On the Record

By: Steve Lash

Joan Biskupic has firmly established herself as the Doris Kearns Goodwin of judicial biography with her stirring and well-researched examination of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the nation’s most polarizing jurist.

In American Original, Biskupic explains how Scalia’s constitutional jurisprudence — his focus on original intent and presidential power — has parallels in his strong Catholic faith and roots in his pre-judicial career as an attorney in the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Biskupic, who has reported on the Supreme Court for 20 years, deftly examines how Scalia’s sarcastic and caustic attacks in dissenting opinions have at times alienated his colleagues. In a chapter titled “Showman on the Bench” Biskupic discusses how Scalia’s hyperactive participation in oral arguments has been entertaining but often galling for the attorneys presenting their cases and for his fellow justices trying to ask their own questions.

Throughout the 364 pages, Biskupic, like Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historian, includes revealing personal and professional anecdotes about her subject. These include the time students protested Scalia’s appearance at a college — to attend the graduation of one of his nine children — and his disappointment at being passed over in 1981 for solicitor general under President Reagan (five years later, he landed a more prestigious position, with greater job security).

The book — subtitled The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and released this month — is the second biography by Biskupic, USA Today’s Supreme Court reporter. She also wrote the critically acclaimed Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice, published in 2005.