Antonin Scalia develops split personality disorder [View all]

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is outraged—outraged—that the majority of the Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, writing in his dissent that "We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation" and that the decision represents an "exalted notion of the role of this court in American democratic society." Because, don't you know, DOMA was passed by Congress democratically and therefore the Court should not touch it.

One question: Where was this Scalia when the Supreme Court was deciding to gut the Voting Rights Act, which was renewed by Congress in 2006?

Oh, that's right: Scalia was one of the justices gutting the VRA. That bill was passed in 2006 by a 390 to 33 vote in the House and 98 to zero in the Senate. By contrast, DOMA was passed in 1996 by a 342 to 67 vote in the House and 85 to 14 in the Senate. And public opinion has undergone a sea change since then. So the "We have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation" argument applies far more to the VRA.

But that's Scalia. His only consistency is in service of bigotry.

Laura Clawson
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/26/1219080/-Antonin-Scalia-develops-split-personality-disorder