Fiorina Did Refer to SCOTUS Decision As “Law of the Land”

Carly Fiorina’s recent interview with Jan Mickelson on WHO Radio on Friday is getting some attention namely because of what she denied.

“Here in Iowa when you say Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land that sets us off because Iowans got bludgeoned by court decisions here, and we went through Civics 101 and we don’t accept propositions that court decisions are the law of the land,” Mickelson said.

“Actually, with all due respect Jan, I think that is a quote from someone else, not from me. I know there are many Republican candidates, Kasich among them, who have said those exact words, but there is no doubt, there is no doubt that we have a problem with our judiciary,” Fiorina responded.

MIckelson later circled back to the original question after she discussed the importance of appointing the right judges, “so you never said that?”

“I am not aware of having said that. I am aware of other candidates saying that. I think this probably came up with the recent decision on gay marriage. My comment on that was we must exert enormous energy towards protecting religious liberty in this country, and that means every state has to pass a religious freedom protection act. We have had those pass in many state, and I stood strong and defended Indiana when everybody was piling on Indiana, but it is clear we have to pass those laws at the state level, as well as, the federal level,” Fiorina said.

She did refer to a Supreme Court decision as “the law of the land,” and that comment was made in the context of the Supreme Court decision on marriage that at the time was still a month out from being released.

How do I know this?  She said it to me.

“I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land, and however much I may agree or disagree with it, I wouldn’t support an amendment to reserve it.  I very much hope that we would come to a place now in this nation where we can support their decision and at the same time support people to have, to hold religious views and to protect their right to exercise those views,” Fiorina told Caffeinated Thoughts after a Dallas County Republican event in May.

“I think this is a nation that should be able to accept that government shouldn’t discriminate  on how it provides benefits and that people have a right to their religious views and those views need to be protected.  We need to protect religious liberty in this country,” Fiorina added.

Now granted she said this before the Supreme Court ruled on marriage, but her statement is pretty clear. “I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land.” The way it was framed it appeared she believed that regardless of how the court ruled.

Mickelson’s question wasn’t about her opinion about whether she agreed with the ruling or not.  It’s about whether she believes the judicial branch is supreme.  She is asked a lot of questions and gives a lot of interviews so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she probably forgot.

That said she owes Jan Mickelson’s listeners some answers about her view of the judiciary.