The biggest issue with Supreme Court decisions is that the majority of court proceedings could result in democracy being undermined by uninformed approaches to reviewing evidence. The willingness to reach a preferred result cannot be seen as anything but an updated way of following the conservative roots of Supreme Court decision-making (Cordry, 2020). Originalism is no longer perceived as the only viable option because many constitutional interpretations are now affected by flexibility and significantly more liberal outtakes. According to White (2018), Justice Scalia believed that the fundamental meaning of the Constitution should be to remain in line with the framers and their inherent intentions. Regardless of the decision to be made, conservative Supreme Court Justices are going to be split because of the misinterpretations of the new approach called textualism. The biggest dilemma when looking at originalism and textualism is whether one should resort to the historical roots of the issue or its contemporary descriptions.
The problem with textualism begins with Justices having the opportunity to bring their personal views into the bigger picture, meaning that subjective outlooks could influence Supreme Court cases. The presence of a conservative majority does not help reach an agreement on what can be considered the true conformist stance on constitutional law (Cordry, 2020). The conflict between textualism and originalism can be seen in Justice Scalia’s decisions, where his statutory and constitutional explanations differed and affected case outcomes. The distinction between the types of interpretations is not too explicit, and it constrains Supreme Court justices to the extent that they cannot rely on facts or maintain proper discretion (Cordry, 2020; White, 2018). Thus, the legislative virtue of relying on accurate data can be achieved only in case where justices put less pressure on judicial decisions and their ultimate influence on American justice.
References
Cordry, K. (2020). Textualism, originalism, and the code. American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, 39(2), 20-29.
White, A. J. (2018). Scalia’s teaching methods and message. In Scalia’s Constitution (pp. 123-143). Palgrave Macmillan.