Make 'em bobble!

The Annotated Bobblehead Justice Antonin Scalia

On the negative commerce clause: "It takes no more than our opinions this Term, and the number of prior decisions they explicitly or implicitly overrule, to demonstrate that the practical results we have educed ... form not a rock but a 'quagmire' .... Nor is this a recent liquefaction .... It is astonishing that we should be expanding our beachhead in this impoverished territory, rather than being satisfied with what we have already acquired by a sort of intellectual adverse possession." Tyler Pipe v. Washington, 483 U.S. 232 (1987); see Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825.

On separation of powers and the independent counsel law in Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988): "Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf."

"As to the Court's invocation of the Lemon test: Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District .... Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart ..., and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so." Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993).

Webster's New Int'l Dictionary (2d ed.). See, e.g., Vieth v. Jubilier, 541 U.S. 267 (2004); Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223 (1993).

Antonin Scalia, 1986-2016

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1936, Antonin Scalia was the son of an Italian immigrant father and later college professor and an Italian-American schoolteacher. Known as "Nino" to his friends, Scalia grew up in Queens, New York. He graduated first in his class from Xavier High School in Manhattan. Despite being valedictorian, Scalia was rejected by Princeton and went to Georgetown. There he again graduated as valedictorian, summa cum laude, with a B.A. in history. He graduated from Harvard Law magna cum laude in 1960. Scalia's path to the Supreme Court included private practice, teaching law at the University of Virginia and University of Chicago, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and appointment by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1986 to fill Justice Rehnquist's position when Rehnquist became Chief Justice. Scalia was confirmed by the Senate in a unanimous vote. He was the first Italian-American to sit on the Court.