Courting controversy

WHEN Ronald Reagan tapped Antonin Scalia to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court in 1986, America's highest tribunal was a very different place. So was the Senate. Mr Scalia had solidly conservative credentials as a judge on the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, and made no bones about his opposition to busing, affirmative action and abortion choice, among other liberal priorities. Yet the Senate did something no one could imagine happening in today's hyper-partisan climate: in a matter of weeks, it confirmed him by a vote of 98-0.Mr Scalia's successor will not have such a quick and easy vetting. And she or he will join a court that has never been so neatly sorted along ideological lines, with the wrinkle of the Reagan-appointed Anthony Kennedy, who joins the four liberal justices in gay-rights decisions and occasionally in cases involving racial justice. All the justices, in nearly all the biggest cases, vote in line with the party of the presidents who nominated them. All the justices resist the charge that they are, in the words of one liberal justice, Stephen Breyer, 'nine junior varsity politicians'. Earlier this month,...Continue reading
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