what do you think that an electorate created a court that you liked better. it means you would have the same appointments the same confirmation but every eight years the people would have an up or down vote what if they bounced out alito and thomas and we had a president obama in the white house? well i can tell you that 20 states put in place judicial retention elections. and they have worked. the people have used them sparingly, but the alternative, who in their right mind would design a system where every major public policy decision of the day is decided not by the people not by the constitution not by elected representatives, but by nine elite lawyers in washington, d.c. as justice scalia learned, all nine of them they either graduated from harvard or yale,
folks of their religious liberty rights in louisiana. i don t think people should be forced to participate in a wedding ceremony that violates their beliefs. our agencies have no choice but to follow the court s ruling. i don t view this as a distraction. i view this as a core principle, something we believe in. you would favor retention elections that is making justices every eight years after their second national election stand for reelection. would you favor that or would you favor what teddy roosevelt favored in 1912, which was having public referenda not just on judges but public officials? i think we should appoint justices that read the constitution. you had justices where words no
get for life right now. so is it time to revisit it and maybe have occasional retention elections for these guys and gals? i m totally sympathetic with the idea of trying to find ways to bring more accountability in. history proves that it doesn t do that. there s over 99% approval rate. and i m afraid that having something like that would just distract from the real accountability which is that the president has to appoint good jurists who have a proven track record of standing up for judicious principles and the senate has to approve them. we don t want to give them an excuse to go easy on that because they think the people can correct it with an election later anyway. professor foley, if they did have these retention elections, you know how it works. just about a year or two before somebody is up for re-election they ll vote the way the american people according to polls, want. otherwise they re out of work. yeah i think that s possible and you certainly don t want supreme cou
on states rights. well the people in the states should be making these decisions. this takes away that argument across the board. so where does this leave the republicans constitutionally at this point? they are somewhat at a cross- cross-roads. what are they going to resort? to? now they want to hold retention elections for the supreme court. we see efforts in the state of north carolina to tell public officials, not pastors, not private business owners but public employees that they can opt out of issuing marriage licenses if they have religious objections to doing so. we saw the attorney general of the state of texas just issue an opinion yesterday that suggested that public employees can single out same-sex couples and refuse to provide services just to them if they have religious
morning. good morning. professor foley, let s start with you, so the idea of these retention elections are and, in fact, ted cruz detailed it this way. with every justice beginning with that second national election and after his or her appointment will answer to the american people and to the states with a retention election every eight years. professor foley, is this a good idea? well you know i m not particularly wedded to this proposal although i think it s an intriguing one and it certainly is worth considering. conservatives in particular need to be open-minded to these sorts of supreme court reform proposals like senator cruz s because essentially we have supreme court justices now who are acting like politicians in robes, and we node to find ways to make them more politically accountable to the people. and they aren t accountable because these are jobs that they