John LaFalce picked up Antonin Scalia at the Buffalo airport in 1993. On the ride into town, they talked about an opening at the Supreme Court for which President Bill Clinton had yet to make a nomination. “Scalia told me, ‘If that president of yours had any sense, he’d appoint Ruth Bader Ginsburg,’ ” says LaFalce, who was then a Democratic member of Congress.

“I had not yet heard of her. Scalia said he didn’t agree with her on many things, but he said she was a brilliant legal mind. He said, ‘I would not appoint her, but he’s a Democrat – and if he’s going to appoint anybody, he ought to appoint her.’ ” LaFalce had invited Scalia, then a Supreme Court justice, to be the keynote speaker for the Raichle Lecture on Law in American Society, at Canisius College.