Justice Alito Responds to Kagan’s Recent Remarks About the SCOTUS’ Legitimacy

In an apparent response to Justice Elena Kagan‘s recent remarks about the Supreme Court‘s legitimacy, Justice Samuel Alito argued that “questioning our integrity crosses an important line.”

Alito, the justice who authored the 6-3 opinion that overturned 49 years of abortion precedent under Roe v. Wade this summer, made his highly rare rebuke to Kagan in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, albeit without directly naming her.

“It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line,” Alito told the outlet.

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Several high court justices have spoken about the court’s public perception this year since the landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which saw the conservative majority of justices vote to allow states to form laws severely restricting access to abortion procedures. The decision prompted protests, threats, and polls showing more than half of the nation holding an unfavorable view of the Supreme Court.

During a recent public speaking event in New York earlier this month, Kagan said she believes “judges create legitimacy problems for themselves, undermine their legitimacy, when they don’t act so much like courts and when they don’t do things that are recognizably law.”

And during an event in Montana, she argued: “If, over time, the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that is a dangerous thing for democracy.”

Chief Justice John Roberts sought to formulate his own response to Kagan’s position during a speaking event in Colorado, saying that simple disagreement with an opinion “is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.”

It’s unclear when was the last time that the justices quarreled back and forth with each other via statements to the press.

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Alito’s remarks come on the same week the Supreme Court announced the continuation of livestreamed oral arguments for the fall 2022-23 term. Although the building will remain partially closed to the public, people can now request to attend oral argument hearings before the nine-member bench.

Justices will begin oral arguments for the new term next week, beginning with the case Sackett v. EPA, a question of whether the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set the proper test for determining whether wetlands qualified under the Clean Water Act as “waters of the United States.”