In conference call, Gingrich maps out reining in activist judges

Gingrich with Marathon Pundit

Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I were driving from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas two nights ago, so we missed the Fox News GOP presidential candidates debate that took place in Sioux City, Iowa. Which is a shame, because I missed this exchange between Megyn Kelly and Newt Gingrich over judicial activism. While the former House Speaker's comments, stating the courts are "grotesquely dictatorial, arrogant, and frankly a misreading of the American people" elicited cheers from the audience in Iowa's conservative heartland, there is some pushback, including some from conservatives.

This morning Gingrich held a conference call where he expanded on those comments.

He didn't back down. Ever the historian, Gingrich said, "the Founding Fathers were very distrustful of judges." After no-taxation-without-representation, Gingrich added, "British judges were the second-biggest reason" given for the start of the American Revolution."

Gingrich has called for federal judges to be subpoenaed by Congress to explain their rulings and even to be removed from the bench for overreach.

Referring back to the Federalist Papers, Gingrich said the Founding Fathers "consciously made the judicial branch the third branch and the weakest branch." Proof: In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote, "the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other two."

While he admitted that this was "a controversial conversation," Gingrich asserted, "But I believe it's a conversation where the overwhelming majority of Americans are going to say 'When the judge is aggressively anti-American and aggressively anti-free speech and aggressively anti-religious, that judge ought not to be on the bench.'"

Will this philosophy cause a constitutional crisis? "The courts are forcing us to a constitutional crisis because of their arrogant overreach" Gingrich declared.

Newt's thoughts on this subject are not new he said--they go back many years.

As for the historical precedent of his philosophy, the former history professor cites several, including the one be brought up during the Sioux City debate--Thomas Jefferson dismissing 18 of 35 judges in 1802.

Gingrich has placed a target on the backs of activist judges.

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