Munchkins to the Supremes

Likely next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia gave one of his trademark polemics yesterday, upset about activist liberal judges on the courts. Despite my concerns Democrats don’t pay enough attention to this as a deep issue beyond opportunistic rhetoric, I also clearly agree with most of academia that Scalia’s own philosophy of “originalism” is pretty biased and unconvincing.

Scalia didn’t stick to just bare bones logic of how the court should work as he usually does, but also discussed the real world costs of SCOTUS trampling.

Citing the example of abortion, he said unelected justices too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution, at the expense of the democratic process.
"Abortion is off the democratic stage. Prohibiting it is unconstitutional, now and forever, coast to coast.”
…
“the latest example of politics on the court that has made judicial nominations an increasingly bitter process.”

And judges are important, since our legislatures can’t vote on every single disagreement and enforcement of the law. What more, I’m sure we all agree with Dennis that legitimate democracies should be able to make promises and keep them in some way.

I guess Scalia and I agree on the harm the tension between “the inevitable drive to enact personal policy preferences” and “unelectable judges” is creating. He thinks this simply means certain judges and political parties need to hold more discipline. I think it’s a silly system riddled with inherent contradictions and inefficiencies.

Most ironic lime of course “Scalia, who has had a prickly relationship with the media”. Let me know any articles about speaking events by Thomas or O’Connor on recent decisions you have.