Filed under: United States — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on April 25, 2008 @ 3:00 pm CEST
In an interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, US Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia said that Democrats who are still angry about the 2000 SC decision that basically handed the presidency to George W. Bush (instead to Al Gore) should “get over it.”
His response came to a question by Stahl, wondering what Scalia thought of criticism that the 2000 decision was politically motivated. Scalia’s answer: “I say nonsense. Get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two.”
Furthermore, he added, it wasn’t the Supreme Court who decided to intervene in the process, it was presidential candidate Al Gore who decided to take the issue to court: “It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question…. We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts,’” says Scalia. “What are we supposed to say — ‘Not important enough?’”
The interview also touched on several other subjects. One of the subjects: bias. Stahl asked Scalia about bias, and Scalia answered that although he’s a social conservative himself, he doesn’t let his political views influence his legal views. For instance, he explained, personally he not only believes that the Constitution doesn’t grant any one the right to have an abortion, but he also wants states to criminalize abortion. But, he says, the latter isn’t Constitutional either.
Here’s a short video:
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