Scalia: Constitution means what it says

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came to Southeast Missouri State's Show Me Center Wednesday armed and ready for constitutional battle.

The battle, he said, began under the court of Earl Warren and only now are "people finally discovering that basically the Supreme Court is rewriting the Constitution on the basis of the votes of five judges."

Scalia, who has sat on the nation's highest court since 1986, spent most of his 45-minute speech hurling barbs at the "living document" method of constitutional interpretation.

"Oh how I hate the term," he growled.

"The main attraction of a living constitution is that it's very seductive. You can be very confident that whatever you care passionately about -- the right to an abortion, homosexual conduct, suicide -- it's in there," he said. "It's like a good pizza sauce with the basil and everything else mixed in."

Scalia said life is easy for a judge who makes rulings based on what he wryly called "evolving standards of decency."

This method he believes to be self-serving and overly idealistic. "Every day we get better and better. Societies only mature, they never rot," he sang in a mocking tone.

"A living-document judge comes home and his wife asks him how his day went and he says, 'Great, I had a constitutional case and you know what? The constitution meant exactly what I thought it was supposed to mean."

Scalia said life is more difficult when a judge looks only at what the framers intended by the specific wording of the document.

He recounted a difficult fifth and deciding vote he cast in 1989's Texas v. Johnson. The case held flag burning to be a constitutionally protected form of free speech.

This was a vote he said he'd rather not have cast.

The day after, Scalia recalled coming down for breakfast and hearing his wife, Maureen, cooking scrambled eggs and humming 'Stars and Stripes Forever.'

She was poking fun at his decision.

"Now, I don't need that. And a living constitutionalist never has to worry about it," he said to loud laughter from the audience.

Scalia's speech was filled with quips which he sold with his trademark indignant tone and protruding lower lip.

Late Arrival

Scalia arrived on campus at 6:05 p.m. having been unable to fly from St. Louis due to inclement weather. He was driven with a police escort from an earlier speaking engagement at the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis.

Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. of the Missouri Supreme Court introduced Scalia saying, "even his critics concede he is one of the finest legal minds alive and his admirers are effusive in their praise."

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said Scalia is one of 10 or 12 judges in the history of the Supreme Court who will be remembered by posterity.

He came out firing.

Touting himself as "one of a small-but-hearty group of judges known as originalists," Scalia opened his speech by saying. "In our view the constitution of the U.S. means what it meant when it was adopted, nothing more, nothing less."

He believes this method is near extinction in many places. "You could fire a cannon loaded with grapeshot in the faculty lounge of most major universities and not strike an originalist," he said.

Laughing at the liberal aversion to his methods he said he often gets asked when he became a textualist, "as though it's some weird affliction, like they're asking when did you start eating human flesh."

But Scalia said his social conservativism has nothing to do with his judicial philosophy. In fact, he believes it hedges him in. "The originalist is handcuffed. He can't do all the nasty conservative things he'd like to do to you. You've got him."

And the easiest way to combat an originalist is by amending his document. "My constitution is a very flexible one. If you want the death penalty abolished persuade your citizens that it's a good idea and pass a law."

That said, he refused to cede ground to other methods saying originalism is not one of several philosophies, "there really isn't any other one. At least I've never heard of one."

Scalia took questions the audience submitted on notecards which were selected by Ed Martin of the St. Louis Federalist Society. One question asked the judge how he felt about the 2005 case, Kelo v. City of New London.

"The court does not often misjudge how far it can push the envelope," he said. "That was a little too far."

The court ruled it constitutional for a municipality to condemn homes or businesses for use in a redevelopment project conducted by a private corporation.

It expanded the legal use of eminent domain which was traditionally employed to condemn private property for public works, roadways or other civic projects.

The court ruled that a $270 million research facility built by Pfizer promoted economic development which is a "traditional and long-accepted function of government." That falls within the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, they ruled.

Scalia was one of four justices to dissent in the 5-4 ruling.