Opinion: These Fractures in the Supreme Court Threaten to Sink It
The Supreme Court’s once shiny surface is fracturing before our eyes. It may be hard to identify where or when the damage first began, but the source is obvious. It’s the justices themselves.
At the most recent Supreme Court Historical Society Dinner, both Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts were surreptitiously recorded by Lauren Windsor, a documentary filmmaker who baited both justices by making very pro-conservative remarks. Alito took the bait hook, line, sinker and maybe some of the fishing rod. According to Rolling Stone, the annual dinner is known as an opportunity “for right-wing activists to buttonhole Supreme Court justices.” This in and of itself makes it a questionable event for the supposedly non-partisan high court, but it also explains why Alito apparently felt quite safe in sharing how he really feels. He told Windsor that between the right and left ideological positions “one side or the other is going to win” and that “there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.” Alito went on to agree that there is a need to return the country “to a place of godliness.”
Alito’s views may come as no surprise, but we should be surprised and shocked at how comfortable he is at stating them out loud in public. This was not a surreptitious recording made in a private moment. It was a sitting Justice speaking to the public at a public event, asserting his view that the ideological differences in cases he listens to cannot be subject to compromise. Glaringly absent is any reference to the law, the “calling balls and strikes” metaphor that is so often used about what the justices are supposed to be doing. Rather, he sounds like a zealot who believes that only one side of these cases has God on their side. It’s impossible to imagine that Alito’s view could allow him to dispassionately apply the law.