Scalia: Constitution often twisted for political gain

TALLAHASSEE -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia captivated the capital's power elite Tuesday with a speech that sharply criticized judges who "bend" the Constitution to suit their political agendas.

"I am not too optimistic about the future of the Supreme Court," Scalia said. "I really think it's going to tear us apart unless we can get back to performing a modest role."

Scalia was invited by Gov. Jeb Bush to speak to the Governor's Leadership Forum. Authors, academics and business executives, many of whom share Bush's conservative outlook, have been invited to address a cross-section of the state's leaders.

The justice spoke in the Senate chambers to about 250 people, including Raoul Cantero, the newest and youngest member of the Florida Supreme Court, and the man he replaced, former Justice Major Harding.

Scalia is known as an "originalist," who believes in reading a constitutional provision in the strict context of when it was adopted. He castigated the "seductive appeal" of a "living, breathing Constitution" that changes with the times and gives judges the flexibility to impose their own political views, especially the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

"The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake. It's a legal document," Scalia said. People who support or oppose the death penalty, abortions, or "homosexual conduct" should work to pass laws, he said, not reinterpret the Constitution. He said conservatives and liberals alike can't resist "bending" the Constitution.

Scalia, 66, the father of nine children, was appointed to the high court by President Reagan in 1986. Scalia was part of a five-member majority that decided the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. But he never mentioned his famous decision, and no one raised it during a question-and-answer session.

He was part of a five-member majority in 1989 that held that flag burning is a protected form of expression under the First Amendment, and he was part of a five-member majority in June that upheld Cleveland's school voucher program -- a case closely watched in Florida, where the only statewide voucher program is in effect.

Scalia was introduced by Charles Canady, Bush's former general counsel and now a state appeals court judge. Quoting from a description of Scalia, Canady said that "if mind were muscle, and court sessions were televised, Justice Scalia would be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of American jurisprudence."

Televised court proceedings won't happen, Scalia predicted.

To a question about the court's refusal to allow its proceedings to be televised, Scalia said he might agree to it if gavel-to-gavel coverage on C-SPAN were the result. But he said what worried him was snippets -- "takeouts," he called them -- on network TV news programs.

"Since I don't have to do it, and I don't think it's a good idea to do it, I'm not going to do it," Scalia said.

During the five-week battle over the presidency in 2000, the court broke tradition and allowed audio of its proceedings to be broadcast. Even Scalia conceded that citizens would have a better understanding of the court's workings if cameras were let inside.

"We don't spend most of our time looking at the ceiling and wondering whether there should be a right to die," Scalia said. "They would learn that most of the time we are dealing with such questions as the meaning of Section of 1326 (3) (b) (ii) of the Internal Revenue Code . . . stuff only a lawyer could love."

Cameras, in fact, were barred from recording Scalia's talk.

Commenting on his first visit to Florida's capital, Scalia even had an opinion about the weather. "Such a cool and dry place. The climate is admirable," he said.

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