A response to Justice Antonin Scalia

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

During oral argument of the Affordable Care Act, Justice Antonin Scalia posed this question to the Solicitor General of the United States:

You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? (gallery laughter) And do you really expect the court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks? (gallery laughter) Is that not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?

Yes, Justice Scalia, I do. That is the job for which you were appointed to the highest court of the land, and for which you are handsomely compensated by the citizens of the United States. In short, "that's your job."

Your law clerks understood when they applied for the position that this was also their job.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in these appeals on November 14, 2011. That is over four months Scalia had to review 2,700 pages (which contains headers and footnotes, and is not single spaced, I might add). That works out to around 22 pages per day over the past four months, while he does other reading on other matters. That is hardly onerous. And if Scalia assigned this reading to his law clerks to prepare a summary for him, the task would have been completed in a fraction of this time. (I am betting that his clerks actually did, in fact, prepare this summary for him).

If you are no longer up to the task of performing the job for which the citizens of the United States pay you handsomely, Justice Scalia, I respectfully suggest that you submit your resignation from the Court, and the American people will find a jurist who is capable of the task of performing this job.

And then you can go do stand-up comedy for conservative political events, something which you seem to prefer.