding Fathers understood that if you can't speak, if you can't speak freely, then you can't convey your ideas at all. And then when you can't convey your ideas, they never get tested against anybody else's ideas or embellished or supported by other people's ideas, and that means, then, that human knowledge would diminish, it would atrophy, and it would essentially stop forming around us.

Our Founding Fathers envisioned a robust nation that would be regularly and constantly engaged in discussions of public policy, like we are in Iowa as the first-in-the-Nation caucus, like New Hampshire is, and let's just say South Carolina is among those States, too, where there is an intense focus on politics, free discussion.

I have spent time in Cuba and learned that they don't have that freedom. They are afraid--even among their families sitting around the table, they are afraid to speak to each other because there might be an informant among them that has been hired by the, at that time, Castro administration. So they don't speak to each other about those things. They don't criticize. They accept what government serves up to them.

That is what King George wanted to happen in this country. And if our predecessors here, the revolutionary Founding Fathers, had accepted the edict from King George, we would have never developed this great Nation that we are. We would be stuck back in the mud somewhere back there, because our ideas wouldn't have been brought forward. They wouldn't have been tested against each other, then creating other new ideas.

And, you know, we are the Nation that produces more patents, more creativity, than any other nation in the world by far. We are so good at this and we create so much with our intellectual freedoms that we have that are tied into freedom of speech that the Chinese look to us and they steal a half a trillion dollars worth of American intellectual property every year--a half a trillion dollars. And that doesn't include what they steal through cyber. That is called IP piracy.

I have been over to China. Years ago, I wrote a bill from Beijing that called upon the U.S. Trade Representative to conduct a study to determine the value of U.S. intellectual property that is stolen by the Chinese, apply a duty on all products coming to the United States from China in an amount equal to that loss, and then collect that and distribute it to the rightful property rights holders. That was a bill then. It is still a good idea today, but they have accelerated their piracy.

Mr. Speaker, to give you an example of how this works, we know a little bit about how freedom of speech, thought, and expression works in the United States because we see--actually, in the past, we have seen a more robust freedom of speech on our campuses. Today, they are diminishing freedom of speech on the campuses. They are defining things as hate speech and trigger words and safe places. We don't need that. We have got to be strong enough to face language and let it flow and then accommodate ourselves in a way that we are not influenced if it isn't logical or rational.

The Greeks, for example, in their city-states, would banish a demagogue for 7 years from the city-state because they didn't like what he had to say, and that wasn't constructive.

But what is constructive is our freedom of speech, our young people sitting in college, sitting up all night long discussing metaphysics till the Sun comes up, new ideas: What is the limitation on what we can do with science? with math? with space travel? All of those things that have made America the leader in the world, they are all tied back to freedom of speech.

If you can't speak, you can't express your thoughts. You can't just hold your thoughts in your head and think you are going to do something good with them. If we had taken Albert Einstein and sat him into a phone booth and said, ``We will let you out when you write the theory of relativity,'' first of all, it never would have been created; second of all, nobody could have understood it. You have got to have the interactivity of minds.

And people will say: We have the Second Amendment; therefore, we are never going to lose our freedom of speech. I don't see anybody using the Second Amendment to defend their freedom of speech, and I don't recommend that they do. We have to utilize our freedom of speech and push back when it is diminished.

So I am not calling for a sanction on Senator Schumer. I am saying this:

Senator Schumer, you know what you said. You know whether it is right or wrong. You have to operate in an arena over there and get reelected by the people in your district. Let we, the people, decide. Not a leader here in the Senate, not a leader here in the House, but let we, the people, decide.

And, in fact, as a former chairman of the Constitution Committee, the three branches of government, there are tensions between each of those. Our Founding Fathers didn't envision that they would be equal. They believed the judicial branch would be the weakest of the three. But they knew there would be tension as that territory got marked out, and there is always going to be a gray area where there is a little bit of a tug-of-war over who has what territory.

But in the end, if you analyze it--I can make your argument for the legislature, even the House and the Senate. I can make it for the executive branch. I can make it for the judicial branch. But in the end, if any branch of government gets out of whack, that means out of sync with the American people, we, the people, solve that problem in the election box.

Sometimes it takes time. But that is the best solution is for we, the people, to make that decision, not a decision that sanctions freedom of speech, diminishes freedom of speech, or intimidates people so that they don't utilize their freedom of speech, because we have got to remain the most creative society in the history of the world, and in doing so, we will be the most successful people also in the history of the world.

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