Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned Thursday night that Congress holds a blunt instrument over the nation's highest court: the power of the purse. Speaking at the Federalist Society's Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner, Alito said lawmakers could simply cut the Court's funding and shut it down.
"Congress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities," Alito said, according to The Hill. "And there are many, many, many other things that they can do, or at least try to do."
The remarks came roughly two weeks after Democrats swept the midterm elections and claimed control of both the House and the Senate — a detail Alito did not mention during his address to a crowd of more than 1,000 conservative lawyers, though the timing was impossible to ignore. He also avoided direct commentary on President Donald Trump's criticism of federal judges who rule against his administration, according to reporting on the speech.
RedState noted the constitutional tension at the heart of the warning: Article III guarantees that judges' compensation "shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office," but it says nothing about keeping the building's lights on. The Constitution's text protects salaries. It does not protect the Court's operating budget, security, staff or facilities from a hostile Congress.
Alito framed the issue as a question of judicial independence, not partisan budgeting. "So, it is important to preserve the independence of the judiciary," he said, per The Hill. "If that is eliminated, then the Constitution as adopted in 1789 will no longer be the same."
He also aimed criticism at lower-court judges, calling out what he described as "unjustified" orders that have blocked presidential policies in recent years. Federal judges have repeatedly halted pieces of Trump's second-term agenda since he returned to office, drawing sharp rebukes from the White House and its allies. Alito's remarks at the Scalia dinner put him squarely in that debate without naming any specific ruling.
The speech lands as Republicans confront an uncomfortable math problem on the judiciary. Alito, 76, and Justice Clarence Thomas, 78, both indicated before the current term that they had no plans to retire even if Democrats won the Senate — a scenario that would deny a Republican president and Senate the chance to fill their seats. With Democrats now set to take the chamber in January, GOP strategists are staring at the prospect that two of the Court's most reliable originalist votes could be replaced only under a Democratic president.
Alito's warning about defunding is not hypothetical in the sense that the mechanism requires nothing more than a simple majority in both chambers and a presidential signature. Congress sets the Court's appropriations every year. It funds the justices' security details, the building's operations, the clerk staff and the docket itself. A Congress determined to starve the institution could shrink that budget line to almost nothing — or attach conditions designed to hobble the Court's work.
The Federalist Society, which hosted the dinner, has long served as a pipeline for Republican judicial nominees, including several sitting justices. The organization says it does not take official positions on political matters. Alito's remarks nonetheless marked one of the most explicit warnings from a sitting justice about the vulnerability of the Court to a political branch newly controlled by the opposing party.
The speech drew immediate attention online.
"Congress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities. And there are many, many, many other things that they can do, or at least try to do." — Justice Samuel Alito, via The Hill
What happens next depends on whether the incoming Democratic majorities treat Alito's warning as a roadmap or a red line. Court-watchers have already floated proposals to expand the bench by adding four, six or more justices — a move that would require only an act of Congress, not a constitutional amendment. Defunding the Court is the blunter version of the same instinct: change the institution by changing the money that keeps it running.
For everyday Americans, the stakes are concrete. The Court's docket includes cases on religious liberty, gun rights, regulatory overreach and the limits of federal agency power — the exact areas where a shrunken, underfunded Court would struggle to issue timely rulings. A Court that cannot pay its clerks or secure its building cannot decide the cases that shape the country.
Our Take
Alito just told the truth in a room full of lawyers, and the Left's response will be to pretend he said something sinister. He didn't. He described a constitutional vulnerability that has always existed and that Democrats are now in a position to exploit. The Constitution protects judicial salaries. It does not protect the Supreme Court's electricity bill — and everyone in that dinner hall knows it.
This is what the midterms bought for the radical Left: a majority in both chambers and a fresh appetite for remaking the Court by any means necessary. Court-packing was the loud version. Defunding is the quiet one — no hearings, no constitutional amendment, just a budget line zeroed out and a docket that grinds to a halt. Patriots should be paying attention to appropriations season the way they paid attention to the confirmation fights.
The justice's warning also ought to land on Republicans who spent years treating judicial independence as a talking point while doing nothing to fortify it. The Court's security, its funding and its institutional standing are not self-executing. They depend on the people's representatives choosing to respect the separation of powers even when the Court rules against them.
Alito is 76. Thomas is 78. Both have refused to blink, and both know a Democratic Senate could end their careers the moment they step down. The question for conservatives is simple: what are you prepared to do between now and January to make sure the lights stay on?
