| Chicago Tribune Tuesday, May 27, 1997 -Pg.1- NO CONTEST: TOP COURT'S TOP FIGHTER IS SCALIA Verbal Combat is Conservative's Forte Glen Elsasser, Washington Bureau. The nine justices of the Supreme Court will pass through the draped pillars on cue Tuesday, predictably sober-faced as they take seats on the highest court in the land. But the business-as-usual tempo will quickly change with oral arguments on whether Congress abused its power by giving President Clinton a line-item veto of spending bills. Dominating the court's final hearing until fall will almost surely be Antonin Scalia, a theatrically engaging conservative, former University of Chicago Law School professor, poker-playing, opera-loving subject of an adoring Web site and father of nine. With a distinctly aggressive styleat turns provocative, testy and wittythe only justice who wears a beard will be totally at ease, once again the garrulous gadfly in a world where quarrels are reduced to footnotes and caution and understatement dominate. Court policy denies cameras even a peek at Supreme Court proceedings, but not for a generation have these hearings been so lively. Much of it has to do with the presence of Scalia, a serial questioner of sorts who relishes the high-stakes oral arguments. | |
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