Today in Talkingpoints memo there is a post by Sahil Kapus, reporting that Scalia is releasing a book prior to the Supreme Court ruling on health care. Reportedly in this book Scalia reverses himself on supporting a precedent that he agreed with as late as 2005. This precedent underlies many of the arguments supporting the health care law. The full post is available here. The ethical issues this raises are astounding.
Clearly, Scalia changing his opinion on a precedent, while leaving the door opinion to change it back, leaves the distinct impression that this is a political decision. Scalia again, despite protestations otherwise, is a political judge. However, what I find the most egregious, is not that Scalia is clearly building an argument in support of money interests, but that he that he is personally enriching himself by doing so. By releasing the book at this time, he is not only creating sales by providing information that is not yet available in the court ruling, he is giving all of the monied people and corporations in this country the opportunity to pay him for this decision by buying his book.
Scalia both now and in the past has demonstrated that he has no need appear unbiased. After all isn't Scalia the judge who went hunting with Dick Cheney when cases in which Cheney was closely involved were on his docket. Maybe its time that the Supreme Court Justices at least gave the appearance of having ethical principals?