‘For the first time since Reagan began stacking the court with originalists like the late justice Antonin Scalia, they will, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, have a solid, unbending court majority.
Kavanaugh’s nomination, no surprise, is a huge victory for the originalists, conservative legal thinkers who believe in a strict, textual interpretation of the constitution. They believe in adhering to the intent of framers of the constitution, white men whose outlook reflected 18th-century realities and whose thinking the originalists believe they have a unique ability to divine.
Various mainstream legal scholars, including Harvard’s Cass Sunstein, have shredded the originalist approach, showing how so-called strict construction of the constitution can be used to justify horrifying, retrograde acts like banning contraceptives, discrimination against women and blacks and to nullify environmental protections. Originalism animates Kavanaugh’s legal career and infuses his 300 legal opinions. It isn’t conservative or principled, as Kavanaugh’s champions argue. It’s radical and retrograde.’