Scalia: U.S. system was "designed" for gridlock

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia attributed a lighter caseload for the Supreme Court in recent years to gridlock in Washington.

Most cases taken up by the Supreme Court "get all the kinks out of a new piece of legislation" and with fewer bills passed by Congress, the Court hears about half as many cases as it did twenty or thirty years ago.

"It looks like gridlock," Scalia, who is currently the longest-serving justice on the Court, said Thursday. "It is what has saved us. It is precisely the difficultly of enacting legislation that the framers thought would be principle protection for minorities."

"Gridlock is what our system was designed for," he added.

The Washington Ideas Forum was hosted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute at the Newseum Thursday.