Senator Cruz thinks states should ignore SCOTUS’ same-sex marriage ruling

Presidential hopeful and Canadian-born Senator Ted Cruz, has been quite the unhappy camper since the Supreme Court gave the O.K. to same-sex marriage last week.

Following the court’s landmark decision, Sen. Cruz stated that states not explicitly mentioned by SCOTUS can simply ignore the ruling.

“The parties to a case cannot ignore a direct judicial order, but it does not mean that those who are not parties to a case are bound by a judicial order,” Cruz told NPR’s Steve Inskeep.

Okay, Ted.

The caveat is that Cruz is not technically wrong, as Politico points out:

“While Cruz’s statement may be technically true, federal district and circuit courts are obligated to follow the Supreme Court’s precedent and overrule all other states’ same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional.”

Cruz didn’t stop there though, and continued to bring up a novel idea: a constitutional amendment to place judicial retention elections on Supreme Court Justices.

“This [amendment] would make members of the Supreme Court subject to periodic judicial retention elections,” he said. “As a very real check, 20 states have retention elections they’ve put in place, if judges overstep their bounds, violate the constitution, then the people have a check to remove them from office.”

Cruz’s remarks are likely aimed to separate himself from the pack of other Republicans who hope to take the White House in 2016 — a pack he says who have been celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision and are part of “the Washington cartel,”

“The court follows elite opinion, not public opinion,” Cruz said. “Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress follow elite opinion as well. It’s what I’ve called ‘the Washington cartel.’ It’s all — it is career politicians in both parties. It is lobbyists and giant corporations.”

Matt Lee is a Web producer for Metro New York. He writes about almost everything and anything. Talk to him (or yell at him) on Twitter so he doesn’t feel lonely @mattlee2669 .