Early career and family Edit

Advocacy of originalism Edit

Antitrust scholar Edit

At Yale he was best known for writing The Antitrust Paradox, a book in which he argued that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers, and that many then-current readings of the antitrust laws were economically irrational and hurt consumers. He posited that the primary focus of antitrust laws should be on consumer welfare rather than ensuring competition, as fostering competition of companies within an industry has a natural built-in tendency to allow, and even help, many poorly run companies with methodologies and practices that are both inefficient and expensive to continue in business simply for the sake of competition, to the detriment of both consumers and society. Bork's writings on antitrust law—with those of Richard Posner and other law and economics and Chicago School thinkers—were influential in causing a shift in the Supreme Court's approach to antitrust laws since the 1970s.[12][13]

Solicitor General Edit

United States Circuit Judge Edit

Bork was a circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1982 to 1988. He was nominated by President Reagan on December 7, 1981, was confirmed with a unanimous consent voice vote by the Senate on February 8, 1982,[18] and received his commission on February 9, 1982. One of his opinions while on the D.C. Circuit was Dronenburg v. Zech, 741 F.2d 1388,[19] decided in 1984. This case involved James L. Dronenburg, a sailor who had been administratively discharged from the Navy for engaging in homosexual conduct. Dronenburg argued that his discharge violated his right to privacy. This argument was rejected in an opinion written by Bork and joined by Antonin Scalia, in which Bork critiqued the line of Supreme Court cases upholding a right to privacy.[19] In rejecting Dronenburg's suggestion for a rehearing en banc, the D.C. Circuit issued four separate opinions, including one by Bork (again joined by Scalia), who wrote that "no principle had been articulated [by the Supreme Court] that enabled us to determine whether appellant's case fell within or without that principle."[20] In 1986 President Reagan considered nominating Bork to the Supreme Court after Chief Justice Burger retired. Reagan ultimately chose Rehnquist for Chief Justice and Bork's D.C. Circuit colleague, Judge Antonin Scalia, as a new Associate Justice.

U.S. Supreme Court nomination Edit

Bork as a verb Edit

According to columnist William Safire, the first published use of bork as a verb was possibly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of August 20, 1987. Safire defines to bork by reference "to the way Democrats savaged Ronald Reagan's nominee, the Appeals Court judge Robert H. Bork, the year before."[38] Perhaps the best known use of the verb to bork occurred in July 1991 at a conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Feminist Florynce Kennedy addressed the conference on the importance of defeating the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying, "We're going to bork him. We're going to kill him politically ... This little creep, where did he come from?"[39] Thomas was subsequently confirmed after the most divisive confirmation hearing in Supreme Court history, until the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. In March 2002, the Oxford English Dictionary added an entry for the verb bork as U.S. political slang, with this definition: "To defame or vilify (a person) systematically, esp. in the mass media, usually with the aim of preventing his or her appointment to public office; to obstruct or thwart (a person) in this way."[40] There was an earlier usage of bork as a passive verb, common among litigators in the D.C. Circuit: to "get borked" was to receive a conservative judicial decision with no justification in the law, reflecting their perception, later documented in the Cardozo Law Review, of Bork's tendency to decide cases solely according to his ideology.[41] Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh used the term during his own contentious Senate confirmation hearing testimony when he stated that "The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at borking."[42]

Later work Edit

Works and views Edit

Death Edit

Bork died of complications from heart disease at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, on December 19, 2012.[60][37][61] Following his death, Scalia referred to Bork as "one of the most influential legal scholars of the past 50 years" and "a good man and a loyal citizen". Mike Lee, Senator from Utah, called Bork "one of America's greatest jurists and a brilliant legal mind".[62] He is interred at Fairfax Memorial Park.

In popular culture Edit

Selected writings Edit

See also Edit