Scalia’s Ghost Is Haunting Conservative Justices
The late Supreme Court giant united his philosophical heirs behind theories of originalism and textualism. Now those ideas are becoming a source of conflict.
Stalking his disciples.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesThree conservative Supreme Court justices declared this month that the Constitution should be read to give state legislatures unlimited control of electoral procedures, and a fourth said the issue is important enough for the whole court to consider. That’s scary because it could eventually block even state courts from stopping partisan cheating.
What’s most important about the issue, however, isn’t the remote (for now) danger that a majority of the court might make a disastrous decision that undermines democracy. It’s the new kind of reasoning that the conservatives are using to reach their preferred result.