In last night’s third and final presidential debate we were treated, finally, to a brief discussion of what should have been a central issue in these debates—the meaning of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court under it. Unfortunately, the discussion got off on the wrong foot right from the start when moderator Chris Wallace asked Secretary Clinton, “Where do you want to see the Court take the country?”

It’s not the role of the Court, of course, to take the country anywhere. Its role, rather, is to correctly read the law—constitutional, statutory, or regulatory—and apply it to the cases that come before it, period. Wallace quickly recovered, however, by asking how the Constitution should be interpreted—by reading the Founders words for what they say, or by reading it as a living document to be applied flexibly according to changing circumstances? That’s been the great jurisprudential question since Progressives prevailed on the New Deal Court to follow the second course, resulting in the Leviathan that surrounds us today.

Ever the Progressive, Clinton answered that “the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy.” Read our basic legal document as carefully as you wish, you will find no such opposition between the people and the powerful. Clinton’s populist appeal was a prelude, of course, to her attack on the Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which upheld the First Amendment right of corporations and labor unions to make independent political expenditures—in that case, let’s remember, the right of a nonprofit corporation to advertise “Hillary: The Movie” in broadcasts within 30 days of the 2008 Democratic primaries. It’s personal.

For his part, Trump rambled, as usual, but when he finally got to the point, he at least called it correctly, promising that the judges he would “appoint” (the president nominates, not appoints; and Trump can hardly promise for others) “will interpret the Constitution the way the Founders wanted it interpreted.” Unfortunately, the discussion that followed—warring arguments over guns and abortion—was more politics than law, as doubtless is to be expected at this point in our constitutional history, when even extended judicial confirmation hearings reflect politics more than law, to say nothing of the Court’s Obamacare opinions, among others. We’re far removed from the Federalist Papers.