Bobby Jindal Jabs at Establishment Republicans

(Waukee, IA) Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is back in Iowa this week for a series of town hall meetings sponsored by Believe Again, a Super PAC that is supportive of Jindal’s presidential campaign. He stopped in Waukee, IA on Tuesday night.  Approximately 150 people attended with people spilling out into the hallway as the meeting room at the Waukee Community Center was packed.

He started out addressing problems with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton, but later pivoted to the Supreme Court and the problems establishment Republicans have been complicit in causing.

“We are right now on the path toward socialism,” Jindal warned the group.  “President Obama, Secretary Clinton are trying to turn the American dream into the European nightmare.  It’s not too late to stop them, but the hour is late.”

Jindal stated that one of the most dangerous things President Obama has done is trying to redefine the American dream noting the national debt, Obamacare, and the president’s “failed foreign policy” things Jindal noted that can be undone.

He pointed out recent news about Greece and Puerto Rico.  “That’s going to be the United States and there will be nobody to bail us out,” Jindal said.

“When I hear this president talk about redistribution, when I hear this president divide us by class, by gender, by geography, when I hear him talk about government dependence, borrowing and spending that is not the American dream our parents taught us,” Jindal added.

He made his case why he should be the candidate Iowans should caucus for.

“I know there are a lot of people running for President.  A lot of them will come and say the right things, but we need a doer, not a talker.  We already have a talker in the White House.  If talk is all we needed we would be on easy street, we would be doing great.  We have had a first term Senator who has never run anything.  Look, every Republican will come in here and tell you I am opposed to Common Core, I’ll shrink the government and I am going to privatize this and I am going to fight for school choice. I am not just talking about those things, but we have done those things in Louisiana,” Jindal stated later noting cutting the budget by 26%, reducing the state employee numbers by 30,000, Louisiana becoming a top 10 state for private sector growth and bringing universal school choice to the state.

He criticized the Supreme Court rulings last week on Obamacare and marriage.

“The first part of the week we learned that apparently words no longer have meaning. All you parents tell your kids that ‘I guess the dictionary just doesn’t matter any more.’  That is what Scalia said in the Obamacare ruling.  Later in the week Roberts tells us, ‘I guess this really has nothing to do with the Constitution.’ The Supreme Court decides they are going to be a public opinion poll measure instead of a court and decides to change the definition of marriage,” Jindal said.

He pivoted to attack establishment Republicans in DC happy with the ruling.

“Here is a dirty little secret, there are Republicans in DC who are happy with this ruling. They don’t want to have to do the hard work of repealing and replacing Obamacare. They view marriage and religious liberty as distractions. They want to get this issues off the table. Only in DC would losing be a good thing. I think it is ridiculous, I think it is time for the Republican party to stand for our own principles,” Jindal stated.

“Jeb said you have to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the election,” Jindal added with the group responding with boos.  “I want to translate that for you, do you know what that really means?  That means we need to get the left and the media to like us.  Nonsense.  We don’t need a second liberal party.  We don’t need to be cheaper Democrats.  I’ve got a novel idea.  Why don’t we try fighting for our own principles for a change?”

Jindal said unlike Obama and Clinton his views on marriage are not evolving.  “To me a marriage will always be between a man and a woman.  An earthly court can’t change that.  I certainly support federal efforts to give us back our 10th Amendment rights to the states.  I also support federal efforts to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. But make no mistake about it.  The left isn’t satisfied taking away our 10th Amendment rights, now they are going after our 1st Amendment rights,” Jindal stated.

Jindal noted that Louisiana passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act and that he signed an executive order defending individuals and businesses from the state penalizing them for having a religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. He noted that the ACLU has sued him over that.

He also said his administration sent a letter to all of the state employees reminding them of their First Amendment rights.

He criticized Clinton for saying that those who are pro-life need to change their religious views.  “My religious beliefs are not between me and Hillary Clinton. They are between me and God and I am not changing them even if it makes her unhappy, or the New York Times unhappy, or the ACLU unhappy.  I will say this slowly so even Hillary can understand this – the United States did not create religious liberty, religious liberty created the United States of America,” he said.

During the question and answer period that lasted over 40 minutes he criticized establishment Republicans again.  He noted structural changes are needed in DC he said, “We have got to cut our government and grow our (private sector) way to prosperity. We have sent Republicans to DC before and nothing seems to change. No Child Left Behind – that was a Republican Congress and a Republican White House.”

“Look this is a very back-ended compliment, but Obama had the House and Senate for two years and the White House two years, and he got Obamacare done.  We had the White House, the House and the Senate for six years and what did we get done?  No Child Left Behind, really?  That doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me,” he added.  “We’ve tried the Republican majority, we’ve tried and yet it seems like spending slows a little bit, but it still grows.”

Jindal says he wants to see a balanced budget amendment and term limits, similar to what they have in Louisiana, at the federal level.  Jindal promised to shrink government, not just slow its growth rate, as well as, shrink the number of bureaucrats in DC.

“It is going to take structural changes otherwise what’s going to happen, even with a Republican majority in the future we’ll just go right back to our spending ways.  I would love to say, ‘if we just had more Republicans,’ we have had a Republican majority in the House and the Senate who told us they were going to get rid of illegal amnesty. They told us they were going to repeal Obamacare. They told us they were going to shrink the size of the government. It doesn’t happen until we force them,” Jindal stated.

He noted that he was able to bring about change in Louisiana initially with the legislature having a Democratic majority.  He said they realized they didn’t have a choice but to cut spending.  He said that is why structural change is needed.

Jindal also addressed the Supreme Court again in response to a question he received, and spent a lot of time discussion his view of the judiciary.

Just this last week they decided they can just write the law. Let’s be honest with Obamacare this is the second time, the first time both the plaintiffs and the defendants said ‘it is not a tax, it is not a tax, it is not a tax.’ John Roberts said, ‘oh it is a tax’ so he saved the law.  So he actually said something that neither side said. If he listened to both sides he would have to throw it out as unconstitutional. The second time you’ve got the court saying ‘the state, federal government – same thing, they didn’t really mean what they wrote.’ There was this funny columnist that asked, ‘does this mean that HHS gets two Senators and a Congressman since they are now a state apparently.’ The Federal government is now a state, do they get representation as well?

My concern is that the Court is undermining people’s respect.  Look it’s one thing to disagree with a court decision, that’s going to happen, but if we lose confidence in the Court’s ability to do its constitutional role that’s a real problem for the Republic.  That is what really worries me about the way they made these rulings. The Constitution does say, Congress has got the right, they can go.  The Justices are appointed for life, but there are avenues available to the Congress to sanction and to even impeach, to go after the Court when they are not fulfilling their constitutional roles.

I don’t say that lightly.  I don’t say that you do that simply because you disagree with a ruling or simply because it may be a unpopular ruling.  But in the case that you said (referring to the original questioner) if the Court says we are going to start to confiscate arms from law-abiding citizens they truly just negate a explicit 2nd Amendment right at some point the checks and balances work both ways.  At some point the legislative branch has an obligation to say to the Courts, ‘wait a minute, the bill of rights means something in this country and the founding fathers.

If you don’t like the laws, then change the laws, but that doesn’t mean you just ignore the laws.  So there are avenues available to us that the founding fathers anticipated.  Those are extreme options, I don’t say that casually, I don’t say that lightly, I don’t say it cavalierly, I am not suggesting just when we disagree with them that we exercise those options, but the Courts rulings have got to be rooted in the Constitution.

Jindal expressed frustration about how Republicans have handled judicial nominations in the past.

The President should be nominating justices that read and follow the Constitution. You know what is frustrating to me? It is always the Republicans who nominate justices who end up flipping. When is the last time a liberal justice woke and decided he was a conservative?  So we get Souter, he doesn’t even pretend, he is a liberal from the first day. Then we get Kennedy and then we get Roberts.

Here is the problem, Republicans are too scared. So when we nominate judges, it’s ‘well we don’t want them to have a record. They can’t have ruled or written down anything because they won’t get confirmed. When the Democrats nominate somebody the Republicans feel obligated to vote for them. ‘Well we may not agree, but out of professional blah, blah, blah… they know all the right people, they went to all the right schools… we are going to vote for them.’ Well that’s nonsense.  Obama didn’t vote for Roberts and Roberts has done more to save his law and legacy than anyone I know. Obama himself wouldn’t confirm him so I think we need presidents with backbones.

Why not nominate some judges that have actually written some articles and made some rulings and say ‘you know what he is somebody who knows how to read the Constitution, here is a woman who understands the role of the court like a Scalia, like a Alito, not like a Roberts’?  Roberts I’ll have to give you this, he’s a great politician, but that isn’t what he is supposed to be.  So I think the real answer for the next President, and I think the next President will have an opportunity to name some judges, I want to see a Republican who is unafraid to say ‘yeah he is conservative, yeah she’s a conservative, yeah they have written these things and made these rulings’….

Right now we pretend, ‘oh I am going to find a justice that I don’t really know if they know anything about the constitution.’  What is wrong with saying I want a justice who will read the Constitution?  They don’t have to commit to me what they would do in a specific case, that would be wrong, but say they are going to read the Constitution, they are not going to make things up, they are not going to make law, they understand the role of the court. Liberals, the Democrats, don’t seem to have any problem getting their justices confirmed who agree with their views.  What is wrong with us standing up for our views and saying we want a justice who will actually read the Constitution.

Watch Jindal’s remarks here or below:

Watch Jindal’s Q&A time with voters here or below: