The evidence says otherwise. Scalia voted to strike down laws or held executive actions unconstitutional many times over the course of his career. At some point &quot;the rarest of circumstances&quot; has to have some bite. I&#x27;m sure he would have argued that he was compelled to do so by the text of the constitution and by the flagrant unconstitutionality of those laws&#x2F;actions, but I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s a good answer. He may have wished that circumstances would have allowed him to be an avatar of judicial restraint but regardless that&#x27;s not what happened.