Why did Antonin Scalia favor judicial restraint?

Antonin Scalia favored judicial restraint because he believed it was essential to prevent judges from usurping the power of elected legislatures. He argued that when judges move beyond interpreting the law to effectively making it, they risk basing decisions on personal preferences and biases rather than established legal principles.1

To minimize this judicial role, Scalia championed originalism for constitutional cases and textualism for statutory interpretation. By anchoring legal meaning to the common understanding of terms at the time they were enacted, he sought to reduce the influence of a judge's own beliefs. Scalia maintained that issues not explicitly constrained by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights should be resolved through democratic processes or the formal amendment process, rather than by the judiciary.1