There will come a time when the novelty of having covered Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign will wear off, and NBC executives will be left with the realization that Katy Tur was not ready when they made her the anchor of a political news program.
But that time is not today.
The recently-minted cable news anchor argued this week that the Supreme Court ought to consider interpreting the U.S. Constitution in a way that reflects modern, popular opinion, as opposed to the original intent of the document’s authors.
“Based on where Americans stand on the issues — Americans have really moved in a much more progressive direction over the years — do you think it’s appropriate to continue to take such a strict originalist view of the Constitution, given it is 2018 and not 1776?” Tur asked of her guest, conservative author J.D. Vance.
Her guest responded first by questioning her premise that public opinion is indeed very progressive, and then noted the difference between policy preferences and lawful interpretation of the Constitution.
Tur, unsatisfied, responded, “Well, the arc of history has shown that opinions have become more progressive.”
“And even just lately on the issues that are potentially going to come before the court and issues that have been ruled on relatively recently by the court, Americans are more progressive. Look at the polling,” she added, urging her guest to look at public polling on legalized abortion.
Yes, let’s look at those numbers.
Vance, for his part, repeated his original point, that there’s a difference between one’s own preference and properly interpreting the Constitution, because the first iteration of his point apparently didn’t stick.
“Again, I’d segment what you think the proper public policy should be from what a constitutional Supreme Court should rule under our system,” he said. “So, I think Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh’s views about the Constitution are really what we should be talking about, not whether he wants to move us in a particular public-policy direction.”
Vance added, “I know Judge Kavanaugh quite well, and I think his view is that on a lot of these topics the legislature should be deciding, the people should be deciding, the court should largely leave the people to make those decisions themselves.”
To Tur’s question of whether it’s “appropriate” to take “such a strict originalist view of the Constitution” given it’s 2018, the short response is: Yes, and the arguments that favor this approach are far more convincing than those that oppose. A second response to Tur is to pose the question: Is an originalist interpretation really worse than a theory of law that amounts to little more than an iteration of the worn-out “It’s the Current Year” meme?
Because if laws are determined merely by what is popular, or even generally accepted by the public, you’re going to have a bad time.
