[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7071]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY

  (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, over in Baghdad, we are attempting to 
establish a democracy which will require an independent judiciary. 
Iraqis will learn that to have a society of laws, you need an 
independent judiciary to enforce them. But here in Washington, D.C., we 
have a majority leader who is attempting to demagogue and abuse the 
independence of our American judicial system, to intimidate them to one 
particular ideological position.
  This is undemocratic, it is unhealthy, and it does not respect the 
democratic traditions that require an independent judiciary in this 
country. It is a case of an abuse of power and it needs to stop.
  We see today in the energy bill a provision to ignore the 
independence of the law to give immunity to a polluter. We need the 
majority leader of the U.S. House to understand that our freedoms come 
from an independent judiciary. The freedom of speech, the freedom of 
religion that would be taken away in one single moment from the U.S. 
Congress stands because of an independent judiciary.
  This arrogance and abuse of power needs to stop.

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