Justice Alito Critiques Supreme Court Colleagues

Nat'l Law Journal

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. said Saturday that the last term was a “very bad term for textualism,” referring mainly to the 6-3 ruling that rescued the Affordable Care Act from an interpretation that might have wrecked it.

“Last term was a term in which the court followed what Humpty Dumpty famously said: ‘When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less,” Alito said in Dallas at a Federalist Society event, according to a write-up from law professor Josh Blackman. Alito was in the minority in the court’s June 25’s decision in King v. Burwell.

Alito spoke at a Federalist Society conference titled, “A Retrospective on the Rule of Law and the George W. Bush Administration.” It took place at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in University Park, Texas. Media access was restricted at the event. The Federalist Society permitted “still camera, pencil, and pad coverage only.” Recording devices for broadcast were barred.

Blackman, an associate professor at the South Texas College of Law, Houston, Texas, and an active blogger about the Supreme Court, attended the talk and posted a summary on Monday. The quotes in this story were drawn from Blackman’s blog post. http://joshblackman.com/blog/2015/09/21/justice-alito-reflects-on-his-tenth-anniversary-on-scotus/

Alito, who is nearing his 10th anniversary on the Supreme Court, also discussed the doctrine of “ stare decisis,” or adhering to precedent, which he said was “a Latin phrase. It means, "to leave things decided when it suits our purposes.’”

He cited several cases in which justices, in his view, ignored stare decisis. The most dramatic, he said, was Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent in Glossip v. Gross.

“Justice Breyer, joined by Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg” suggested that the “death penalty was under all circumstances unconstitutional—despite the fact that the Constitution refers twice to the death penalty. There would be a pretty strong stare decisis case against the move he is recommending.”

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