By David Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich says as president he would ignore Supreme Court decisions that conflict with his powers as commander in chief, and he would press for impeaching judges or even abolishing certain courts if he disagreed with their rulings.
“I’m fed up with elitist judges” who seek to impose their “radically un-American” views, Gingrich said Saturday during a conference call with reporters.
In recent weeks, the Republican presidential contender has been telling conservative audiences he is determined to expose the myth of “judicial supremacy” and restrain judges to a more limited role in American government. “The courts have become grotesquely dictatorial and far too powerful,” he said in Thursday’s Iowa debate.
As a historian, Gingrich said, he knows that President Thomas Jefferson abolished some judgeships and President Abraham Lincoln made it clear that he did not accept the Dred Scott decision denying that former slaves could become citizens.
Relying on those precedents, Gingrich said that if he were in the White House, he would not feel compelled to always follow the Supreme Court’s decisions on constitutional questions. As an example, he cited the court’s 5-4 decision in 2008 that held that prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had a right to challenge their detention before a judge.
“That was clearly an overreach by the court,” Gingrich said Saturday. The president as commander in chief has the power to control prisoners during wartime, making the court’s decision “null and void,” he said.
But the former House Speaker demurred when asked whether President Barack Obama could ignore a high court ruling next year if it declares that the new health-care law, with its mandate that all Americans have health insurance by 2014, is unconstitutional. Gingrich said presidents could ignore court rulings only in “extraordinary” situations.
On his website, Gingrich spelled out his views on courts.
Gingrich also said that as president he might ignore a Supreme Court ruling if it held that gays and lesbians have the right to marry.
Though his critique of the courts has been popular on the right, even some conservatives object to Gingrich’s proposals for abolishing courts or impeaching judges over their decisions.
Conservative legal analyst Edward Whelan called the proposal for abolishing judgeships “constitutionally unsound and politically foolish.”
