News/Commentary

AOC wants Congress to limit Supreme Court’s power, says impeachment should be ‘on the table’

July 2, 2023 | | Print Article

Radical far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for Congress to limit the constitutionally granted powers of the Supreme Court.

Appearing on CNN this Sunday, she began by saying the high court’s decision to nix President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was wrong because “Congress has given the president [the] authority … to cancel student loans.”

“But, as we have seen, not just in what we saw ruled from the majority, but even in the minority dissent written around these cases, we have justices saying that the Supreme Court is going, themselves, much too far,” she continued.

“They are expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress itself. And that, I believe, is an expansion of power that we really must be focusing on, the danger of this court and the abuse of power in this court, particularly as it — particularly as it is related to the entanglements around conflicts of interest as well,” she added.

Listen:

Just to be clear, Congress has NOT given the president the authority to cancel student loans.

“When Congress created the several student loan programs, it gave the U.S. Department of Education supervisory authority over them—extending to matters such as how debts were to be guaranteed by third party banks and how disputes could be settled. Congress did not give authority to the department simply to write off the debt,” according to Chapman University professor of law and economics Tom Campbell.

Next, Ocasio-Cortez slammed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for his otherwise widely praised ruling.

The part that bothered her read as follows: “Justice [Ketanji Brown] Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth and well-being to label all blacks as victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me. It is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers. Their race is not to blame for everything, good or bad, that in their lives.”

The congresswoman felt like it was a personal attack on Brown.

“I mean, what Justice Clarence Thomas wrote there, I believe was profoundly disrespectful to his colleague. It includes sweeping assumptions about her world view, whereas, when you look at what the response was from Justice Ketanji Brown, we saw that her dissent was grounded in fact,” she said.

“It was grounded in the facts of the case. It did not disparage Clarence Thomas’ overall world view, but, as a matter of fact, a nuanced critique of his analysis of the fact of the case. But for him to come out and insinuate that her opinion is due to some sort of inferior or less than — less than really thought out of a stance, I think it’s profoundly insulting,” she added.

ADVERTISEMENT

Plenty of other people disagree:

Next, host Dana Bash asked the congresswoman whether she believes “the justices’ power should somehow be limited?”

“I truly do. And this is not a new development in history. This is part of our system of checks and balances. The courts, if they were to proceed without any check on their power, without any balance on their power, then we will start to see an undemocratic and, frankly, dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court,” she replied.

In fact, she continued, this alleged “dangerous authoritarian expansion of power in the Supreme Court” is already occurring.

ADVERTISEMENT

The evidence, she said, is in “what we are seeing now, from the overturning of abortion rights, to the ruling that discrimination and, frankly, stripping the full personhood and dignity of LGBTQ people in the United States.”

“This is — these are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep towards authoritarianism and centralization of power in the court. In fact, we have members of the court themselves, with Justice Elena Kagan, saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature,” she added.

Conservatives staunchly disagree and argue that the only reason leftists like Ocasio-Cortez are crying foul is because the high court didn’t rule in their favor.

Lastly, Ocasio-Cortez used recent smears of the high court’s conservative justices to call for Congress to investigate said justices.

“I believe that if Chief John Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas. We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of Congress — where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law,” she said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach, and abuse of power. And the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy,” she added.

Her ideas prompted backlash on social media:

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

$10
$15
$25
$50
Other
$
Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.
Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Latest Articles