Few phrases get used more today than “creative destruction.”  What it really reflects though, is simply the way in which the world has changed.  Our forefathers, along with the very founders of the country, couldn’t have imaged everyday things like air travel, the interstate highway system, telephones, automobiles or even indoor plumbing.  Much less the internet, the splitting of the atom, or globalization.

So how is it that members of the our third branch of government, the Supreme Court, actually hold contemporary debates about constitutional ideas, in the context of what the founders world was once like?

The answer is Antonin Scalia.  Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia, has had a profound influence, far beyond his decisions and the world of Court conferences.  His ideas about original intent and originalism have taken hold as a real principle of debate.  And that fact alone, may well be his lasting legacy.

As this current court term comes to an end, Law Professor Bruce Allen Murphy tries to understand Scalia in Scalia: A Court of One.

My conversation with Bruce Allen Murphy: