Warm Spirits, Cold Logic

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Some of his recent decisions at the Court of Appeals highlight his distaste for what he calls the "imperial judiciary" and his abiding belief in Executive over Legislative power. Scalia was the probable author of the unsigned opinion striking down a key provision of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-balancing law on the ground that the Comptroller General, responsible for implementing its trigger mechanism, is not under the executive branch of Government. An unwavering apostle of judicial restraint, he may give pause to conservatives seeking a more activist judicial agenda. As he wrote last year: conservatives "must decide whether they really believe . . . that the courts are doing too much, or whether they are actually nursing only the less principled grievance that the courts have not been doing what they want."

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