Originalism—interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning—used to represent the dominant mode of interpretation in courts throughout the country. No longer. Today on Uncommon Knowledge, I ask Mr. Justice Antonin Scalia what went wrong.
“I do not know. Perhaps it is public disappointment with democracy…and a public preference for solons on the Supreme Court. Whatever the reason, the change is there. I mean, there is no doubt about it. Not that distorting the Constitution is something new. You have had willful judges from the beginning and will have them until the end of time. But…until the acceptance of this new orthodoxy of ‘the living Constitution’…in order to distort the Constitution you had to do it the old-fashioned way. You had to lie about it. You do not have to lie anymore.”
To watch Justice Scalia discuss five decades of getting the Constitution wrong, click here.