Original Meaning Means…?
From "Justice Scalia critical of 'living Constitution'", by Rachel Graves (Houston Chronicle, 5 May 2005):
COLLEGE STATION – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia portrayed himself in a speech here today as one of a dying breed of judges who strictly interpret the Constitution.
"The Constitution, when it comes before a court, should mean exactly what it was intended to mean when it was adopted, nothing more, nothing less," Scalia told a generally supportive audience of several hundred people at the George Bush Presidential Library.
I might, just might grant that the courts might be able, through careful scholarship and such activities that they seem disinclined actually to pursue, to divine some of the "original intent" of the guys who wrote the Constitution.
But wait! "When it was adopted." Whew, now there's a bit of a challenge. I can see being all constitutionally deconstructionist and like that and being careful to read only on the lines and not between them, but "when it was adopted". What does he mean by that?
I can only assume Justice Scalia means, when referring to each of the Constitutional amendments that were, of course, adopted at different times by differing numbers of voters in several states, the original intent of all the people in those states at the moment when they voted for each of the amendments in the years over which each amendment was adopted.
Quite a task there, but then, they are The Supremes [cue theme music].