Cite as: 518 U. S. 668 (1996)
Scalia, J., dissenting
of Commissioners had terminated Umbehr's contract. The fuzzier terminology is used, presumably, because O'Hare did not involve termination of a contract. As far as appears, O'Hare had not paid or promised anything to be placed on a list of tow-truck operators who would be offered individual contracts as they came up. The company had no right to sue if the city failed to call it, nor the city any right to sue if the company turned down an offered tow. It had, in short, only what might be called (as an infinity of things might be called) "a pre-existing commercial relationship" with the city: it was one of the tow-truck operators they regularly called. The quoted statement in Umbehr invites the bar to believe, therefore, that the Court which declined to draw the line of First Amendment liability short of firing from government employment (Elrod and Branti), short of nonhiring for government employment (Rutan), short of termination of a government contract (Umbehr), and short of denial of a government contract to someone who had a "pre-existing commercial relationship with the government" (O'Hare) may take a firm stand against extending the Constitution into every little thing when it comes to denying a government contract to someone who had no "pre-existing commercial relationship." Not likely; in fact, not even believable.
This Court has begun to make a habit of disclaiming the natural and foreseeable jurisprudential consequences of its pathbreaking (i. e., Constitution-making) opinions. Each major step in the abridgment of the people's right to govern themselves is portrayed as extremely limited or indeed sui juris. In Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 632, 633 (1996), announced last month, the Court asserted that the Colorado constitutional amendment at issue was so distinctive that it "defies . . . conventional inquiry" and "confounds [the] normal process of judicial review." In United States v. Virginia, ante, at 534, n. 7, announced two days ago, the Court purported to address "specifically and only an educational opportunity recognized by the District Court and the Court of
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