Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said President Joe Biden's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court should have "humility" and that the justice should not be "a philosopher-king."
The Republican governor's remarks come after Associate Justice Stephen Breyer formally announced he would retire from the nation's highest court this week, giving Biden the opportunity to nominate his successor.
DeSantis is widely considered a strong contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—a fact that adds weight to his views about appointments to the Court.
"When you're dealing with picks for the Supreme Court, you want people who are going to be faithful to the law and the Constitution, and understand how our constitutional system was designed to have separate powers," DeSantis said on Friday.
"The job of the judicial branch is to apply the law and Constitution," the governor said.
"It's not to rewrite the law and Constitution. And I think that judges that understand that, you know, you have to have a certain amount of humility to understand the proper role," he added.
"Doesn't mean you can't be active in deciding cases properly before you, and if you have to come down on the constitutional side, you have to do it and do it forcefully," DeSantis said. "But you're not a philosopher king, and you're not hovering over the entire political system and basically being a super legislator."
Though DeSantis will play no role in the confirmation process for the new Supreme Court justice, his comments may be an indication of how he would act if he were in a position to nominate one.
The governor is seen as a potentially viable presidential candidate in 2024, though polls have consistently shown that Republicans prefer former President Donald Trump to be the nominee.
Trump and DeSantis have also been the subject of a slew of recent news reports about a "feud" between the men after the former president appeared to criticize DeSantis as "gutless" for not revealing whether he had received a COVID-19 booster shot.
DeSantis has said he regrets not being more vocal in in opposing the Trump administration's stay-at-home measures at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 but both sides have denied there is any animosity between them and blamed the media for speculation about a dispute.
President Biden has said he will nominate a Black woman to succeed Breyer, fulfilling a commitment he made during the 2020 presidential campaign. Breyer was appointed to the Court by then President Bill Clinton in 1994 and is the most senior member of its liberal wing.
Biden's appointee will maintain the current balance of power on the Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
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