Marriage Protection Act of 2004

MARRIAGE PROTECTION ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2004)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 734, I call up the bill (H.R. 3313) to amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the drastic and shortsighted measure to strip courts of their authority to review the Constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. This is a very clear and easy vote for me, but in no way does that make it insignificant. To the contrary, this is the most important civil rights vote of the year. Congress has not passed a federal court stripping measure since 1868, though it has been attempted on nearly every hot button issue in the past 50 years (prompted by Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Loving v. Virginia, and others), always with the premise of the need to "limit activist judges."

Republicans are trying to undermine the legitimacy of these justices because they are not elected. The founders deliberately created an unelected body that would not have to make the political calculations that the President and Members of Congress need to consider in our controversial decisions. Justices are, by design, removed from the political or electoral process to serve lifetime appointments where they can make independent decisions. Naturally, these decisions often come before the public is quite ready for them. Such was the case with the prohibition of interracial marriage. In 1967, the Supreme Court stated that such a prohibition would "deprive ..... liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." We now look back on the prohibition of interracial marriage as abhorrent and appreciate the court's decision in Loving v. Virginia in helping us reach this realization.

This bill is not about marriage, as the title claims. This bill is about denying a day in court for an entire class of Americans. This is a question of fairness, equality, and social justice. We cannot, in the interest of fairness to all, exclude selected groups of Americans from enjoying equal protection under the law. Furthermore, court stripping is blatantly unconstitutional. It violates the separation of powers, due process, and equal protection clauses in our Constitution.

If you think this is an easy vote because it will never pass constitutional muster to become law, I remind you of the oath we all took the day we were sworn into office. Every single one of us has sworn to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." A vote in favor of this bill is an attack on the very document that we have sworn to defend.

This body is not at liberty to pick and choose which of the laws we pass should be subject to judicial review. The founders created three equal branches of government, a true system of checks and balances that has served us well for over 200 years. The power of one should not outweigh the other or the system will be fundamentally undermined.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this measure to condone discrimination, undermine the Constitution, and disrupt the democratic process.