My Moment With Justice Scalia

Me

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Justice Scalia given at my old law school. Nino was in fine form speaking on his favorite topic: Constitutional Interpretation. It was such a kick hearing him basically rip the law profs a new one for having no intellectual basis for the predominant view that the constitution is a living document. He noted that if one does not follow the original text of the Constitution a judge is left with no standard for doing anything other than what feels good. Origninalism sometimes forces the judge to make decisions that he is not personally in favor of, but they are nevertheless more intellectually honest.

The crowd of young law students was awe struch not merely at his intellectual firepower but the simple clarity of his message. At one point he asked why do I as a justice have anymore knowledge about suicide or abortion or whatever than Joe Six-pack? If people want to do something they ought to use the accepted channel for doing so, getting the congress or their legislature to do something about it.

Afterward, I took the missus and our two young uns to a reception which followed. Justice Scalia, a father of nine, was in rare form. He shook hands with my kids and asked how they were. I mentioned to Scalia that they were in their second year of Latin and mentioned the author of their Latin Grammar text. His eyes bugged out and said that was the same book he studied years ago and put the kids through a pop quiz in Latin grammar. Afterwards we spoke briefly about his love of opera. He is a sucker for the real mushy stuff. Apparently, he goes to the opera with Justice Ginsburg. Yuck!

Anyway, we got our picture taken with him and he signed our program. Our kids left really impressed. I left blown away with meeting such a nice regular guy that is fighting the good fight to maintain the integrity of the Constitution.

[Wingy]

I wish I were you! (Color me green!)

Be well

[JRandomFreeper]

Lucky You Bump!

/john

[Captiva]

Great post! Were there any protesters around or was the event in friendly confines?

[potlatch]

What a great experience!! I hope he remembers 'sticking to the rules' when the Torricelli case comes before them!!

[nicepaco]

Thanks for sharing that with us.

[Wphile]

We need 8 more Scalias on that bench!

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Good Story. I remember a story a FReeper posted about meeting Justice Thomas at a restaurant. Pretty cool stuff.

[marktwain]

We need about 6 more like him on the court.

[anniegetyourgun]

What a treat! Sounds like you are doing all the right things with those kids too!

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

No protesters. However, he made a funny comment. He said if you do not hold to originalism and believe that the constitution is a living document you essentially have no rule at all for interpretation and are, in a sense, no better than the anarchists that were protesting in DC last week. The law school faculty left after the lecture in stony silence.

[marktwain]

No protesters. However, he made a funny comment. He said if you do not hold to originalism and believe that the constitution is a living document you essentially have no rule at all for interpretation and are, in a sense, no better than the anarchists that were protesting in DC last week. The law school faculty left after the lecture in stony silence

.Oh, that was a good one! He is absolutely correct This is a quote we should trumpet everywhere. I remember being taught the "living document" lie when I was in high school, 35 years ago.

[weegee]

Rats are trying to establish that election ballots are living documents too.

[Viva Le Dissention]

We certainly don't. Scalia is an interesting person and a fine writer; I don't think anyone can say, at the very least, his opinions are usually a bit more entertaining than most. There's no question that he's awfully smart, to boot.

All that being said, we certainly don't need any more of "him" on the court. Not only does he have a seriously dim view of the vast majority of the Bill of Rights, he has a real problem with consensus building. I read sometime ago, before 43 was President, that Scalia wanted to be Chief after Rehnquist retired. Worthy of a good laugh, at least. I have serious doubts whether that man could lead a whore to bed, let alone 8 other Justices.

Anyhow, I'm always curious about the "strict constructionists" and how they reconcile authority for judicial review, since that power isn't granted to the Court under the Constitution. They always seem to ignore that one...

[Roscoe]

I have serious doubts whether that man could lead a whore to bed

Why would he want to?

[bert]

Great report....thanks for passing ot on.

[WOSG]

Boy are you brainwashed.

He does NOT have a dim view of the Rights that are ACTUALLY In the Constitution, only those that are PRETENDED TO BE by the 'living document' crowd. Duh.

As for the concept of judicial review being incompatible with 'strict constructionism', you really have a rigid/clueless view there. the first thing the court figured out was that it HAD to interpret law to do its Constitutional job; it *has* to engage in it or the Constitution becomes a 'dead letter' in the court; so you are arguing against something that was settled prior to 1800!! lol.

The question is: WHEN you interpret a case against law, do you listen to the text and the legislative intent only or do you let other vague concepts waft in to your 'interpretation'. The NJ SC yesterday was a classic case of latter, strict interpretation the former.

As for leadership, he is a great enough man to lead 9 people. 9 justices? fact is, each justice wont be 'led' by anything except their own convictions. And Scalia is as good as anyone alive to do that. he is a huge intellectual giant and great legal mind.

Scalia more than anyone deserves to be chief justice. if we had Bork up there too and a few more great conservatives, we'd have an awesome court.

[PLK]

Hi - did you by chance attend Drake University? Click the link below for the Des Moines Register write-up on his talk there.

Des Moines Register Scalia article

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

Yup.

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

I think you got Marbury right. Marshall stated essentially that the Supremes review acts because that is the thing that Courts do.