U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to a group of approximately 400 people at the UW Law School Thursday, March 15, by invitation of students in the Law School's chapter of the Federalist Society. Using a combination of earnest rhetoric and humor, Scalia argued that the only valid approach to the Constitution is his chosen philosophy of ?originalism? or ?textualism,? which holds that ?what the Constitution means is what it was understood to mean when it was adopted.?

Scalia differentiated this view from that of ?strict constructionism,? stating ?I am not a strict constructionist. They give a bad name to all originalists. You shouldn't be a strict constructionist ? you should be reasonable.?

Warning against today's concept of the ?living Constitution,? Scalia asked, ?If the Constitution is an invitation to each generation to fill this empty bottle with its own beliefs . . . why leave it to the judges? Why do you want it to be decided by five out of nine lawyers??

Instead, Scalia said, issues such as the right to die or new questions of parental rights, which have arisen long after the drafting of the Constitution, should be decided by majority passage of new laws rather than seeking to find the answer in the Constitution. ?If you want to get rid of the death penalty, fine -- pass a law, get rid of it. If you think there should be a right to an abortion, fine -- pass a law.?

Scalia warned his listeners that they should not favor a ?living Constitution? just because they are liberals. It is not an issue of whether you are liberal or conservative, he said: ?It is an equal-opportunity fallacy. Conservatives, too, are willing to distort the Constitution for their own ends. It doesn't have to do with your political view.?

Submitted by on March 16, 2001

This article appears in the categories: Articles