You are here

Scalia’s Legacy

The judicial reasoning of most recent and current Supreme Court Justices emerges from one central principle:

If a law produces, or seems likely to produce, an outcome that right-thinking people deem socially desirable, then that law is ipso facto constitutional; by contrast, if that law produces, or seems likely to produce, an outcome that right-thinking people deem socially undesirable, then that law is ipso facto unconstitutional.

Antonin Scalia was the most intellectually powerful and eloquent opponent—ever—of that principle, which he believed to be inconsistent with the appointed role of the judiciary and insufficiently respectful of the other branches of government, especially the legislative branch.

Your acceptance or rejection of that principle will probably determine whether you rejoice that Scalia is dead, or lament his departure.

Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.