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But the Supreme Court does not make sweeping changes in constitutional law by accident, or by its own design. Rather, the Court is limited to deciding the cases that the parties ask the Court to decide.

A judge's role is to ensure that the legislature remains within the limits of its assigned authority under the Constitution. Judges have no authority to second-guess the wisdom of the value judgments and policy choices the legislature has made.

Judges should interpret the laws according to what they say, not according to what the judges wish they would say. Judges are supposed to interpret the laws; they are not supposed to make them.

You let Congress make the laws. You work with the Congress as the president to make sure that those laws are accurate and to the best of our ability, but you don't turn it over to the federal judges to make those laws.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture.

A law is a law, and it has to be respected.

Our role as judges is to interpret the law.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.