Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said on "Fox News Sunday" that there are too many federal laws on the books in the United States and that the sheer amount of laws "impair" Americans' freedoms.
Host Shannon Bream said, “I think it will be eye opening to the American people, the idea that so pretty much of our conduct is over regulated and over criminalized many cases. Apparently you and are committing felonies every day without possibly even knowing it.”
Gorsuch answered, “I think that might be true. Some professors say there are now so many federal laws on the books that every American over the age of 18 commits one felony a day. That’s happened in my lifetime."
Gorsuch pointed out that from "1970 to the present we’ve seen maybe a doubling the number of federal crimes on the books. And this just counts within the U.S. code passed by Congress and the tip of the iceberg because federal agencies have been busy.”
Gorsuch just released a new book "Overruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law," which explains in greater detail the impact of having too many laws.
He said, “On the one hand we need laws to keep us free and safe, on the other hand, if you have too many laws you impair the same freedoms and our aspirations for equality too are because who can deal with a world with so much law?”
Gorsuch suggested, in the words of James Madison, that only people with money and connections would be able to do so.
Gorsuch said, “As a judge for 18 years, I just came to see him case after case in which ordinary Americans just trying to live their lives, raise their families are just getting whacked by laws unexpectedly.”
As an example, he pointed to the IRS hotline, which was found to give wrong answers to tax questions about a third of the time. When asked why it did so, officials said it was because the tax code was so complex.
Rather than settling everything in the courts or relying on courts to determine the rules for society, Gorsuch pointed to trust between people as an important part of being able to act fairly and get things done independently of the courts.
Disagreements coupled with a lack of trust lead to division and that leads to people running to the courts to settle their differences, he said.
In situations where court intervention might be required, Gorsuch said the Constitution is the decider.
He advocated "listening as much as talking" and "trusting the person with whom you disagree loves his country as much as you do."
That would be nice to see in this country right now.
