Ian Millhiser notes that Justice Antonin Scalia is jumping on the right's latest ideological obsession, ending the direct election of United States' senators. Scalia even decries the "burst of progressivism" that led to the 17th Amendment being passed. Millhiser doesn't quite say what he's thinking here, so I will:
Justice Scalia's use of extremist “states' rights” rhetoric is an ominous sign. Although Scalia has a well-deserved reputation as an ultra-conservative, his record on federal/state power issues is surprisingly sensible. Indeed, his concurring opinion in Gonzales v. Raich could have been written as a blueprint for why President Obama’s the Affordable Care Act is constitutional.
In other words, Scalia will vote to overturn the ACA if it comes before him, and it really doesn't matter that he's supported a broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause in the past. I also think at this point it's appropriate to define "originalism" as a veneration for the amendments to the Constitution conservatives happen to like. What's amazing to me is that conservatives desperately want to make the Senate less democratic than it already is.
Then there's this:
We changed that in a burst of progressivism in 1913, and you can trace the decline of so-called states' rights throughout the rest of the 20th century. So, don't mess with the Constitution.
Imma go out on a limb and say a lot of Americans were relieved by that decline.
