Posted on 07/02/2026 3:09:00 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
In the 1980s, he started a movement to restore the Constitution to judging. It has come a long way.
McLean, Va.
Edwin Meese III, 94, has outlived Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. On Monday the Supreme Court overruled that 91-year-old decision and held in Trump v. Slaughter that the president has the authority to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission and senior officials from other “independent” executive-branch agencies.
Slaughter is the latest in a string of recent high-court decisions overturning or correcting bad precedents, usually by 6-3 votes—among them Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), Chevron v. NRDC (1984), Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and of course the big ones, Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
In the 2020s, the end of June, when the justices announce most of their highest-profile decisions, has become a celebratory season for American conservatives. Mr. Meese deserves more credit than perhaps any other single person for the 40-year transformation of the high court from a body that sought to “remold principles in light of policies” into one that is generally faithful to the Constitution.
The quotation is from an address Mr. Meese delivered to the American Bar Association on July 9, 1985, a few months after he took office as Ronald Reagan’s attorney general. It made the case for a “Jurisprudence of Original Intention” and provoked a denunciation from Justice William Brennan, who called originalism “arrogance cloaked as humility,” as well as a more lawyerly rebuttal from Justice John Paul Stevens.
Its ideas have informed the judicial...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Had no idea Ed Meese was still alive.
Had no idea Ed Meese was still alive.
Today we have an originalist and textualist court.
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Meese absolutely deserves massive credit for helping to save this country’s jurisprudence. Incredibly influential in terms of helping to create a generation of conservative lawyers who have had a hell of a lot more success than anyone would ever have thought possible back in the 70’s/80’s.
Don’t grow numb with winning.
Meese is the GOAT.
Glad to see him still living. He is a genuine living legend.
That is totally cool to hear he is still alive and helping.
“Justice William Brennan, who called originalism “arrogance cloaked as humility,”
Brennan should have seen his destructive ideology as UNcloaked arrogance of activism.
If Constitutional originalism is not supported then what the hell was the point of the revolution?
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