(believes in a “living Constitution” that can change with the times. )
No. Scalia believes the Constitution can be changed using the specified mechanism, that would require the People of the United States and their lawmakers making the decision, Ruth believes it can be changed by the Supreme Court Justices’ decisions, even though she and all the Justices have vowed to protect the Constitution. It’s pretty obvious from this who is going outside the power specified for the Supreme Court.
Thomas Jefferson had warned us in general about misguided judges like Justice Ginsburg.
“Our Constitution . . . intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent that they might check and balance one another, it has given—according to this opinion to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. . . . The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please [emphasis added].” (Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Sept. 6, 1819)
In fact, Constitution-respecting justices have warned against interpolating the Constitution.
“3. The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction and no excuse for interpolation or addition.” —United States v. Sprague, 1931.
The bottom line is that Justice Ginsburg probably wouldn’t have been approved by the Senate if the 17th Amendment had never been ratified imo.
The 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and with all due respect to Justice Ginsburg, amateur justices like Justice Ginsburg along with it.
Scalia is a pragmatist. He’s willing to uphold unconstitutional laws, just as long as they have been on the books and upheld for a long enough duration.