Justice Scalia and Millionaires, Take Two
Law Blog colleague and WSJ Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin sent along the following item, based on the oral argument yesterday on the so-called Millionaires’ Amendment. (Click here for an earlier blog post on the topic and here for Bravin’s story from today.)
Why do Supreme Court justices complain so much that their salaries–$217,800 for the chief, $208,100 for the associates–are too low? Maybe it’s because, as lawyers, they were never too good at following numbers.
Consider Tuesday’s oral arguments over the so-called Millionaires’ Amendment, the federal law that lifts some political fundraising limits for candidates facing wealthy self-funded opponents, defined as those who pour at least $350,000 of their own cash into their campaign.
Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that practically anybody had that cash available for political activism, if he or she really wanted to tap some family assets. “Are we talking wealthy people here? What’s the average price of a home in the United States? I think it’s a good deal above $350,000, isn’t it?” he said.
Actually, it’s nowhere near that. According to provisional figures from the National Association of Realtors, the average single family home price last month was $246,000. And falling.
None of the other justices offered a correction, and lawyer Andrew Herman, representing millionaire candidate Jack Davis, was quick to feed Scalia’s misunderstanding.
“It certainly is in this area and in many congressional districts in the United States,” Herman said. He’s right about the area the Realtors association classifies as “Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV,” where provisional figures show the median home price as $400,100 for the fourth quarter of 2007. But not exactly on point for the upstate New York congressional district where Davis, a Democrat who made his fortune manufacturing heating elements, is trying for the third time to take a seat currently held by a Republican. In the last quarter of 2007, the median home price for the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area was $105,400.
Photo: Associated Press
Scalia is great at talking about things he knows nothing about.
Enlightening post.
That comment really says something about Scalia, is there anyone more out of touch?
Most people with $230,000.00 homes would be hard pressed to give a candidate the current maximum of $2300.00.
First. This shows how out-of-touch and completely detached Scalia is from the real world. Even if he was correct about housing prices (he is not), and even if people own houses worth more than 350k, most of them don’t really “own” the home and have very little equity. The banks own the home. For him to imply that people have a ton of money to burn on political campaigns is insane. This fat, ugly, balding idiot just keeps on showing his true colors and lack of any common sense.
He is almost as out of touch as Jon “the drinking age isn’t 18???” Corzine. So maybe he should run for governor of NJ. It couldnt get much worse….
because Scalia is a fat, ugly, balding, red-faced angry man who is trying to get back at people because he has a lot of trouble getting laid. I bet he pays for it like Spitzer bc there is no way in hell he has ever gotten a hot girl in his life. No wonder he is so angry and has such a huge ego and God-complex.
Listen, I understand that Justice Scalia may not comprehend the value of a house in places outside of the D.C. metropolitan area. I’m also certain that he doesn’t travel to Southwest D.C. where houses are far less than $350k. But that does little to disprove that a justice who makes slightly more than a first-year associate in a large New York firm with bonus does is paid too little. Life is relative and for their relative knowledge and contribution to the legal field, they are paid too little.
I think you folks need to settle down. Sure, he likes to spout off, doesn’t check his facts, but I would hardly call him “completely detached”. Of the members of the court, I place him as one of the most knowledgeable on the Constitution and the principle of original intent. But I do have to say, his off-the-cuff statements really don’t help the analytical dialogue very much. He should probably leave the questioning to Roberts and Thomas who at least know how to control their mouths.
Yes, to suggest that anyone other than the few wealthiest Americans have $350,000 lying around to spend on a political campaign *is* “completely detached”!
Median net worth for a US family in 2004 was $93,100. http://www.federalreserve.gov/Pubs/Bulletin/2006/financesurvey.pdf
In 2006 Scalia’s assets were between $700,019 and $1,595,000
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/09/05/souter-and-ginsburg-are-rich-thomas-and-kennedy-are-not/
Scalia is one of the most intelligent associate justices of the supreme court. When you are reduced to picking on a person’s looks you have shown what kind of person you are. In regards to his statement of a median priced home - would you think lesser of someone in the midwest who thinks a median priced home is $120k? It is all relevant to where you are and those who use this small little fact to show he is out of touch are narrow minded. If you don’t like a law tell congress to pass new ones - don’t the supreme court to fill in the blanks to get what you want. Long live strict constructionism!
This gaffe reminds me of Charlie “the average middle class salary is 250K” Gibson.
His point is that most people running for office have net worths well above $350k, and homes well above $350k, so you would be creating a low threshold to exempt many or maybe most campaigns from the regulations, which is not the intent of this new law. And by the way, debt/equity ratios on US homes are still just about 50/50, despite all the refi’s and sub-prime mess. Further, anyone who does not think Scalia, and the other 8 justices on the court, are not absolutely brilliant is deluded.
Scalia is not a nice man, period. He can’t keep his cocky mouth shut and he just can’t help himself jump down someone’s throat when they disagree with him. He may know a lot about ‘original intent’ of the founders, but any intellect he has is completely and utterly overshadowed by his nasty personality and his disgustingly bad looks.
Mark:
It is precisely the “brilliant” ones I fear the most. Brilliant but utterly out of touch. Don’t we all work with someone like that?
I don’t recall his decision in Bush v. Gore subscribing to “original intent.” Let’s face it - original intent is means to an end when it serves a particular agenda. As brilliant or not, as the case may be, it doesn’t obscure fact that many of his opinions are end-driven.
Scalia’s too clever for his own good and the country’s good for that matter. You have to question his legal abilities when he gets basic facts wrong. His shoot from the hip style often leads to shooting himself in the foot.
Cash is not the only form of payment. Supreme Court Justices get paid in power. Don’t give me that they don’t make enough. We have McCain, Obama and Clinton spending millions for a job that gets a a few hundred K a year.
We have given them more then a few million a year can. The power to play rule maker. 9 Fortune 500 Ceo’s can’t appoint a president. Scalia got to.
This bench is obsessive compulsive with their mind on their money and money on their mind.
Justice Scalia, btw, is a millionaire, isn’t he? Probably has one of those big homes worth way more than $350,000.
I gave up a 6-figure advertising job to try counsel those less fortunate. And could not be happier that I did. This court disgusts me.
If you make under 350k you’ll probably lose your job to an illegal because he is willing to work and you aren’t.
Now we see why Scalia opposes televised hearings. Bad enough that he be held up to ridicule on the blogosphere for his ad libs.
There is a reason why appellate judges aren’t supposed to go outside the record - lawyers who have actually PRACTICED LAW - Scalia hasn’t - understand why. And - sigh - Scalia is SO much brighter than his sidekick Thomas, who NEVER signed his name to a pleading - never - you could have gotten a DUI conviction kicked if old Clarence had represented you simply on the basis of incompetence (as shown by total inexperience)
Actually, Scalia practiced law for 5 or 6 years (at Jones Day).
“intent is means to an end when it serves a particular agenda. As brilliant or not, as the case may be, it doesn’t obscure fact that many of his opinions are end-driven.”
True. My favorite examples of this are his opinions in Crawford and Hamdi.
That. is. because. the. legal. profession. is. totally. over. rated. Seriously, we allow these clowns to make the rules on everything from the efficacy or affinity of pharmaceuticals to what constitutes a copy-writable melody. They are no more knowledgeable on these subjects than some kid reading about them for the first time on the SAT. It doesn’t surprise me at all when the very best of the best in this profession, a man whose rulings affect all 300,000,000 of us, doesn’t even have a reasonable understanding of the underlying economics in this country.
Tango Dinero – I would think that a truly enlightened benevolent one, such as yourself, would be more charitable in his commentary. Just because you couldn’t make it in the advertising business, and had to take a job in telemarketing scamming those with credit problems, does not make you a credible judge of Supreme Court matters or personnel.
To respond to various posters impugning Scalia’s competence, character, knowledge, et al. A few adjectives could properly describe this most inimitable man: erudite, brilliant, magnanimous, thoughtful, wise, moral, perspicacious, considerate, ebullient, and I could go on. My determination of the man is based upon meeting him personally as my visiting professor and the subsequent send-off party thrown in his honor at the end of the summer class. As to his originalism, although he has occasionally strayed, his judicial pronouncements have been a breath of fresh air in a largely activist Court during the first half of his tenure. The proper role of the judiciary is NOT to enact law, but rather to consider each separate case as it relates specifically to constitutional dictates.
This error is so tiny as to be laughable.
There was no assertion on Scalia’s part. He did ask whether 350k was the average value of a house, so he didn’t err, he was asking if his preconceptions was true.
Also this fact is not so very inane when the average value of a home varies so much depending on what region you’re in and the fact that 350k versus 226k is not a very large misprediction, given also that homes are indeed very expensive in the Washington DC greater area.
And for all the commentators who turned this into an attack against Scalia, I bet most of them had absolutely no idea what the average value of a house in the US was before this blog posted it.
Don’t lie to yourself.
“Scalia is a fat, ugly, balding, red-faced angry man who is trying to get back at people because he has a lot of trouble getting laid”
“On September 10, 1960, Scalia married Maureen McCarthy, an English major at Radcliffe College. Together they have nine children”
U R Dumb.
supreme court justices are out of touch the real world? yet many want them deciding major issues based on their sense of morality and the ‘evolving standards’ of our society.
The evidence that Supreme Court Justices are not paid too little is the fact that turnover seems to be extremely low. I think they are paid too much. (Their pension is full salary)
I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL “ORIGINAL INTENT” SCALIA RULES ON THE RECENT 2nd AMEND CASE — HE MUST RULE THAT THE 2nd APPLIES ONLY TO FLINTLOCK WEAPONS.
IF RUNNING ONES MOUTH WITHOUT BENEFIT OF WISDOM, REFLECTION, OR COMMON SENSE IS BRILLIANT, THEN SCALIA IS BRILLIANT.
This is guy who does not consider torture punishment. Why do we allow this guy to make ANY decision?
if he wants more money tell him to get a job. These guys are SO greedy. If you say that he is a good man then you just want his job so you can behave the same way as in looking down your nose at anyone that is not your colleague.
