U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said it "enrages" him when people refer to the court as "politicized," and that neither he nor any of the judges are voting a certain way because they like a president or are a member of a particular political party.
"I couldn't care less who the president was," Scalia said Monday night at an event held by Thomson Reuters for the book "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts." He co-authored the book with Bryan Garner, a professor and legal scholar.
The judges "vote that way because that's who they are, they were selected because of who they are, so why should it be surprising," he said.
The book reiterates a stance that Scalia is well-known for, that judges should base their decisions on what the text of the law says and not ideas about what the lawmakers may have intended.
Scalia said some have criticized the Supreme Court in recent months because Republican appointees are voting in one direction and Democratic appointees in another.
He said that didn't use to be the situation, that "you couldn't divide it up as neatly as you can now."
The audience at the event asked Scalia some questions, including on whether there should be term limits for the justices.
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He didn't think so. "I'm the oldest one there, I'm not drooling yet," he said.
