Scalia Votes With Court's Liberals !

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court announced an important decision. By a 5-4 vote, the court said the federal government was wrong when it stopped New York State from investigating predatory mortgage lending -- the same sort of lending that precipated the economic crises.

The Bush administration had argued that mortgage lending was covered by federal regulation, and therefore the states should have no say in the matter. The court disagreed, saying states have the right to enforce their own laws on the matter. I believe the court's decision was the correct one, and I applaud it.

But the decision is an oddity because of the make-up of the five votes that decided it. The decision was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who joined the court's four liberals to form the majority. Scalia voting with the liberals? Has Hell frozen over?

It was easy to understand why the four liberals voted the way they did. They were rightly protecting the rights of consumers. But why did Scalia abandon his conservative principles to vote with them? He is probably the most right-wing conservative member of the court.

And then it hit me. Scalia didn't abandon the conservative position -- the other four conservatives did. This decision really should have been a 9-0 decision. That's because this is not just a consumer protection case -- it's also a state's rights case. It was one of those odd cases where liberal and conservative principles converge.

Scalia was simply defending the same state's rights position he has always supported. It was the other conservatives who abandoned the conservative position to provide cover for the Bush administration -- who were trying to advance a federalist position.

So the world is not upside down and Hell hasn't frozen over. Scalia wasn't voting as a liberal. He was defending the traditional conservative position. I'm glad. I was worried for a while that the world might be ending.