Alito Protects Nation From Voluntary Retirement
Justice Samuel Alito reassured a terrified nation Tuesday that he will not recklessly abandon his lifetime government position merely because he has served on the Supreme Court for two decades, reached conventional retirement age and openly considered retiring. Alito told CBS News he weighed leaving after the Court’s last term and believes a person his age should revisit the question annually. He also told Bloomberg News he intends to remain through the current term and would not retire during a lame-duck Senate session if Democrats win control in November, sparing Americans the destabilizing spectacle of an elderly public official voluntarily surrendering power.
President Donald Trump praised Alito for resisting retirement, the radical practice under which prominent men stop controlling national policy and permit someone else to sit in their chair. “Samuel understands that retirement is a left-wing scheme where very important people suddenly become less important, which is frankly unconstitutional and very unfair,” Trump said. “He should stay a long time, maybe forever, because the country needs judges who know exactly which president deserves to replace them.” Republicans agreed that lifetime appointments were designed to insulate justices from politics, particularly by allowing them to calculate the precise partisan conditions under which their replacements should be selected.
An immediate retirement could allow Trump to nominate a fourth justice, while a departure after Democrats capture the Senate could force Alito to continue serving until Republicans regain control. The arrangement preserves judicial independence by ensuring that every personal retirement decision is coordinated with election calendars, Senate arithmetic and the ideological preferences of whichever president the justice considers legitimate. Chief Justice John Roberts welcomed the stability of a Court divided among six conservatives, three liberals and nine individualized succession strategies.
Constitutional scholars confirmed that Alito remains free to retire whenever he chooses, provided he chooses a politically flawless moment and describes the timing as nonpartisan. They noted that Article III protects federal judges from salary reductions and removal from office, while its lesser-known electoral provision requires aging justices to remain at work until their preferred party can safely inherit the seat. Alito’s continued service has therefore preserved the central principle of American judicial independence: Supreme Court justices must never play politics unless they are doing it for life.
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.