Samuel Alito Is Planning to Stick Around on the Supreme Court for a While

Supreme Court justices are some of the most powerful people in the United States, and as recent years have indicated, they are often very reluctant to relinquish that power voluntarily. That's why so many justices wind up dying on the bench and being replaced in the aftermath of their deaths.

Samuel Alito is now one of the oldest justices on the court at 76, and given that President Trump is the president, many wondered whether he might consider retiring in the next few years. Here's what we know.

The reason some conservatives are clamoring for Alito's retirement is that it would preserve the conservative supermajority on the court. President Trump would be able to name Alito's replacement, which would keep the 6-3 majority conservatives currently have on the court intact for years to come. If Alito dies during a Democratic administration, the ideological balance of the Court could shift, which is what happened when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on the bench.

While Alito might care about the Court remaining conservative, it seems that's not enough to convince him to retire. According to reporting from Fox News, both Alito and his fellow conservative justice Clarence Thomas, who is 77, are planning to remain on the Court in the coming years. Not much detail was provided in the reporting about their rationale, but it seems that both of them like the work and feel they are still capable of doing it.

For his part, President Trump told Maria Bartiromo that he would be prepared to name replacement justices should that become necessary.

"In theory, it's two — you just read the statistics — it could be two, could be three, could be one," he said. "I don't know. I'm prepared to do it."

For now, at least, it seems like he doesn't need to make plans to name a new justice to the bench. Of course, a medical event could always create an opening, but that's harder to predict.

Although the Court has always played a prominent role in deciding what kind of world most Americans live in, that has become more true than ever over the past few years as it has seen fit to issue rulings that shape our democracy and the rules we live under. In cases ranging from gerrymandering and voting rights to gay marriage and abortion rights, the Court has issued consequential rulings even as its own popularity has continued to fall.

Alito and Thomas are two of the Court's most reliable conservatives, but they are also now the two most senior justices on the bench. While we have no reason to suspect that either of them is in bad health, part of the push asking for them to retire is designed to keep the Court's current ideological configuration intact. Alito has been on the Court since 2006, and Thomas since 1991, making Thomas the longest-serving justice remaining on the Court.