Sarah Isgur > Quotes

“Politics is about outcomes. Law is about process. Or at least it should be. When one is a political operative, it’s actually easier to convince voters that the opposing candidate is evil than it is to tell them that he’s wrong.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“The Supreme Court is, in this sense, the last branch standing. It is certainly the only one of the three that our Founders would recognize.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“The First Amendment, for example, isn’t there to protect popular speech. It’s there to protect the unpopular speech of the minority from being censored by the majority.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“When we delegitimize the Court’s decisions—which is different from disagreeing with them or criticizing them—that legitimacy won’t just magically reappear when “our side” is in charge again.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“Judicial philosophy isn’t the same as partisan politics.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“The balance between rules and standards is one way we think about different legal philosophies and what constraints judges should have.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“I will often point out that the Court is supposed to be unpopular. If the majority of voters are in favor of a specific outcome, then the political process would be able to handle it. The Court’s real value is when it does the opposite. Its purpose is to say no to what the majority wants and to stand athwart fleeting popular movements.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court

“The constitutional rights we give people accused of the most heinous crimes—to confront witnesses, to have an attorney, to have an impartial jury—are to protect them from a majority blinded by their outrage.”
― Sarah Isgur, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court