Justice Scalia is talking to the press again
It’s always interesting to hear any of the Supreme Court justices express their thoughts and explain their judicial philosophy when they do interviews. And that’s been happening more in the past couple of years than I can ever recall at any other time. The Court is speaking out more, especially when individual justices write books and promote them. That’s the case now with Justice Antonin Scalia’s new book coming out, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges (intriguing titile).
He’s on 60 Minutes this week, speaking his mind.
People who believe the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision giving the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush was politically motivated should just get over it, says Justice Antonin Scalia…
“I say nonsense,” Scalia responds to Stahl’s observation that people say the Supreme Court’s decision in Gore v. Bush was based on politics and not justice. “Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two,” he says, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision that the Supreme Court of Florida’s method for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.
Furthermore, says the outspoken conservative justice, it was Al Gore who ultimately put the issue into the courts. “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question…. We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts,'” says Scalia. “What are we supposed to say — ‘Not important enough?'” he jokes.
On abortion, the conservative justice says he’s not biased, in his trademark point blank manner.
“I am a law-and-order guy…On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were…trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion.”
“And you’re against that?” asks Stahl. “Of course. There’s nothing [in the Constitution to support that view].”
There was nothing in the Constitution to support the right to define life and end it at will, either. But Roe as bad law is another story…