When the Court will "become unpoliticized," per Scalia.

Yesterday, Scalia and Breyer debated at Harvard Law School (via How Appealing). Much of it is more of the usual stuff about citing foreign law, but this is interesting:

During a question-and-answer session, one student asked the panel about the potential political pressures involved in the controversial Bush v. Gore case. Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz had suggested that he direct the question toward Scalia, he explained.

“He’s still mad at me, isn’t he?” Scalia retorted jokingly, before adding, more seriously, that he had not witnessed any justice take into account “political considerations” in deciding the case.

Breyer added that he had never seen any evidence of politics influencing a court decision. Even so, he said, ideological beliefs occasionally surface.

Scalia said that the politicization of the Supreme Court could be attributed to the emergence of a “judicial philosophy which says the Constitution is indeterminate.”

“It will become unpoliticized, as it relatively used to be, as soon as we go back to saying the Constitution means what it says, and it means what it meant when it was adopted,” he said.

Seems highly unlikely. By the way, Roberts -- the Chief Justice -- never embraced that view of the judicial role.