U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dead At 79

Antonin Scalia, who was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and served as a reliably conservative lightning rod throughout his tenure, was found dead Saturday at a luxury resort in West Texas, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed. He was 79.

No cause of death had been released.

“On behalf of the court and retired justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away,” Roberts said in a statement. “He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the court and the country he so loyally served.”

In his nearly 30-year tenure, Scalia developed an unfailingly conservative voting record, issuing opinions and dissents often punctuated with sarcasm and even ridicule of those who opposed him.

He enjoyed the spotlight, both socially and as a jurist, seeming to lunge for attention from the bench and through vitriolic writings uncommon for members of the court. He often used speeches to rail against the Supreme Court’s rulings on society’s hottest-button issues, including abortion, affirmative action and gay rights.

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In one of his more famous responses to a Supreme Court decision, this one striking down a state law that made private homosexual conduct a crime, Scalia went well beyond intellectual argument.

“It is clear from this that the court has taken sides in the culture war, and in particular in that battle of the culture war that concerns whether there should be any moral opprobrium attached to homosexual conduct,” he said.

Almost immediately after his death became public, political stakes were planted on whether the Republican Congress would entertain any nomination from President Obama.

Scalia had arrived as a guest Friday at Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa, according to SA Today, the web site for the San Antonio Express. He attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found his body, the paper reported.

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To admirers, he was a fierce defender of the Constitution, an unyielding advocate for interpreting the document with its words defined as they were when written and not as they have evolved with the passage of time.

“The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring,” he once said. “It means today not what current society, much less the courts, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.”

That was not the prevailing mood on the court when Reagan appointed him to the bench but Scalia was unwavering in the intellectual certainty of his point of view.

“He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement. “His fierce loyalty to the Constitution set an unmatched example, not just for judges and lawyers, but for all Americans. We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law.”

To detractors, Scalia was often seen as old, caustic and crotchety, a man of sharp intellect but unable to keep up with the times.

To that, he’d likely say, “Amen.”

Scalia’s critics also frequently argued that his “originalist” view of the Constitution was simply a thin rationale for imposing his conservative politics onto the judiciary. He could abandon originalist impulses, critics frequently charged, as he did when he effectively decided a presidential election with his vote in the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore, which resulted in George W. Bush’s victory over Democrat Al Gore in 2000.

Scalia’s message to critics of that decision was terse: “Get over it,” he said in an interview with CNN years later.

A man who publicly flaunted his faith, he enjoyed his role as defender of the Constitution and reveled in the criticism that came his way, seeming to cherish the rise his pointed words gave to detractors and even allies.

In one of his most important acts, Scalia played a key role in striking down campaign finance laws, arguing that all Americans—including corporations and unions—had a free-speech right to spend their money on election ads. The decisions opened the gates for huge corporate donations in support of political candidates.

He also wrote the 2008 opinion declaring that the 2nd Amendment gave Americans a right to own guns for self-defense. A lifelong hunter, Scalia said the “right to bear arms” had been a fundamental right since America’s independence.

He was also a consistent dissenter on issues involving the death penalty, including when the court ruled unconstitutional the execution of the “retarded.”

“The principle question,” he said, “is who is to decide whether execution of the retarded is permissible or desirable? The justices of this court or the traditions and current practices of the American people? Today’s opinion says very clearly, the former.”

Warnings about the Supreme Court’s future are staples of U.S. presidential elections, with dire predictions from Republicans and Democrats alike about how the next president’s appointments will tilt the ideological balance one way or the other.

With primaries well underway in advance of the 2016 general election, those warnings have already begun to blare as loudly as ever.

The President went on national television to praise Scalia’s legal mind and to promise to nominate his replacement.

“He will no doubt be remembered as one of the most consequential judges and thinkers on the Supreme Court,” Obama said.

He said he will nominate a replacement ”in due time,” because “honoring the constitution is bigger than one political party.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, a leading GOP candidate, issued a statement that encouraged President Obama from appointing anybody to fill Scalia’s seat.

“Today our Nation mourns the loss of one of the greatest Justices in history – Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him, (and) the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement,” he said on Twitter.

Donald Trump sent a tweet that called Scalia’s death a “massive setback for the Conservative movement and our COUNTRY!”

Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, urged the president to appoint a replacement immediately, arguing the court should not struggle through a year with a vacant seat.

“The president can and should send the Senate a nominee right away,” he said in a statement. “With so many important issues pending before the Supreme Court, the Senate has a responsibility to fill vacancies as soon as possible.”

Hillary Clinton offered condolences while maintaining Obama has a duty to nominate a replacement.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Justice Scalia as they mourn his sudden passing,” she said in a statement. “I did not hold Justice Scalia’s views, but he was a dedicated public servant who brought energy and passion to the bench.

“The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia’s seat to remain open dishonor our Constitution. The Senate has a constitutional responsibility here that it cannot abdicate for partisan political reasons.”

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders took no initial stance, issuing a statement that said while he “differed with Justice Scalia’s views and jurisprudence,” he saw him as “a brilliant, colorful and outspoken member of the Supreme Court.”

Scalia became the longest serving member of the current court when Justice John Paul Stevens retired in 2010. Having excelled at his role as author of dissents early in his career, he more recently was assigned to write opinions for the majority in some of the court’s most important cases, including those on the First Amendment, class actions and arbitration.

Antonin Gregory Scalia was born in Trenton, NJ, on March 11, 1936. His father was an Italian immigrant, his mother a second-generation American.

After his family moved, he attended public grade school and Catholic high school in New York City. He attended Georgetown University as an undergraduate and obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School. After spending six years in a Cleveland law firm, he became a law school professor at the University of Virginia.

At Harvard, he met Maureen McCarthy, described by NPR as “a feisty Radcliffe student with views as conservative as his.” The two married and had nine children.