WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) -- Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is calling on the U.S. Congress to exercise its constitutional control over the federal judiciary.
In a taped speech played Thursday for participants at a conference titled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," DeLay said, "Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy," The New York Times reported. DeLay said decisions such as abortion rights and bans on prayer in schools come from "a judiciary run amok."
DeLay earlier, speaking of judges who would not intervene to his liking in the Terri Schiavo case, said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."
Some members of the judiciary -- including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- have criticized efforts to make judges bend to Congress's will.
But DeLay says it is within Congress's duties to act.
"The failure (regarding the judiciary) is to a great degree Congress's," DeLay said in Thursday's speech. "The response of the legislative branch has mostly been to complain. There is another way, ladies and gentlemen, and that is to reassert our constitutional authority over the courts."
