How Scalia's Absence Will Affect Pending Supreme Court Cases

[marmar]

How Scalia's Absence Will Affect Pending Supreme Court Cases

Wednesday, 17 February 2016 00:00
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout | News Analysis


The death of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia raises a number of questions: What will be Scalia's legacy? What will happen to the cases pending in the Supreme Court? Will President Obama successfully fill Scalia's seat on the high court? And how will Scalia's death affect the 2016 presidential election?

Scalia's Record on the Court

Scalia, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, was a radical right-wing ideologue who called himself an "originalist," purporting to interpret the US Constitution the way its framers did. He eschewed the idea that the Constitution is a living document that keeps pace with the times. And when voting to allow capital punishment for crimes committed by juveniles, he rejected the Supreme Court's precedent that the Eighth Amendment's banning of cruel and unusual punishments should be interpreted in light of the "evolving standards of human decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

Scalia favored unlimited corporate election spending and he wrote that the Second Amendment grants an individual the right to bear arms. He opposed reproductive rights, universal health care, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, voting rights, immigrants' rights, labor rights, LGBT rights and environmental protection. When questioned about his vote to anoint George W. Bush president in Bush v. Gore, Scalia barked, "Get over it."

During the oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, the affirmative action case pending in the high court, Scalia said he was not "impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have fewer" Black students. He added, "Maybe it ought to have fewer. I don't think it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many Blacks as possible." ...................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34865-how-scalia-s-absence-will-affect-pending-supreme-court-cases

[lapfog_1]

1. he only was an "originalist"

when it suited his extremist religious conservative views... he was an "activist" when it suited him.

He was a hypocrite.