Politics & Power Quote by Ernest Istook

“Out of control judicial activism” is less a description than a weaponized diagnosis: a way to frame courts as rogue actors who’ve slipped their constitutional leash. Istook, speaking as a politician, isn’t arguing a case so much as building a permission structure for voters to distrust judges preemptively. The phrase “out of control” does the heavy lifting. It bypasses legal nuance and lands in the gut, summoning an image of unelected elites overriding the public will.

The target, “traditional marriage,” is equally strategic. It sounds like a neutral inheritance, not a contested institution historically shaped by law, religion, and politics. Calling it “traditional” implies that change is not just policy disagreement but cultural vandalism. The subtext is triage: if courts can redefine marriage, then no boundary feels safe, and the electorate is invited to see itself under siege.

Context matters. Istook’s career sits squarely in the era when same-sex marriage shifted from fringe debate to mainstream constitutional question, and when conservatives sharpened “judicial activism” into a catch-all for decisions they disliked (often on civil rights). The line is doing coalition work: it stitches together social conservatives, federalism hawks, and anti-elite populists under one alarm bell.

Its intent is mobilization, not persuasion: turn a complex legal evolution into an emergency, and you can justify extraordinary countermeasures - constitutional amendments, judicial appointments, or stripping courts of jurisdiction - while casting opponents as enemies of “America,” not just adversaries in a policy fight.