Extract from:\u00a0https:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/pkg\/CHRG-112shrg70991\/html\/CHRG-112shrg70991.htm<\/p>\n
STATEMENT OF HON. ANTONIN SCALIA, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, THE \r\n SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, DC\r\n\r\n Justice Scalia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the \r\ncommittee. I am happy to be back in front of the Judiciary \r\nCommittee where I started this pilgrimage.\r\n I am going to get even more fundamental than my good friend \r\nand colleague. Like him, I speak to students, especially law \r\nstudents but also college students and even high school \r\nstudents, quite frequently about the Constitution because I \r\nfeel that we are not teaching it very well. I speak to law \r\nstudents from the best law schools, people presumably \r\nespecially interested in the law, and I ask them: how many of \r\nyou have read the Federalist papers? Well, a lot of hands will \r\ngo up. No, not just No. 48 and the big ones. How many of you \r\nhave read the Federalist Papers cover to cover? Never more than \r\nabout 5 percent. And that is very sad, especially if you are \r\ninterested in the Constitution.\r\n Here is a document that says what the Framers of the \r\nConstitution thought they were doing. It is such a profound \r\nexposition of political science that it is studied in political \r\nscience courses in Europe. And yet we have raised a generation \r\nof Americans who are not familiar with it.\r\n So when I speak to these groups, the first point I make--\r\nand I think it is even a little more fundamental than the one \r\nthat Stephen has just put forward--I ask them, what do you \r\nthink is the reason that America is such a free country? What \r\nis it in our Constitution that makes us what we are? And the \r\nresponse I get--and you will get this from almost any American, \r\nincluding the woman that Stephen was talking to at the \r\nsupermarket--is freedom of speech, freedom of the press, no \r\nunreasonable searches and seizures, no quartering of troops in \r\nhomes, etc.--the marvelous provisions of the Bill of Rights.\r\n But then I tell them, if you think that the Bill of Rights \r\nis what sets us apart, you are crazy. Every banana republic has \r\na bill of rights. Every president for life has a bill of \r\nrights. The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union \r\nof Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours. I \r\nmean that literally. It was much better. We guarantee freedom \r\nof speech and of the press. Big deal. They guaranteed freedom \r\nof speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests, \r\nand anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the \r\ngovernment will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful \r\nstuff.\r\n Of course, they were just words on paper, what our Framers \r\nwould have called ``a parchment guarantee.'' And the reason is \r\nthat the real constitution of the Soviet Union--think of the \r\nword ``constitution;'' it does not mean a bill of rights, it \r\nmeans structure. When you say a person has a sound \r\nconstitution, you mean he has a sound structure. Structure is \r\nwhat our Framers debated that whole summer in Philadelphia, in \r\n1787. They did not talk about a Bill of Rights; that was an \r\nafterthought, wasn't it? The real constitution of the Soviet \r\nUnion did not prevent the centralization of power in one person \r\nor in one party. And when that happens, the game is over. The \r\nbill of rights becomes what our Framers would call ``a \r\nparchment guarantee.''\r\n So the real key to the distinctiveness of America is the \r\nstructure of our Government. One part of it, of course, is the \r\nindependence of the judiciary, but there is a lot more. There \r\nare very few countries in the world, for example, that have a \r\nbicameral legislature. England has a House of Lords for the \r\ntime being, but the House of Lords has no substantial power. It \r\ncan just make the Commons pass a bill a second time. France has \r\na senate; it is honorific. Italy has a senate; it is honorific. \r\nVery few countries have two separate bodies in the legislature \r\nequally powerful. It is a lot of trouble, as you gentlemen \r\ndoubtless know, to get the same language through two different \r\nbodies elected in a different fashion.\r\n Very few countries in the world have a separately elected \r\nchief executive. Sometimes I go to Europe to speak in a seminar \r\non separation of powers, and when I get there, I find that all \r\nwe are talking about is independence of the judiciary. Because \r\nthe Europeans do not even try to divide the two political \r\npowers, the two political branches--the legislature and the \r\nchief executive. In all of the parliamentary countries, the \r\nchief executive is the creature of the legislature. There is \r\nnever any disagreement between the majority in the legislature \r\nand the prime minister, as there is sometimes between you and \r\nthe President. When there is a disagreement, they just kick him \r\nout. They have a no-confidence vote, a new election, and they \r\nget a prime minister who agrees with the legislature.\r\n You know, the Europeans look at our system and they say, \r\nwell, the bill passes one House, it does not pass the other \r\nHouse (sometimes the other House is in the control of a \r\ndifferent party). It passes both Houses, and then this \r\nPresident, who has a veto power, vetoes it. They look at this \r\nand they say, ``It is gridlock.''\r\n And I hear Americans saying this nowadays, and there is a \r\nlot of that going around. They talk about a dysfunctional \r\nGovernment because there is disagreement. And the Framers would \r\nhave said, ``Yes, that is exactly the way we set it up. We \r\nwanted this to be power contradicting power because the main \r\nill that besets us,'' as Hamilton said in the Federalist paper \r\nwhen he justified the inconvenice of a separate Senate, is an \r\nexcess of legislation.'' This is 1787. They did not know what \r\nan excess of legislation was.\r\n So unless Americans should appreciate that and learn to \r\nlove the separation of powers, which means learning to love the \r\ngridlock that it sometimes produces. The Framers believed that \r\nwould be the main protection of minorities--the main \r\nprotection. If a bill is about to pass that really comes down \r\nhard on some minority, so that they think it terribly unfair, \r\nit does not take much to throw a monkey wrench into this \r\ncomplex system.\r\n So Americans should appreciate that, and they should learn \r\nto love the gridlock. It is there for a reason: so that the \r\nlegislation that gets out will be good legislation.\r\n And thus I conclude my opening remarks.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Extract from:\u00a0https:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/pkg\/CHRG-112shrg70991\/html\/CHRG-112shrg70991.htm STATEMENT OF HON. ANTONIN SCALIA, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, DC Justice Scalia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am happy to be back in front of the Judiciary Committee… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/pols-101s-readings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}