This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

And as you know, we love to tell stories about everything on this show, including the

American dream and the law.

This next story, the story of Antonin Scalia, is about both.

Affectionally known as Nino, he would become a judge on the highest court in the land,

the U.S. Supreme Court, and he did it not through family connection or privilege,

but hard work and merit.

Few judges have had as much influence on the law, changing as Justice Elena Kagan remarked,

not long after Scalia's death in 2016, how almost all lawyers think and talk about the law.

Here to tell the story of this remarkable man and judge is James Rosen, author of Scalia, Rise to Greatness.

Here's James.

Antonin Scalia was confirmed to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the first Italian American who would sit on the Supreme Court on September 17, 1986, very fittingly, Constitution

Day.

It was an extraordinary moment because Scalia was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 98 to nothing

to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the first Italian American to sit on the Supreme Court.

And from the perspective of the small number of White House aides and Justice Department officials who were managing the Scalia confirmation process,

they were obviously ecstatic at a 98 to nothing vote, all the more so because

Scalia's nomination was actually part of a pair of Supreme Court nominations.

Joined to his nomination was the elevation of the Associate Justice William Rehnquist

to Chief Justice of the United States.

And that did not go so smoothly.

...