Scalia tells FAU student: 'That's a nasty, impolite question.'

South Florida Sun Sentinel ^ | February 3, 2009 | Brian Haas

[presidio9]

In a room filled with some of Palm Beach County's most powerful people, it took a 20-year-old political science student to throw off U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Tuesday afternoon.

Student Sarah Jeck stood in front of 750 people and asked Scalia why cameras are not allowed in the U.S. Supreme Court even though the court hearings are open, transcripts are available and the court's justices are open enough to go "out on book tours." Scalia was at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in part to do a book signing and wasn't happy at the question.

"Read the next question," Scalia replied. "That's a nasty, impolite question."

Scalia's trademark mixture of humor, confidence and combativeness was on full display Tuesday at a luncheon put on by the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association.

In a half-hour speech, he described the division on the nation's highest court, not between liberal and conservative, but how the justices view the U.S. Constitution. More than 750 people packed the luncheon, including judges, politicians and prominent local attorneys, to listen to a man admired as fervently as he is maligned. In the back corner, sat Jeck and her Florida Atlantic University classmates, excited to hear Scalia speak.

His speech centered on two main schools of thought on constitutional law:

[Ditto]

The only legitimate reason I can think of for prohibition of cameras is to prevent lawyers from playing to them ...

Or the judges. Remember Lance Ito?

[Moonman62]

So what this means is that Scalia has an excellent crap detector.

[deannadurbin]

Obviously a sense of humor is anathema to you. Sure you aren’t a lib? They usually lack it. :)

[trisham]

Scalia is very activist with regard to the 4th Amendment. Some of his justifications on 4th Amendment rulings have been ridiculous, bordering on the absurd.

********************

Scalia, in fact, is an originalist and not an activist. Thomas is also considered an originalist. If you have something you can cite that refutes this, I'd like to see it.

[trisham]

Obviously your mind is in the gutter. Exactly what one expects from a liberal.

[deannadurbin]

Married sex is in the gutter?

YOU must be the one with the mind in the gutter, liberal.

:)

[trisham]

His personal is none of your business. Perhaps you should concentrate on your own life. I suspect it needs attention.

[deannadurbin]

No, it doesn’t, liberal. I have 5 kids and my spouse and I are more in love than when we first met. :)

You on the other hand are filled with poison and anger and bitterness and can’t even take a lighthearted jest about married sex in its proper context. You have no sense of humor at all, OR understanding of men, that it is exactly when they are angry like you or the Judge that it’s often because of sexual frustrations.

I suspect YOU are the one who hasn’t had much lovey dovey lately, or for YEARS for that matter. Who’d want to co-habitate with a poisonous liberal like you who spews venom? Ew...... go hang out on the Huff Po. That’s more your style. They love extra marital sex over there. You’d be in good company. :)

[trisham]

Clearly you’ve got a problem. Seek help.

[Ken H]

Scalia, in fact, is an originalist and not an activist. Thomas is also considered an originalist. If you have something you can cite that refutes this, I'd like to see it.

See my post #57. Between Thomas and Scalia who had the originalist position?

[Joe Boucher]

Just sleeping?
Damn.

[trisham]

I believe that both Scalia and Thomas are originalists. I am not familiar with this case, but I did a search and found this with Wiki:

Criticism of the doctrine

References in more recent Court decisions have argued that "Whether or not the Founders intended this "negative" or "dormant" component to the Commerce Clause has been hotly debated." See, e.g., Tyler Pipe Indus. v. Washington State Dep't of Revenue, 483 U.S. 232, 259-65(1987) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (arguing that Framers did not intend "negative" or "dormant" component of Commerce Clause); Itel Containers Int'l Corp. v. Huddleston, 507 U.S. 60(1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (concurring in enforcement of dormant Commerce Clause on stare decisis grounds); FELIX FRANKFURTER, THE COMMERCE CLAUSE UNDER MARSHALL, TANEY AND WAITE 12 (1937) (describing absence of comment during drafting and ratification of Constitution regarding possible negative implications of Commerce Clause); Albert S. Abel, The Commerce Clause in the Constitutional Convention and in Contemporary Comment, 25 MINN.L.REV. 432, 493 (1941) (arguing that historical evidence "supports the view that, as to the restricted field which was deemed at the time to constitute regulation of commerce, the grant of power to the federal government presupposed the withdrawal of authority pari passu from the states."). Justice Scalia has taken the lead in among Justices in advocating the proposition that the Dormant Commerce Clause has no textual basis and that it is not consistent with original intent.

Both Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia[4] and Clarence Thomas[5] have rejected the notion of a dormant commerce clause.

___________________________________________________

It is my understanding that Thomas and Scalia are very close in their understanding of the original intent of the Constitution.

Sorry I missed your first post to me.

[EDINVA]

“A guy who’s in middle age like me is not much influenced by endorsements, anyway.”

Nor any other court for that matter ... and more’s the pity.

My lawyer spouse asserts that cameras in the courtroom would go a loooooong way toward a more fair, balanced, efficient judicial system.

[deannadurbin]

My help cometh from above. Yours from the gutter. :)

I’ll bet you’re real fun at a party. You probably just sit and fondle the dog, while everyone else is laughing and having fun, because the dog is the only mammal present who would have you.

LOLOLOL!!!! What a loser you are, bud. I feel sorry for you.

[Ken H]

The bottom line is that Scalia endorses Wickard, and Thomas rejects it. Do you think the Wickard view of the Commerce Clause is in keeping with the originalist position?

[safeasthebanks]

Lighten up, Francis...

[deannadurbin]

I’m not Francis. You must have her mixed up with me. I have a sense of humor. :)

[trisham]

Please go and bother someone else. Thanks.

[deannadurbin]

Why keep responding to me then? As long as you do I’ll keep responding back. You’re fun to pick on because you are SO humorless and give unoriginal brief responses like “Go seek help.” LOL!!! :)

[trisham]

The bottom line is that Scalia endorses Wickard, and Thomas rejects it. Do you think the Wickard view of the Commerce Clause is in keeping with the originalist position?

*****************

From Wiki:

Justice Scalia wrote a separate concurrence that aimed to differentiate the decision from the more recent results of United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison. Although Scalia voted in favor of limits on the Commerce Clause in the Lopez and Morrison decisions, he said that his understanding of the Necessary and Proper Clause caused him to vote for the Commerce Clause with Raich for the following reason:

“ Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so “could … undercut” its regulation of interstate commerce. ... This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between “what is truly national and what is truly local.” Lopez ”

[8] Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent, stating in part:

“ Respondent's local cultivation and consumption of marijuana is not "Commerce ... among the several States."

Certainly no evidence from the founding suggests that "commerce" included the mere possession of a good or some personal activity that did not involve trade or exchange for value. In the early days of the Republic, it would have been unthinkable that Congress could prohibit the local cultivation, possession, and consumption of marijuana. ”

and

“ If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers -- as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause -- have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to "appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce." ”

and further:

“ If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."[10]

I am no legal scholar, but it appears to me that Scalia may have erred in this case. However, I do believe that both he and Thomas are originalists.