During the House Republican's weekly press briefing on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) spoke in support of legislation to limit federal courts.
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NewsTranscript
00:00To all of you, it's another busy week on Capitol Hill.
00:02Let me address these two very important pieces of legislation
00:05that are upon us, just give you a little more info,
00:07and then we'll take questions.
00:09I want to thank our great colleague from Kansas,
00:12former Attorney General.
00:13He knows that at which he speaks.
00:15And Congressman Schmidt gives a great voice to this.
00:19We're talking about this problem of rogue rulings.
00:22And the Democrats, our colleagues here,
00:25they talk all about the so-called constitutional
00:27crisis that they see around every tree.
00:30They don't like President Trump's policies,
00:32and so that's their catchphrase they use for everything.
00:35But there really is a constitutional crisis
00:37that's developing.
00:38It's not the one that the Democrats plan, though.
00:41Listen to these numbers, and we've shared them before.
00:4367% of all injunctions issued by district court judges
00:47against a president since the year 2000
00:50were issued against one man.
00:51His name is President Donald Trump.
00:5392% of those injunctions against the president
00:56were issued by Democrat-appointed judges.
00:59There's a problem.
01:00I mentioned before, I was a constitutional law litigator.
01:02Routinely, I've run into judges that I
01:04would describe as activists.
01:07But it was much more rare than it is now.
01:10And it's a problem that has been noted needs to be addressed.
01:14Under the existing framework, one singular district court
01:17judge out of 677 of them, anywhere in America,
01:21can subvert the will of the duly elected president
01:24carrying out his constitutional duties.
01:26And they're doing that.
01:27And so we've got to step into this.
01:30Despite the American people's wholesale rejection
01:32of Democrat ideas, the ballot box,
01:34you have activist judges who are abusing the system
01:36to legislate for the bench.
01:37That's effectively what an activist judge is.
01:41This is not how the system our founders designed
01:44is supposed to work.
01:45Under our Constitution, we have three equal branches
01:48of government, each with the ability
01:49to provide a check on the other.
01:51And we do have that authority.
01:54Democrats seem to have forgotten that.
01:57I mentioned it at a press conference or a gaggle.
02:00Maybe it was last week with all of you.
02:01I can't remember.
02:02There's so many of these.
02:03But somebody asked me repeatedly about impeachment.
02:07And they asked me about our authority
02:09under the Constitution.
02:11What authority do we have?
02:12Under Article III, the Congress is
02:14given the authority to determine, define, fund
02:18all lower courts.
02:20Only the Supreme Court has mentioned itself
02:22in the Constitution.
02:22And the lower courts are within the purview of the Congress.
02:26And I was asked, and I offered the answer, yes, yes.
02:30I mean, we could defund those courts.
02:32I wasn't saying, let me clarify, I wasn't
02:34saying that we're doing that.
02:36I was trying to describe what the Constitution says.
02:39But read it for yourselves.
02:40We have broad scope.
02:41We have all authority over those lower courts.
02:45We're not defunding courts.
02:47And we're not doing anything other than limiting.
02:50And this legislation, the ability of a judge
02:53to issue a nationwide injunction,
02:55because that is the problem that has gotten totally out
02:58of control.
02:59We need this check on the judiciary.
03:01I think we're going to prove that on the floor.
03:03One activist judge should not issue a nationwide injunction
03:06against the president's policies.
03:08And these district courts have to stay
03:11within their constitutional balance.
03:13The next act we talked about that will be on the floor
03:15is the SAVE Act.
03:16And we've been here and done this.
03:19We have to do it again, because we never got it
03:21through the Senate last time.
03:22But this is the second time in less than a year
03:25congressional Democrats will have the opportunity
03:27to do something that 87% of the American people
03:30demand that Congress does.
03:32Only US citizens should decide US elections.
03:35It is in federal law, but it is not always enforced.
03:38And you need further enforcement.
03:40Why?
03:40Because we have to make sure that the law is compliant.
03:44This will require a reasonable measure
03:47of having an ID to prove your citizenship.
03:52Democrats say it's already illegal to vote as a citizen,
03:55but that doesn't mean that you don't need further enforcement.
03:58We don't rely on the integrity of teenagers
04:00trying to purchase a six-pack at the liquor store, right?
04:04We require them to provide ID to prove they're old enough
04:07to make that purchase.
04:08We require ID for almost everything in society,
04:11and almost everybody has one.
04:13And we're just saying that this is a very simple common sense
04:16measure.
04:17States are far from even asking to verify citizenship status
04:22on voter registration forms currently.
04:24We have to fix that.
04:25And the states can't just rely on the integrity
04:28of the registrant.
04:29We need a safe voting system.
04:30So the SAVE Act closes that massive loophole
04:33and codifies President Trump's executive action
04:36to secure our voter registration process.
04:39It protects the voices of American voters.
04:41If we don't have free and fair and safe and secure elections,
04:45then we have nothing in a republic.
04:47And so that's where we're moving forward, and we'll see.