作者：琼·比斯库皮克，美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）最高法院首席分析师
4小时前发布
发布时间：2026年2月5日，美国东部时间凌晨4:00
安东宁·斯卡利亚大法官于本月（2026年2月）10年前突然离世，这一事件不仅重塑了最高法院的格局、改变了总统政治生态，而且正如今日最高法院所展现的，斯卡利亚本人的地位反而愈发凸显。
斯卡利亚于79岁时在得克萨斯州一处狩猎小屋去世，他是一位保守派的杰出人物，时而魅力四射，时而尖酸刻薄。他以充沛的活力著书立说、发表演讲，吸引了座无虚席的听众——其中大多是他的支持者，但即便批评者也会被他尖锐的言辞、戏剧化的手势和自信的原旨主义所吸引。
正如斯卡利亚本人所承认的，原旨主义——即认为法官应根据18世纪对宪法的理解来解释宪法的理论——在他1986年加入最高法院时被视为一种边缘学说。
“我过去常常可以很有底气地说，你在全国任何一所法学院的教员休息室里开炮发射葡萄弹，也打不中一个原旨主义者。”斯卡利亚在2008年联邦党人协会会议上表示，并补充说这一理论如今已获得“受人尊敬的地位”。
如今，原旨主义者无处不在，斯卡利亚的精神也同样弥漫在法庭之上。对斯卡利亚方法的坚持反映了宪法法律领域的沧海桑田——一场由他点燃但未能亲眼见证其全貌的保守主义变革。
律师们很少会在法庭上不提及基于原旨主义解读宪法的论点，如果争议涉及联邦法规的解释，他们也必然会引用斯卡利亚的另一标志性方法——文本主义。斯卡利亚认为，法官应根据法律条文的精确措辞来解释法规，而非依赖同时代的国会委员会报告、议院发言和其他立法历史资料。
以围绕唐纳德·特朗普总统关税权力的激烈争论为例。去年11月初庭审时，双方律师都引用《联邦党人文集》或早期宪法评论来支持各自关于总统关税权力范围的主张。
当他们就一项允许总统在国家紧急状态下“规范”外国商品进口的法规含义展开交锋时，他们各自引用了不同的字典定义。（斯卡利亚本人备有多本词典，包括塞缪尔·约翰逊1773年版的《英语词典》。）
上个月，律师保罗·克莱门特强调“有争议的法规短语的明确含义、字典定义”，以驳斥他过度解读法律的说法。“我认为我们应该在法规文本中按国会的字面意思来理解，”克莱门特辩称，他曾是美国副检察长，也是斯卡利亚的法律助手之一。（该法规允许联邦法院审理针对某些联邦官员的民事案件。克莱门特所代表的石油公司试图将州的诉求转移到联邦法院，他们称这一争议源于二战期间政府合同下的石油生产。）
现已退休的斯蒂芬·布雷耶大法官曾批评斯卡利亚的解释方法，并在自己的著作中倡导一种实用主义方法，该方法考虑不断演变的社会价值观和决策后果。作为比尔·克林顿总统任命的自由派大法官，随着特朗普任命的大法官加入最高法院，布雷耶发现自己的异议意见越来越多。
在接受美国有线电视新闻网沃尔夫·布利策采访时，布雷耶说：“如果我们追随你，尼诺（斯卡利亚的昵称），我们将拥有一部没人想要的宪法。”
每一位（保守派）大法官都在效仿斯卡利亚的先例
最高法院目前由右翼多数派掌控，这一局面在2020年艾米·科尼·巴雷特大法官上任后得到巩固。
在去年最重要的案件之一特朗普诉卡萨案中，巴雷特大量引用了1999年斯卡利亚的判决。作为由六名保守派大法官组成的多数派的撰写人，巴雷特表示，地方法院法官无权以影响全国诉讼的“普遍禁令”阻止特朗普的行政命令。她指出，这种禁令在本案中被用来阻止特朗普试图废除出生公民权，而其“没有任何开国时代的先例”。
“关键是什么？”巴雷特写道，她1999年曾是斯卡利亚的法律助手，当时斯卡利亚撰写了这一有利的先例。“普遍禁令在我国历史的大部分时间里都明显不存在。18世纪和19世纪的衡平法实践中没有它，这就解决了司法权威的问题。”
几乎每周，都有大法官以某种形式引用斯卡利亚的观点。
今年1月，首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨在支持一名质疑邮寄选票规则的共和党国会议员的意见中，引用了斯卡利亚著作中的两句话。“先计数后裁定合法性，不是产生公众认可的选举结果的方法……”罗伯茨引用了斯卡利亚在2000年布什诉戈尔诉讼案中的意见。
罗伯茨还引用了斯卡利亚1983年一篇关于确定原告是否对案件有足够利益提起诉讼的文章中的一句话：“这与你有什么关系？”
去年11月，塞缪尔·阿利托大法官质疑一名律师对斯卡利亚撰写的意见的解读时，他难以置信地问道：“所以你是说文本主义的创始人不懂文本主义？”
阿利托长期以来一直信奉原旨主义和文本主义方法，他在极右翼的最亲密盟友克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官也是如此。特朗普任命的三位大法官——巴雷特、尼尔·戈萨奇和布雷特·卡瓦诺——进一步强化了他们的观点。原旨主义和文本主义在下级法院和全国法学院中也愈发根深蒂固。
“他的观点无疑占了上风，”范德堡大学法学教授布赖恩·菲茨帕特里克表示，“他现在的影响力比以往任何时候都大。”
但菲茨帕特里克——曾是斯卡利亚的法律助手——很快补充说，采用他方法的年轻律师一代更加僵化。“当时可能看起来不明显，但斯卡利亚其实相当务实。年轻一代的文本主义者和原旨主义者认为自己比斯卡利亚更纯粹。他获得了所有的赞誉，因为是他让这些理念崭露头角，但这些方法在实践中自然会有演变。”
斯卡利亚的离世与特朗普的选举
斯卡利亚的离世震惊了法律界——以及2016年总统大选升温时的政治舞台。
2016年2月13日，斯卡利亚去世的消息在数小时内从其家人传到包括长期保守派倡导者伦纳德·利奥在内的密友，再到当时的参议院共和党多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔，最后传到特朗普竞选团队的唐·麦加恩（后来成为特朗普的白宫法律顾问）。
当时奥巴马总统还有11个月任期，但一小群有影响力的保守派共和党人立即表示，这个职位空缺应该留给下任当选总统。
巧合的是，2016年2月13日晚上的共和党总统辩论中，特朗普传达了这一信息：“推迟，推迟，再推迟。”为进一步争取建制派共和党人和保守派选民的支持，特朗普在2016年5月公布了一份可能的提名人名单，并随后不断增补。他将最高法院空缺问题作为攻击民主党挑战者希拉里·克林顿（前国务卿）的核心议题。
已故大法官的遗孀莫林·斯卡利亚在自家院子里放置了支持特朗普的标语牌，在他意外获胜后，她还受邀作为特别嘉宾参加特朗普在东厅宣布当时的美国上诉法院法官戈萨奇为斯卡利亚继任者的仪式。
特朗普在后续提名最高法院大法官时，一直以斯卡利亚的理想为标榜。尽管他的解释方法在律师和法官中广为人知，但美国民众可能更熟悉他对第二修正案持枪权的坚定支持，以及对堕胎权和同性婚姻的毫不妥协的反对。
2022年，戈萨奇、卡瓦诺和巴雷特大法官与托马斯和阿利托大法官一起推翻了罗伊诉韦德案及近半个世纪的堕胎权，阿利托代表多数派撰写的意见和其他大法官的附议意见反复引用了斯卡利亚的观点。
“正如斯卡利亚大法官所言，‘各州可以如果愿意，允许按需堕胎，但宪法并不要求他们这样做’，”卡瓦诺在一份附议意见中写道，呼应了斯卡利亚1992年的一个判例。
“这头狼以狼的姿态出现”
斯卡利亚的遗产还体现在他的前助手们在法庭上的重要地位上，其中包括特朗普去年任命的美国副检察长D.约翰·索尔，他被任命为政府在最高法院的最高律师。
“除了在原旨主义和文本主义方面的巨大影响外，”索尔告诉CNN，“斯卡利亚大法官关于权力分立的观点继续具有远见卓识和持久的影响。他在这方面的意见和著作，包括他在莫里森诉奥尔森案中的著名异议，在可预见的未来将在权力分立相关的诉讼中被广泛引用和讨论。”
斯卡利亚在莫里森诉奥尔森案异议中的完整引述部分，当时最高法院维持了允许法官任命独立检察官调查高层政府官员的法律，内容是：“通常，这类问题会以某种形式来到法院，就像披着羊皮的狼：所谓原则的潜在影响力不会立即显现，必须通过仔细和敏锐的分析才能发现。但这头狼以狼的姿态出现。”
通常，这句话会被直接引用，就像律师罗曼·马丁内斯去年12月用来批评对方律师挑战对政党的联邦竞选资金限制时说的：“这头狼以狼的姿态出现。他基本上是在告诉你，他们会继续诉讼，推翻每一项限制，包括对候选人直接捐款人的限制。”
但索尔在同一周的12月辩论中进一步发挥了这个狼的比喻，他辩称特朗普的行政权力允许他解雇联邦贸易委员会的一名独立官员，尽管有法律保护她。
“不过，这里的这头狼是以狼的姿态出现的，对吧？”索尔告诉大法官们，“我的意思是，对行政权力的限制就在法律条文里。”
一分钟后，索尔忍不住继续说道：“我无法应对世界上所有的狼，但这头狼在宪法结构方面，是芬里尔，北欧神话中最危险的狼……”
If you want to win over Supreme Court justices, quote Antonin Scalia
By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst
4 hr ago
PUBLISHED Feb 5, 2026, 4:00 AM ET
Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death 10 years ago this month reordered the Supreme Court, presidential politics and, as seen at the court today, invigorated the status of the man himself.
Scalia, who died at age 79 at a Texas hunting lodge, was a conservative luminary, by turns, charming and caustic. He wrote and moved with verve, drawing standing-room-only audiences, mostly fans but even critics who were riveted by his piercing rhetoric, operatic gestures and confident originalism.
As Scalia himself acknowledged, originalism – the theory that holds judges should interpret the Constitution based on the 18th century understanding of the document – was considered a fringe approach when he joined the court in 1986.
“I used to be able to say, with a good deal of truth, that one could fire a cannon loaded with grapeshot in the faculty lounge of any law school in the country and not strike an originalist,” Scalia said at a Federalist Society conference in 2008, adding that it had since gained “the status of respectability.”
Today, originalists are everywhere. So is the spirit of Scalia. The adherence to Scalia’s methods reflects the sea change in constitutional law – a conservative transformation that he helped ignite but did not live to see in its fullness.
Rarely does a lawyer come before the court without some argument related to an originalist reading of the Constitution, or, if the dispute tests how to interpret a federal statute, come without references to Scalia’s other signature approach, textualism. Scalia believed judges should construe statutes based on their text – the precise words – rather than by relying on contemporaneous congressional committee reports, floor statements and other items of legislative history.
Take the dueling arguments over President Donald Trump’s tariff power as one example. When the case was argued in early November, lawyers on both sides cited the Federalist Papers or early commentaries on the Constitution to back up their claims about the breadth, or alternatively, limit, of the president’s tariff power.
And as they clashed over the meaning of a statute letting the president “regulate” the importation of foreign goods during a national emergency, they offered dueling dictionary definitions. (Scalia armed himself with multiple dictionaries, including Samuel Johnson’s 1773 edition.)
Last month, lawyer Paul Clement highlighted “the plain meaning, the dictionary definitions of” a contested statutory phrase as he rebuffed suggestions he was reading the law too broadly. “I think we should sort of take Congress at its word in the text of the statute,” argued Clement, a former US solicitor general who once served as a Scalia law clerk. (The statute allowed federal courts to hear civil cases against certain federal officers. The oil companies Clement represented were seeking to transfer a state claim to federal court; they said the dispute traced to oil production under a government contract during World War II.)
Justice Stephen Breyer, now retired, criticized Scalia’s interpretive approach and wrote his own books advocating a pragmatic method that considered evolving societal values and the consequences of decisions. Breyer, a liberal appointee of President Bill Clinton, increasingly found himself in dissent as Trump’s appointees joined the bench.
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Breyer said he used to tell his colleague, “If we follow you, Nino, we’ll have a Constitution that no one would want.”
Every (conservative) justice looks to Scalia’s history
The high court is now controlled by a right-wing supermajority, solidified by the 2020 appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Barrett relied heavily on a 1999 Scalia decision in one of the most important cases last year, Trump v. Casa. Writing for the six-justice conservative majority, Barrett said district court judges lacked the authority to block Trump’s executive orders with “universal injunctions” that would affect litigation throughout the country. Barrett said such injunctions, used in the case at hand to block Trump’s effort to dissolve birthright citizenship, had no “founding-era forebear.”
“The bottom line?” wrote Barrett, who was one of Scalia’s law clerks in 1999 as he wrote that advantageous precedent. “The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history. Its absence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority.”
Hardly a week goes by when Scalia isn’t cited by one of the justices in some form.
Chief Justice John Roberts in January quoted two distinct lines from Scalia’s writings as he issued an opinion siding with a Republican congressman who challenged rules for counting mail-in ballots. “Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance … ,” Roberts wrote as he cited a Scalia opinion from the 2000 Bush v. Gore litigation.
Roberts also plucked a line from a 1983 essay by Scalia related to determining when plaintiffs have a sufficient stake in a case to sue: “What’s it to you?”
In November when Justice Samuel Alito challenged a lawyer’s interpretation of an opinion written by Scalia, Alito asked incredulously, “So you’re saying the founding father of textualism doesn’t understand textualism?”
Alito has long subscribed to originalist and textualist methods, as has his closest ally on the far right, Justice Clarence Thomas. Their views have been reinforced by the three appointees of President Donald Trump: Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Devotion to originalism and textualism has also intensified in the lower courts and the nation’s law schools.
“His views are definitely ascendant,” Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick said. “He’s having more influence now than he ever had.”
But Fitzpatrick, a former law clerk to Scalia, quickly added that the generation of young lawyers who’ve adopted his methods is more rigid. “At the time, maybe it didn’t seem like it, but Scalia was quite pragmatic. The younger generation of textualists and originalists consider themselves more pure than Scalia. He gets all the credit in the world for putting these things on the map, but there’s been a natural working out of the methods.”
Scalia’s death and Trump’s election
Scalia’s death shocked the world of law – and the surrounding political arena as the 2016 presidential election was heating up.
Word of Scalia’s passing on February 13, 2016, spread within hours from his family to close friends, including longtime conservative advocate Leonard Leo, to then-Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to Don McGahn on Trump’s campaign team. (McGahn became Trump’s White House counsel.)
President Barack Obama had 11 months left on his term, but the immediate sentiment among that small klatch of influential conservative Republicans was that the vacancy should be held for whoever was elected the next president.
At a Republican presidential debate, coincidentally scheduled that February 13 evening, Trump conveyed the message: “Delay. Delay. Delay.” Further appealing to establishment Republicans and the conservative base, Trump in May 2016 put out a formal list of possible nominees and then kept adding to it. He made the court vacancy a priority in his messaging against Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state.
Maureen Scalia, the wife of the late justice, supported Trump with a yard sign at her home, and after his upset victory, was among the special guests invited to Trump’s East Room announcement of then-US Appeals Court Judge Gorsuch as Scalia’s successor.
Trump spoke about the ideal of Scalia as he made his subsequent choices for the bench. While his interpretive methods were well known among lawyers and judges, the rest of America was likely more aware of his vigorous support of Second Amendment gun rights and unyielding opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
When Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, joined by Thomas and Alito, overturned Roe v. Wade and nearly a half century of abortion rights in 2022, Alito’s opinion for the majority and the other justices’ concurring statements repeatedly quoted Scalia.
“As Justice Scalia stated, the ‘States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so,’” Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence that echoed Scalia in a 1992 case.
‘This wolf comes as a wolf’
Scalia’s legacy is also manifest in the prominence of his former clerks who appear at the courtroom, beginning with US Solicitor General D. John Sauer, named by Trump last year to be the government’s top lawyer before the court.
“In addition to his tremendous influence in originalism and textualism,” Sauer told CNN, “Justice Scalia’s views on the separation of powers continue to have visionary and lasting impact. His opinions and writings in this area, including his famous dissent in Morrison v. Olson, will be cited and debated extensively in litigation over the separation of powers for the foreseeable future.”
The full quotable section from Scalia’s dissent in Morrison v. Olson, as the court upheld a law allowing judges to appoint independent counsels to investigate high-ranking government officials, was: “Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.”
Usually, the line is adopted straightforwardly, as lawyer Roman Martinez used it in December to criticize an opposing lawyer’s challenge to a federal campaign-finance limit on political parties: “This wolf comes as a wolf. He has basically told you that they’re going to keep litigating to knock down every single one of the restrictions, and that includes the limits on donors to candidates directly.”
But Sauer let the wolf metaphor run further during that same December week as he argued that Trump’s executive power permitted him to fire an independent officer at the Federal Trade Commission, even though a statute protected her.
“Here, though, this wolf comes as a wolf, right?” Sauer told the justices. “I mean, the restriction on executive power is right there in the statute.”
A minute later, Sauer just could not stop himself: “I can’t address all the wolves in the world, but this wolf, when it comes to constitutional structure, is Fenris, the most dangerous wolf in – in the history of Norse mythology.”