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Journalists have a number of ways to describe stories. There are “tick-tocks,” which describe how a significant event played out in time. “Analysis” is another category, where an idea or event is, you guessed it, analyzed.
And then there are “explainers,” the self-evident category that describes today’s lead story, “Originalism: What it is, what it isn’t and why it’s the most democratic option for the Supreme Court.”
On this first Monday in October, to coincide with the Supreme Court’s traditional day to begin its new term, Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick walks readers through the history, tenets, myths about and arguments for and against the judicial philosophy now followed by the majority of justices on the court.
Fitzpatrick knows the philosophy well, as he was a law clerk to its most famous practitioner, the late Justice Antonin Scalia. “He called originalism ‘the lesser evil,’” writes Fitzpatrick. “Let me explain why.”
Meanwhile, The Conversation has previewed two of the most consequential cases coming before justices this term: one looking at whether taxpayers or fossil fuel companies should pay for the cost of climate change, and another on the potential friction between First Amendment and LGBTQ rights.
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