Rep. Steube to Newsmax: Protests Shouldn’t Happen at Justices’ Homes
It’s one thing for pro-choice protesters to gather in the public square in front of the Supreme Court to speak out about the leaked draft of a potential ruling overruling the Roe v. Wade decision, but such protests should not be happening at the justices’ private homes like those this weekend at the residences of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Rep. Greg Steube said on Newsmax Monday.
“You know if the role if the situation was reversed, and there was a bunch of conservatives outside the homes of liberal justices protesting, the D.C. Metro Police would be shutting them down and kicking them out,” the Florida Republican said on Newsmax’s “John Bachman Now.”
But the far left, Steube said, “can do whatever they want with violent protests,” such as when Black Lives Matter protesters attacked federal courthouses in the summer of 2020.
“Yet when conservatives simply walk into the Capitol, they’re in solitary confinement, and we call them domestic terrorists,” he said, referring to the Jan. 6, 2021 protests during President Joe Biden’s electoral college certifications. “It’s quite the divide right now of the political machinations in our country, where Democrats call for this type of behavior from the left, but when conservatives are just speaking out peacefully, they’re called domestic terrorists.”
Steube also rejected Democrat lawmakers’ arguments that Kavanaugh and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by former President Donald Trump, were lying when they did not promise during their confirmation hearings to keep Roe v. Wade in place.
“It’s nothing like perjury, and they’re prohibited from saying specifically how they would rule on a specific case because of judicial, judicial canons and judicial ethics,” said Steube. “They’re not allowed to say how they would rule on Roe v. Wade because it’s a case that will likely come before them, so they absolutely did not lie under oath.”
Such comments represent “the left trying to perpetrate violence and trying to perpetuate hatred against justices who are just doing what they believe is constitutionally correct to do,” Steube said. “Congress has never said that you have a right to abort a living child. That’s never the law of the land. Roe v. Wade was court-made law, and if it is overturned and pushed to the states for the states to have their elected officials to determine what is best as it relates to abortion, that is absolutely the function of the states and the function of the Constitution.”
Steube also disputed poll numbers showing Americans are in favor of keeping Roe v. Wade, commenting that the “real numbers” are that 80% of Americans “don’t believe a woman should have an abortion after the third trimester of her pregnancy and that over 53% support banning abortions after 15 weeks when the child can feel pain and has a fetal heartbeat.”
“There’s a ton of polls out there that support the pro-life movement and the majority of Americans support pro-life restrictions on abortion,” he said. “Again, the states should have the right with their elected officials and the elected officials who have been elected by the people to represent their views to make this determination and not a court.”
Steube said he disagrees with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has hinted that there could potentially be a federal ban on abortion if the leaked SCOTUS opinion should become final.
“I think it should be the states’ decision,” said Steube. “[They] should determine for themselves what the laws are going to be as it relates to abortion in their states. It should absolutely be a state issue. It should not be a federal issue.”
