Anne Kass Guest Blog: Scalia in Albuquerque

This is a guest blog by political activist and retired Second Judicial District Judge Anne Kass of Albuquerque.

The Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appeared in Albuquerque to deliver a talk to The Federalist Society who made it their goal to capture the U.S. judiciary, and to talk to two classes at the UNM School of Law.

The report used Scalia's jargon. He calls himself an "originalist" and claims himself to be a "constitutionalist" sometimes also called "strict constructionist." The notion, as I understand it, is that he, and his fellow Originalists or Constitutionalists, claim they have the ability to give the constitution's words the exact meaning they had at the time the so-called Founding Fathers wrote them. It's a different version of the game "What Would Jesus Do," which is to say it is a process where people today project their own opinions, thoughts, and objectives onto people who are long dead and therefore not available to dispute the projections. Language is vague and subject to different meanings and interpretations, but these Originalists, and WWJD people, insist that they have an inside track on what the Founding Fathers (who didn't even agree with each other, back then) would do, or on what Jesus would do, if he/they had been faced with today's problems. The Founding Fathers are not available to be questioned or to speak for themselves so people like Scalia just make shit up and project it onto them.

It would be one thing if Scalia were directing his considerable imagination, creativity and intellect to writing fiction, akin to Harry Potter novels, where the major character had the magical ability to know the minds of others, including dead others, but this guy is writing rules that affect, and sometimes control, the lives of real people. And because he's been given a position of power, there are other people who feel compelled to treat his imaginative musings as though they deserved genuine consideration and respect, as, apparently, did the Dean of the Law School.

Scalia clearly has an active fantasy life. Too bad real people, like the Dean of the Law School, get roped into pretending that this emperor has new clothes.

This is a guest blog by Anne Kass. Click to see earlier posts by Anne. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of this page.