Ted Cruz is telling the states who weren’t specifically named in last week’s Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage to just ignore it.
“The parties to a case cannot ignore a direct judicial order, but it does not mean that those who are not parties to a case are bound by a judicial order,” the Texas Senator and Presidential candidate said in an NPR interview.
“Those who are not parties” and are not bound to the order are all states except Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky, who were specifically named in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges last week.
Cruz, a former clerk for the Supreme Court, may have given technically legal advice for these states to ignore the ruling, but even so, “federal district and circuit courts are obligated to follow the Supreme Court’s precedent and overrule all other states’ same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional,” according to Politico.
The GOP presidential hopeful has been outspoken on his opinion of last week’s monumental ruling and the Supreme Court’s place in the judicial system. He has introduced legislation that would enforce “periodic retention elections” for each judge whose views Cruz believes are “radically out of step with public opinion.”
“It is not healthy for our democracy when judges on our Supreme Court are violating their judicial oath. And in both the Obamacare decision and the marriage decision, the justices decided that they wanted to re-write federal law and re-write the constitution. That’s not the way our Constitution operates, and, and it is a sad moment for the court when you have judges seizing authority that does not belong to them,” Cruz told NPR.
His stance on the same-sex marriage ruling is vastly different from his presidential opponent, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who recently said their party needs to accept the ruling and change their stance on the issue in order to stand a chance in 2016.
Cruz isn’t the only one in his state who has said that the ruling, in some cases, can be overstepped, but on a nation-wide scale is it yet to be seen if his advice will take.
