GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a speech at the Conservative Convention in Greenville, S.C., on Thursday said the U.S. Supreme Court is “one justice away from a five-justice radical, left-wing majority, the likes of which this country’s never seen.”



“I have to say our very Bill of Rights hangs in the balance. We have right now an activist out of control Supreme Court, but we are one justice away from a five-justice radical, left-wing majority, the likes of which this country’s never seen,” Cruz said at the convention, hosted by the Conservative Review.





Cruz hailed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as “an American hero,” who was “a lion of the law” and loved the Constitution and freedom.



“Justice Scalia in three decades on the court changed the arc of American legal history, single handedly shifted the Constitution and the interpretation of it back to the original understanding, back to the text and words adopted by the framers,” Cruz said.



“As Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so too Justice Scalia was to the U.S. Supreme Court, and his passing leaves an enormous void on the court,” said Cruz.



“I have to say our very Bill of Rights hangs in the balance,” Cruz said. “We have right now an activist out of control Supreme Court, but we are one justice away from a five-justice radical, left-wing majority, the likes of which this country’s never seen.



Cruz said before joining the Senate, he was solicitor general of Texas, and as the chief lawyer for the state, he brought together a coalition of states before the Supreme Court to defend the federal ban on partial birth abortion and won the case by a 5-4 majority.



“That means there were four justices ready to strike it down,” he said.



“We are one liberal justice away from the Supreme Court striking down every meaningful restriction put on abortion over the last 40 years. We are one justice away from the Supreme Court mandating unlimited abortion on demand up until the point of delivery with taxpayer funding and no parental notification,” Cruz said.



“The most significant decision majority opinion of Justice Scalia’s tenure was the case of Heller vs. District of Columbia. I know Heller quite well, because I represented 31 states in Heller before the U.S. Supreme Court defending the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and we won 5-4. 5-4.” Cruz emphasized.

“We are one justice away, and what was the position of the dissenters?” he asked. “You know, the dissenters didn’t say that some gun control laws are occasionally permissible.



“Instead, what the dissenters said is that the 2nd Amendment does not protect any individual right whatsoever. They said it was merely a ‘collective right of the milita,’ which is essentially fancy lawyer talk for a nonexistent right,” Cruz said.



“One more liberal justice, and the Supreme Court will effectively write the 2nd Amendment out of the Constitution. It would mean that the government could ban firearms, and not a single person here would have any individual right to challenge that illegal ruling in court,” he added.



“Then there’s religious liberty. In Texas, we defended the Ten Commandments monument that stands on the state Capitol grounds. We went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we won 5-4. 5-4. We are one liberal justice away from the court mandating that Ten Commandment monuments be torn down in courthouses and city halls and public parks all over this country,” Cruz said.