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| Antonin Gregory Scalia |
By Niccolò Graffio
“I don't think it's a living document, I think it's dead. More precisely, I think it's enduring. It doesn't change. I think that needs to be orthodoxy.” – Justice Antonin Scalia: (speech on the U.S. Constitution at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, VA; April, 2008
Since its establishment by the U.S. Constitution (and the Judiciary Act of 1789), the U.S. Supreme Court has seen more than its fair share of controversy and controversial figures. So many, in fact, a complete listing is simply not possible in this small article. Some of the more noteworthy ones would include Chief Justice of the Court John Marshall, who in writing for the majority opinion in the landmark case Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 137 (1803) laid down the basis for what is now called judicial review – the notion the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn a law passed by Congress if it held that law violated the Constitution.
Perhaps the most controversial (and roundly denounced) figure in the history of the Court was Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the majority opinion in the landmark case Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Chief Justice Taney’s rationale in writing the opinion was to end (in his mind, anyway) the disruptive question of the future of slavery. It had the exact opposite effect. It infuriated and galvanized abolitionists! Modern legal and historical scholars point to it as the spark that lit the fuse leading to the powder keg known as the American Civil War.
Since the destruction of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the evil forces of the House of Savoia in 1860, millions of our people have come to these shores, seeking a better life denied to them by the Risorgimento that created the pseudo-nation known today as Italy. Though many of our people have carved out illustrious careers here in America, historically the uppermost echelons of power have for the most part been denied to us, more often than not due to the anti-Catholic and anti-Italian bigotry that has always characterized America.
When I was 12-years old I remember a history teacher in the Catholic grade school I attended telling my class that “Anyone can grow up to be President here in America.” When I arrived home I told my mother what I had heard. I was shocked at her reply. “That’s garbage” she said. “People in this country don’t like Italians. You’ll see a black man in the White House before you’ll ever see an Italian.”
Mama always did know best.
Change for our people has come slowly, much more slowly than it has for others. This is in large part due to the fact our people have willingly drank the Kool-Aid that it’s more important for us to be accepted as “White” than as Italians (esp. Southern Italians).
Thus, on the rare occasions one of us is accepted into the halls of power at a national level, our ethnic heritage is invariably downplayed, if it’s ever mentioned at all. For example, you will hear much about Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) being the highest-ranking female politician in American history (to date). Virtually nothing is ever said about her also being one of the highest-ranking Italian ones to date, as well. Sadly, our people are chiefly complicit in this sin of omission. Writer Fred Gardaphé’s contention that we are “the invisible people” remains unimpeachable.
That is why it always warms this Southern Italian’s heart when one of our own chooses not to remain ‘invisible.’
Antonin Gregory Scalia was born on March 11, 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey. He was the only child of Salvatore Eugene Scalia, an immigrant from Sicily, and Catherine Louise (née Panaro) Scalia, a first-generation Italian American of reportedly Neapolitan origins. His father would later become a professor of Romance Languages at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Being an only child was a rarity at that time for Italian families. It gave him many privileges others could not enjoy, but it also put upon him an enormous responsibility to succeed. Many years later he would chiefly credit his father for instilling in him his staunchly conservative values, mental discipline and love of hard work that characterized his life.
At an early age he was given the nickname “Nino” partly in honor of his grandfather, for whom he was named. Friends and family would continue to call him that until the day of his death.
At the age of six his family moved from Trenton to Elmhurst, Queens in New York City. From an early age he showed a surpassing level of intelligence. He remained a straight-A student in grade school. After graduating, he was accepted into Xavier High School, a prestigious Catholic military school run by Jesuits in Manhattan. As he would later relate, it was here the Jesuits further instilled in him the deep conservative and religious convictions that would follow him all the days of his life.
He graduated Xavier High School in 1953 class valedictorian. William Stern, a former classmate of Scalia’s who would later go on to become Chairman of the Urban Development Corporation in New York State, once had this to say of him:
''This kid was a conservative when he was 17 years old. An archconservative Catholic. He could have been a member of the Curia. He was the top student in the class. He was brilliant, way above everybody else.''
After graduating from Xavier he enrolled in Georgetown University, where he distinguished himself as both a debater (he was a champion debater in Georgetown’s Philodemic Society) as well as a thespian. He took his junior year abroad at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. As in Xavier, he graduated from Georgetown University at the top of his class summa cum laude and class valedictorian in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.
After graduating from Georgetown he enrolled at Harvard Law School where he worked as a Law Review Notes Editor. In his final year he was set up on a blind date with a Radcliffe College undergraduate named Maureen McCarthy. The two hit it off and married in St. Pius X Church in Yarmouth, Massachusetts on September 10, 1960. Over the course of their lives together they would produce nine children (five boys, four girls) and 28 grandchildren.
He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1960. After obtaining his law degree, he traveled Europe for a year (1960-61) on a Sheldon Fellowship he earned from Harvard.
Antonin Scalia’s legal career officially began at the law offices of Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis in Cleveland, Ohio. Here he worked for six years. Highly regarded by his colleagues, he would most certainly have eventually been made a partner. However, he inherited his father’s yearning to teach. Thus, in 1967 he left the law firm to take a position as professor at the University of Virginia Law School, moving his family to Charlottesville, VA.
Antonin Scalia entered public service for the first time 1971 when then-President Richard Nixon appointed him General Counsel for Telecommunications Policy. In this capacity one of his principal assignments was formulating federal policy for cable television. From 1972-74 he was Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States. This is an independent agency of the United States Federal government established by the Administrative Conference Act of 1964 and is considered to be a federal advisory committee. Its main purpose is to promote improvements in the efficiency, adequacy and fairness of the procedures by which federal agencies carry out their government functions.
In mid-1974 President Nixon nominated him as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. President Ford continued the nomination following Nixon’s resignation and Antonin Scalia was officially confirmed by the Senate on August 22, 1974.
During his time in this capacity Scalia testified on a number of occasions before congressional committees, defending the Ford administration over its refusal to turn over documents related to the Watergate scandal on the grounds of executive privilege. In addition, Scalia urged President Ford to veto a bill that would have amended the Freedom of Information Act, greatly increasing its scope. Ford wound up vetoing the bill but Congress overrode it.
Scalia successfully argued his only case before the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba 425 U.S. 682 (1976).
After Ford’s defeat by Jimmy Carter, Scalia worked for several months at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC whose research is dedicated to government, politics, economics and social welfare. Following this, he returned to academia by taking up a position at the University of Chicago Law School from 1977 to 1982 (though during this time he spent one year as a visiting professor at Stanford Law School). Years later his colleagues on the faculty would recall a man with a ready wit who was fond of cigars, poker, debate and piano playing. In 1981, he became the first faculty adviser for the University of Chicago's chapter of the newly founded Federalist Society.
With the election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States in November, 1980 Scalia hoped for a position in the new administration. He hoped to be selected for the position of Solicitor General of the United States but instead it went to Rex E. Lee, to his great disappointment. Instead, in early 1982 he was offered a seat on the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit which he turned down. His strategy was to hold out for a seat on the much more influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
His strategy worked! President Reagan offered him the seat later that same year which Scalia readily accepted. He was confirmed by the Senate on August 5th, 1982 and sworn in August 17, 1982.
While serving on the D.C. Circuit Scalia quickly built a record as a conservative jurist while simultaneously gaining a reputation for powerful, witty legal writing that was often critical of the Supreme Court whose precedent-setting opinions he was bound as a lower court jurist to follow. Eventually his writings attracted the attention of Reagan administration officials. When Chief Justice Warren Burger announced his intention to retire, Ronald Reagan wished to move Associate Justice William Rehnquist to the position. Attorney General Edwin Meese, who advised President Reagan on Supreme Court nominees, listed Scalia as a leading Supreme Court candidate to replace Rehnquist’s seat as associate justice along with a more venerable but controversial figure, Judge Robert Bork of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Meese later indicated Bork and Scalia were the only two candidates he seriously considered for the position.
President Reagan faced an uphill battle getting Rehnquist to the Chief Justice seat. Chief in opposing this was Senator Edward Kennedy (a dubious figure in American history who would later use unseemly and unethical tactics to keep Robert Bork off the Court). Ironically, news of William Rehnquist’s nomination to head the Court was met by what New York Times reporter David Garrow called “…almost a unanimous feeling of joy” among his colleagues on the Court and their staff. Even Justice Thurgood Marshall, his ideological opposite, later admitted that Rehnquist “was a great chief justice.”
Despite Kennedy’s skullduggery, the Senate Judiciary Committee eventually put his nomination to the full Senate, who confirmed his appointment by a 65-33 vote. In the meantime, President Reagan and Attorney General Meese had decided on nominating Scalia over Robert Bork for Rehnquist’s old position. President Reagan wished to nominate an Italian American to the nation’s highest court. In addition, Reagan administration officials were well aware Bork had a lot of enemies among Democrats in the Senate due to his arch-conservative record.
Despite his own conservative record, Antonin Scalia found himself facing a battle-weary Senate Judiciary Committee that had just finished arguing over Rehnquist’s nomination. In addition, there was great reluctance on the part of most members to oppose the nomination of the first Italian American to the highest court in the land. He met no opposition from the committee and on the same day the Senate confirmed William Rehnquist as Chief Justice, Antonin Scalia was confirmed by a vote of 98-0. Years later, when recounting it to a reporter, he exclaimed “It’s hard to believe this. I was confirmed by a vote of 98 to nothing. Me!”
Later, one committee member, Democratic Delaware Senator (and future Vice President) Joseph Biden expressed regret for not having opposed Scalia’s nomination “because he was so effective.”
Antonin Scalia earned a reputation on the Supreme Court as one of the most prominent legal thinkers of his generation. Many leftist pundits and media hacks chastised him for his blunt (some would say scathing) dissents on the bench. To listen to them, one would think Justice Scalia was an abominable individual. To many of those who knew him personally, however, he was witty, charming and unpretentious. It is also worth noting his closest friend on the Supreme Court was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his ideological opposite. The two had been friends since their days together on the D.C. Circuit, and their two families enjoyed dinner together every New Year’s Eve.
Unlike the tactical flexibility of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Scalia, like Clarence Thomas was a strong adherent of the judicial philosophy of originalism. This doctrine states the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in terms of what it (theoretically) meant to those who ratified it centuries ago. This contrasted with the view held by many more left-leaning judges that the Constitution was a “living document” whose meaning should be continually edited and updated changed over time. Scalia felt that instead of inviting change, the Constitution stood as an impediment to any changes in the basic rights and responsibilities of citizens. He also abhorred “judicial activism,” that is, legislating from the bench. Instead he felt that any changes in the law should be made in the legislature, which he felt was the true bastion of the will of the people.
Scalia wasted no time making a name for himself as the anchor of the conservative wing of the Supreme Court. Unlike the quiescent Clarence Thomas, Scalia was known for peppering those who argued before the Court with question after question. As Justice Lewis Powell reportedly whispered to Thurgood Marshall during one such case “Do you think he knows that the rest of us are here?”
The 29 years that Antonin Scalia sat on the Supreme Court saw some of the most momentous cases in modern American legal history come its way, and which did not escape his scathing opinions. He was an ardent believer in the clear separation of powers among the three branches (legislative, executive and judicial) of government and that no branch had the right to exercise powers granted to another. He had a take-no-prisoners attitude when it came to cases argued before the Court. There was simply no room for compromise. While the other justices were likewise guilty of that attitude to a degree, Scalia outshined them all in that regard. He made it quite clear he would rather lose than muddle his opinion. As his colleague (and friend) on the D.C. Court of Appeals Laurence Silberman once noted “He didn’t care as much about the result. He cared about the reasoning.”
In the 1989 case of Mistretta v. United States the petitioner challenged the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent body within the judicial branch whose members (some of whom were federal judges) were removable only for good cause. The petitioner argued the arrangement violated the separation of powers of the Constitution and further argued the federal sentencing guidelines of the Commission were invalid. Eight members of the Court upheld the guidelines as constitutional. Scalia was the sole dissenter, arguing the guidelines was a lawmaking function Congress could not delegate and further stating the Commission itself was “a sort of junior-varsity Congress.”
Far from shying away from controversy, he actively courted it. This fact no doubt explained why he wound up becoming the most famous member of the Supreme Court. In the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey 505 U.S. 833 (1992) he made it clear he felt women had no constitutional right to an abortion. He wrote:
“The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
Throughout his term on the Court Scalia repeatedly urged his colleagues to strike down Roe v. Wade (the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion) to no avail. His colleagues on the Court were not exempt from his scathing opinions. In the case Webster v. Reproductive Health Services 492 U.S. 490 (1989) he sought to overturn a key part of Roe v. Wade. However, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, in a separate, concurring opinion allowed the abortion regulations at issue in the case to stand, but would not override Roe. Scalia concurred only in part. He wrote “Justice O’Connor’s assertion, that ‘a fundamental rule of judicial restraint’ requires us to avoid reconsidering Roe, cannot be taken seriously.”
Antonin Scalia was an unabashed, unapologetic (and devout) Roman Catholic. That did not change during his time on the Supreme Court. He was a Catholic of the Traditionalist bent who felt uncomfortable with the changes to the Church brought about by Vatican II. He would often drive long distances to parishes whose views were more in line with his own. These included the Tridentine Latin Mass in both Chicago and Washington, DC. It also included the Latin version of the Mass of Paul VI at St. Catherine of Siena in Great Falls, VA. In a 2013 interview he emphatically stated “In order for capitalism to work, in order for it to produce a good and stable society, traditional Christian virtues are essential.”
A little-known event in the life of Justice Antonin Scalia occurred in 1996. According to former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehmer, he approached Scalia in that year in his capacity as chairman of the House Republican Conference and urged him to run for Vice-President of the United States as Bob Dole’s running mate. According to Boehmer, Scalia listened intently to the proposal. Later, however, he dictated the same reply to it that another Supreme Court justice, Charles Evan Hughes, had given to an earlier such query.
“The possibility is too remote to comment upon, given my position.”
On September 3rd, 2005 the venerable Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died at home in his sleep of anaplastic thyroid cancer. Many conservative pundits and activists hoped then-President George W. Bush would nominate Scalia as his replacement. In addition, high-ranking members of the Federalist Society hoped that Bush would then tap John Michael Luttig, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (appointed to the bench by his father and former President George H.W. Bush), to fill Scalia’s old seat. Luttig was often compared favorably to Scalia for having the same analytical rigor and for criticizing his colleagues for inconsistencies or embellishments in their judicial opinions.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, Scalia had a history of heart problems (and hypertension). His health, in fact, had been declining the last couple of years of his life. This did not prevent him from enjoying his life to the fullest. On the night of February 12th or the morning of February 13th, 2016 he passed away peacefully in his sleep at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Texas. This had followed an afternoon of quail hunting and dining with friends at the ranch. According to witnesses, other than stating he wasn’t feeling well, nothing seemed amiss. Following announcements of his death, however it was learned he had earlier suffered a shoulder injury but his physicians deemed him “too weak” to undergo corrective surgery. His physician and his family agreed no autopsy was necessary. In spite of this, conspiracy theories surrounding his death inevitability started swirling, as they often do when someone famous dies.
He left a sizable legacy, both personal and professional. As mentioned earlier, despite their ideological differences, he was nonetheless able to form a lasting friendship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who delivered a warm tribute to him at his memorial service. (It is worth mentioning that Barack Hussein Obama was conspicuously absent from that service).
One of Scalia’s strengths was his ability to separate a person’s beliefs from the person themselves. It is an ability I find sorely lacking in most people today. Example: during his time on the D.C. Circuit and in his early years on the Supreme Court he would always hire at least one liberal clerk to work on his staff “to keep things lively.” Less than a day after Scalia’s death David Axelrod, a senior political commentator for CNN relayed this surprising anecdote.
Back in 2009 when Axelrod was Obama’s senior advisor, he found himself sitting next to Scalia at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The topic of conversation was who was to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, who had just announced his retirement. According to Axelrod, Scalia surprised him with these words.
"I have no illusions that your man will nominate someone who shares my orientation. But I hope he sends us someone smart. Let me put a finer point on it. I hope he sends us Elena Kagan."
According to Axelrod, if Scalia could not win he loved nothing better than a good, honest intellectual battle.
Speaking of Elena Kagan, like Justice Ginsburg he won her over with his charm, as well. Justice Kagan had never owned or handled a gun in her entire life. Scalia was eventually able to convince the left-leaning jurist to become one of his duck hunting buddies.
Accolades from his friends and admirers poured in following news of his death, but sadly, so did disgusting vituperation from his enemies. Keith Olbermann, a pathetic and transparent excuse for a political commentator who once labeled Justice Scalia the “Worst Person in the World” tweeted that Scalia’s death was an “Improvement!” Other verbal abuse emanated from like dark quarters of humanity.
Disrespecting the dead, especially those of a stature obviously worthy of respect is a direct result of the anomie that has slowly consumed our society over the last 50 years. That this originated and largely emanates from the ranks of the Left there can be no doubt. It is the reason why I have always felt justified to responding in kind. This is the world they wanted and created.
Those few who read my articles may notice this one is longer than usual. There is a reason for this. Justice Antonin Scalia is unquestionably one of the most famous and influential Americans of Southern Italian heritage in modern American history if not in all of American history! I felt his biography should reflect that fact. Love him or hate him his influence will be felt in legal circles for many years to come, long after the vast majority of the Great Unwashed has forgotten him. I, for one shall miss him and am convinced the Supreme Court will never see another of his stature again.
Further reading:
• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/antonin-scalia-death.html
• Antonin Scalia (Author), Kevin A. Ring (Editor): Scalia’s Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents: Regnery Publishing: April 4, 2016
