{"id":18191,"date":"2026-11-13T16:49:31","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T08:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18191"},"modified":"2026-11-13T16:49:37","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T08:49:37","slug":"alito-warns-congress-can-turn-off-the-lights-at-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18191","title":{"rendered":"Alito warns Congress can \u2018turn off the lights\u2019 at Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"367\" src=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/11.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/11.png 682w, https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/11-300x161.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to the Federalist Society on Thursday, warned against any potential congressional action to defund the Supreme Court as he defended the importance of an independent judiciary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCongress 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,\u201d Alito said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, it is important to preserve the independence of the judiciary,\u201d he added. \u201cIf that is eliminated, then the Constitution as adopted in 1789 will no longer be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alito made the comments in his return to the Federalist Society\u2019s annual Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner, named after the late conservative justice and held as part of the group\u2019s annual convention each November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year, the convention comes a week after Democrats swept control of both houses of Congress. Alito made no reference to the midterm elections or the pending change in power during his remarks, but Democrats have eyed using Congress\u2019s power of the purse as leverage against the conservative-majority high court before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two of Alito\u2019s colleagues \u2014 Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Amy Coney Barrett \u2014 made a rare visit to Capitol Hill over the summer to advocate for the judiciary\u2019s budget and their increased security funding in the wake of rising threat levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alito told the crowd of more than 1,000 conservative lawyers on Thursday that the judiciary is the least powerful branch and it is \u201cvulnerable\u201d to Congress and the executive. Still, the justice warned that judges can overstep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf you think about a hand grenade, a 500-pound bomb and a nuclear weapon,\u201d he began, \u201cthe hand grenade is the last dangerous. But that is not to say that it is not dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The justice chastised lower judges at one point for sometimes issuing \u201cunjustified\u201d orders blocking presidents\u2019 policies in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey are dedicated and they are skillful, but they\u2019re not perfect and they make mistakes,\u201d Alito said. \u201cAnd in some instances, I think they have gone far astray in abuse of their powers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alito was the latest conservative justice to address the Federalist Society\u2019s annual dinner. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett shared the stage last year, and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justice Stephen Breyer a year prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alito addressed the dinner virtually during the pandemic in a speech where he described the health crisis as having caused \u201cpreviously unimaginable\u201d restrictions on civil liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Federalist Society does not officially take political or legal positions, but the nonprofit over decades has become an incubator for Republican judicial nominees and a tentpole of the conservative legal movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to the Federalist Society on Thursday, warned against any potential congressional action to defund the Supreme Court as he defended the importance of an independent judiciary. \u201cCongress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities. And there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4476,1888,2663],"class_list":["post-18191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-alito","tag-congress","tag-warns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alito warns Congress can \u2018turn off the lights\u2019 at Supreme Court - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18191\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alito warns Congress can \u2018turn off the lights\u2019 at Supreme Court - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to the Federalist Society on Thursday, warned against any potential congressional action to defund the Supreme Court as he defended the importance of an independent judiciary. \u201cCongress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities. 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