Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is Worried About The Explosion of Laws in America

By: Stephanie Bontorin | Published: Aug 15, 2024

In a new book by Supreme Court Associate Neil Gorsuch, he discusses the explosion of laws in America and why he thinks that they are fuelling red tape bureaucracy.

The book is called “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” and was co-written by Janie Nitze. The authors hope to shed light on the sheer volume of cases being passed through courts right now and how they are affecting the lives and freedoms of everyday people.

Who Is Neil Gorsuch?

Neil Gorsuch is a jurist who serves as an associate justice at the Supreme Court of the United States. President Donald Trump originally selected him in early 2017.

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A photograph of Justice Neil Gorsuch standing beside Donald Trump

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He is also an accomplished lawyer, holding degrees from Oxford and Harvard Law School. Gorsuch is a proponent of constitutional originalism, which means that he interprets laws and cases while always remembering the Constitution’s original meaning.

Laws Can Be Helpful

Gorsuch notes early in the book that there is a place and a time for certain laws in the country. He says of them that,  “some law is essential to our lives and our freedoms.”

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Supreme Court

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However, he also notes that “too much law” can put undue restrictions on freedoms “risk and even undermine respect for law itself.”

Praise for the Book

The new book was published on August 6 and is already on the bestseller list on Amazon.

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The book contains a selection of real stories of people who have gotten caught living their lives and going about their business in the rotten business of “too much law.” Gorsuch says that there are a group of people who have had their lives ruined because of “our multitude of statutes, rules, regulations, orders, edicts and decrees.”

Not Much of a Solution

As a judge, it is his job to apply the law to various cases and hand out a fair ruling. However, he thinks that there is an unfairness lurking in the legal system by the sheer amount of laws that tie up the hands of many judges and lawyers.

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Gorsuch also thinks that there is “not much” a person in his position can do. Even for a Supreme Court Justice to overturn a law, there would need to be a lawsuit brought before them and ample legal evidence to use.

A Separate System for the Rich

The book quickly points out that there is a separate system for wealthy people in the country. For some, they can buy their way out of trouble using expensive lawyers or even connections with judges.

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However, the authors do not go into detail about how they would like to dismantle this unofficial two-tiered system.

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Is the Legal System Broken?

Gorsuch recounts in the book that,  “we now have so many federal criminal laws covering so many things that one scholar suggests that ‘there is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime.”

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It begs the question, are they suggesting that completely mundane everyday tasks have become illegal? Or does the legal system not account only for crime?

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Personal Freedom Infringement

There are, according to the book, some cases of personal freedom infringement that have come about from too many laws.

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The examples that he uses serve to highlight some ridiculous and unbelievable examples of some laws still on the books.

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Early American Crimes

There are plenty of examples of odd crimes on the books. For example, many people who hail from small towns settled more than 200 years ago will tell you that their town had some odd rule about walking on the side walk on certain days, not wearing a hoodie in public, or singing the alphabet late at night in Topeka, Kansas.

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Gorsuch uses the example of a federal crime on the books that seems completely ridiculous: selling a mattress without a warning label.

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Laws Can Keep the Public Safe

When using the example of selling a mattress without a warning label, the law took effect to protect the mattress industry and related salespeople.

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The law has enshrined certain rules that protect businesses. For example, if a person hurts themselves on a mattress, the warning label protects the maker or seller of the mattress from being legally responsible for misuse of the item.

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He Took Aim at the Covid-19 Pandemic

Gorsuch also notes that big events are another reason for people to slip new laws into the legislature.

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He says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, “the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration … asserted the authority to issue a mandate requiring some 84 million Americans to mask and test at their own expense or take newly developed vaccines rushed to market in something called Operation Warp Speed.”

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Moving Forward

Despite all of the negatives that he points out in the book, he also shares a message of optimism.

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In moving forward, he says that there should be “a rule of law designed to ensure fair notice, equal treatment, and room for individual flourishing” — and asserts that he would “never bet against the American people.”

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