Jay Weaver is The Herald's legal-affairs reporter. He asked these questions of Joan Biskupic, the author of ``American Original, The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia''. Biskupic, who obtained her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, has been USA Today's legal affairs correspondent since 2000.

Q: Why did you choose to write a biography of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia after your previous book on former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor?

A: I always found Scalia to be the most intriguing justice. I found he was effective in nontraditional ways, such as through his dissenting opinions and in speeches. He was getting his views out as a conservative justice and they were being gobbled up, even by his enemies. With the addition of more conservatives on the court, he was able to win more majority opinions. I was intrigued how he was able to win more influence as I followed the trajectory of his career. Even as Democrats have won the White House and Congress, the third branch [Supreme Court] is still rooted in conservatism.

Q: Is he an ``American Original'' as the book title says -- in the sense of hewing to what the framers of the Constitution originally intended -- or is he just a conservative ideologue?

A: That's the $64,000 question. Is his brand of `originalism' simply a way to achieve his right-leaning results? In most cases, basically, he thinks judges should interpret the Constitution in terms of how it was understood at the time of its drafting in the late 1700s. Justice O'Connor and Justice Thomas have at times taken him to task for what has been an inconsistency in his position. In the prologue, I note that Justice O'Connor said Scalia's positions `forbidding the federal government to get in the way of state handgun regulation but letting it override state drug laws' were `irreconcilable.' That's part of why his critics say he talks a good game until he doesn't get what he wants.

Q: Do you think his strict Catholic upbringing in an Italian immigrant family influenced his legal philosophy as much as his educational experience?

A: I think it's part of a package. He, more than any other justice, is identified by his religion. No one else on the bench speaks out on religion as much as Scalia does. He says questions about his religion are fair game. However, what he's insistent about is that his religion doesn't affect his legal decisions. He says he is only interpreting the constitutional text. Yet, he has expressed fervor for two passions: His religion and a repudiation of Roe v. Wade, and there's no ignoring his repudiation of abortion rights is in sync with his religious views.

Q: How does Scalia rationalize his single-handed decision to stop the 2000 Florida presidential recount before the conservative majority's final ruling in Bush v. Gore?

A: That one statement to stay the recount put him at the center of everything. He was the pivotal player. To this day, he complains that he gets too much grief for that. By writing it, he laid bare all the political considerations of the case. None of the other conservatives signed on to that statement explaining the stay.

Q: Has he ever expressed any recriminations about the presidency of George W. Bush as O'Connor has in recent years?

A: Nothing he has ever said to me suggests that he ever regretted his role in the case.

Q: Readers might be surprised to learn that Scalia played a key role as a top legal advisor to President Nixon and then to President Ford during the Watergate scandal?

A: When everyone was bailing out of the Nixon administration, Scalia wanted to move up. Since he was young, Scalia was at home with the tension and confrontation, and he generated a lot of it himself. He could handle the tension of Watergate. He really flourished after Watergate, in the Ford years.

• Saturday, 4:30 p.m. in Room 3208-3209. With Barry Friedman, ``The Will of the People.''

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