Feb.17

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Alito To Hang Up His Robe?

The black one, we mean, not the white one.

There is much speculation right now that Associate Justice Samuel Alito is planning to call it a career sometime in the very near future (see here, here, here and here for examples). The main evidence for this supposition:

• Alito has a book—basically a memoir—coming out on October 6. The new Supreme Court term starts October 5. Normally, justices promote their books, because they want to earn lots of royalties. The only way Alito will be able to do so is if he has left his job by October 6.
  
  
• He gave a rare interview to Politico that was ostensibly about the career of Antonin Scalia, but that was also substantially about legacy and what all of this means, in the end.
  
  
• There have been quite a few laudatory pieces about Alito in the last couple of weeks, of the sort that tend to be written when people reach the ends of their careers. At least a couple of them were written by close friends of Alito, who might have inside information about his plans.
  
  
• He just reached the 20-year mark, he doesn't like the work very much, and his wife absolutely hates the constraints that her husband's job imposes on her.
  
  
• Alito is both smart and very partisan. He knows that the window to replace him with a much younger conservative could close in January of 2027, and then might not reopen for a long time. He doesn't want to be Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Sequel.

It is worth noting that a similar calculus applies to Clarence Thomas, in that he doesn't really like the work, either, and he would very much like to step down and spend his days traveling the country in his RV. Plus, he's a little older than Alito (77 vs. 75). On the other hand, Thomas doesn't have a book to hawk, and while he doesn't like the job, he does like the perks that come with the job—like, you know, free RVs. Plus, it's generally believed that he wants to become the longest-serving justice of all time. If so, he'll need to remain on the bench for another 2 years and change.

Democrats, of course, would like to see both men pull a Ginsburg, and hold on so long they both get replaced by liberal Democrats. That is not likely. Indeed, if one of the two is still on the bench the next time the blue team controls the Senate, then that's a big win for them. (We are assuming we've now entered into an era—Call it the Age of Turtles—where a Senate majority just won't confirm a justice from a president of the other party, no matter how much time is left in the president's term.) (Z)