[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 112 (Monday, July 8, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S4217]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           U.S. Supreme Court

  Now, on another matter, last week, the Supreme Court concluded its 
term with a number of consequential decisions. Three of these rulings 
and the reactions they triggered on the left illustrate just how 
differently Republicans and Democrats view the Court's role.
  As I have explained before, Republicans want a government that is 
accountable to the people, as the Constitution prescribes. Democrats, 
on the other hand, want government that is insulated from the 
democratic process.
  Here is the Democratic ideal of how to govern: If Congress has not 
spoken on an issue, let unelected bureaucrats manipulate statutes, fill 
in the blanks, and make new law. Then, if anyone violates these new 
bureaucratic-made laws, let the bureaucrats take them to a bureaucratic 
court--not to a jury or a real judge, but to a kangaroo court of other 
bureaucrats who answer to still more bureaucrats.
  And, finally, if the President--the one actor in the executive branch 
who answers to the people--dares to interfere in this process in ways 
that bureaucrats don't like, let him face criminal charges from yet 
another group of bureaucrats.
  It is dystopian. It is something you find in the law books of the old 
Soviet Union.
  And the Supreme Court said they would have none of it. In what might 
be the most consequential decision in my time here, the Supreme Court 
held that bureaucrats do not get the benefit of the doubt when they 
write new laws.
  Congress writes laws, and the way the bureaucrats apply those laws is 
subject to a full judicial review. There is no ``get out of legislation 
free'' card, no Chevron deference--period.
  The Court also held that, when the Constitution says you have the 
right to a jury trial, it means just that. Just because bureaucrats 
decide to pursue someone for ruinous fines, they don't get to try the 
case themselves. When bureaucrats go after someone--potentially, for 
violating rules that Congress never even contemplated--the case has to 
go to a real, Senate-confirmed judge and a jury of one's peers.
  Lastly, the Court clarified something that careful readers of the 
Constitution have known forever: Bureaucrats can't criminally charge a 
President for his official actions. The Constitution vests in the 
President executive powers that cannot be circumscribed--not by 
Congress and not by inventive prosecutors.
  Democrats seem to want to turn Washington into The Hague. Their 
problem with the Supreme Court isn't that they won't be able to 
prosecute a President for unofficial criminal activities--because they 
still can. Their problem is that they won't be able to prosecute 
official actions that they don't like.
  Prominent Democrats seem to look at the successful criminalization of 
political disagreement in places like Europe and South America and 
think: They might just be onto something.
  It is not hard to imagine what is coming. We have already seen hints 
in the reports of the inspector general investigating entirely 
appropriate conduct by Attorney General Barr that Democrats simply 
disagree with.
  But why should Democrats stop there? As the Chief Justice explained, 
``without immunity . . . prosecutions of ex-Presidents could quickly 
become routine. The enfeebling of the Presidency and our Government 
that would result from such a cycle of factional strife is exactly what 
the Framers intended to avoid.''
  I certainly agree. The people elect the President. He is responsible 
to them for his official conduct, not to bureaucrats with law licenses.
  So we are not just talking about two sorts of reactions to the 
Supreme Court's latest rulings. We are talking about two very different 
visions of America: a Democratic vision in which bureaucrats decide our 
policy disputes and have the power to punish those elected officials 
who dare--dare--to disagree, and a constitutional vision in which 
policy is entrusted broadly to the people through representative 
democracy.
  Suffice it to say that Republicans prefer the latter.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Iowa.