The decision by Justice Antonin Scalia to serve as a featured speaker in an event on January 5 organized by far-right Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's Tea Party-oriented "Constitutional Conservative Caucus," is just the latest in a series of actions and statements by the Justice that threaten the integrity of the federal judiciary.
A cornerstone of the American legal system is the notion that judges and justices interpret the law fairly and impartially. This fundamental principle of our democracy is undermined when Supreme Court justices serve as willing agents of a transparently political entity like the Tea Party movement, which has an aggressive legislative and judicial agenda that is directed, in part, at the Court itself.
Regrettably, this is not the first time Justice Scalia has shed any pretense of objectivity. His refusal to recuse himself in 2004 from a case involving then-Vice President Dick Cheney, with whom he had just completed a hunting trip, as well as his recent comments making clear that women stand no chance with him to protect their Constitutional rights, erode the expectations Americans have for the behavior of Supreme Court justices.