Former federal judge and Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork of heart complications at the age of 85.

Bork was a former solicitor general and conservative jurist, but he is most remembered for a position that he never held: Supreme Court justice.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the court, but the Senate defeated his bid by a vote of 58 to 42—the largest margin ever against a Supreme Court nominee.

As a result of the failed nomination, Bork famously said that his "name became a verband I regard that as one form of immortality."

CT sat down with Bork in 1997 to talk about his book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. In that interview, Bork said he had observed a general decline in American culture—but noted that he also had seen signs of religious renewal.

"It's not quite clear that there is, but Promise Keepers clearly reflects a religious impulse," he said. "The evangelical movement is certainly growing stronger. And one can hope that the more orthodox people in Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism will stiffen their spines and do battle in those denominations."