Overall, the 567-page book is an extended plea for judges to hew to the text of statutes and the Constitution in making their decisions and to ignore extraneous factors such as legislative history, the workability of the statute, and the presumed purpose of legislation - though it says that the tongue-twisting "purposivist" approach is sometimes relevant. "We look for meaning in the governing text, ascribe to that text the meaning that it has borne from its inception, and reject judicial speculation" about the drafters' intentions and the law's anticipated consequences.

*                               *                              *

In the preface, Scalia and Garner address that point. "If pure textualism were actually a technique for achieving ideological ends, your authors would be counted extraordinarily inept at it." Describing himself as a "confessed law-and-order social conservative," Scalia said textualism has led him to seemingly liberal positions on criminal sentencing, confronting witnesses, punitive damages and the constitutionality of bans on burning the American flag. For his part, Garner said he is pro-choice and supports same-sex marriage, but "finds nothing in the text of the Constitution that mandates these policies."