Alito Warns Congress Can ‘Turn Off the Lights’ at the Supreme Court
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned Thursday that Congress could use its power over the federal budget to shut down the nation’s highest court, telling a conservative legal audience that the judiciary is the most vulnerable of the three branches of government.
“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, which first reported the remarks.
Alito spoke at the Federalist Society’s Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner in Washington, addressing more than 1,000 conservative lawyers gathered for the group’s November convention.
A warning about judicial independence
Alito framed the funding power as a direct threat to judicial independence. He argued that preserving an independent judiciary is essential to keeping the constitutional system adopted in 1789 intact — and that if that independence were lost, “the Constitution as adopted in 1789 will no longer be the same.”
The justice described the judiciary as the least powerful of the three branches of government, and “vulnerable” to both Congress and the executive branch. He likened the difference in power to that between a hand grenade, a 500-pound bomb and a nuclear weapon — while cautioning that even the least dangerous of the three could still do harm.
Alito also turned his criticism toward the lower courts, saying some judges had abused their authority with orders blocking presidential policies in recent years. He called some of those rulings “unjustified.”
“They are dedicated and they are skillful, but they’re not perfect and they make mistakes,” Alito said of the lower court judges.
The remarks come a week after the midterm sweep
Alito did not mention the election results or the coming change in congressional control, according to the report. But his remarks landed just over a week after Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, a shift that has put the conservative-majority court back at the center of political debate.
On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should keep their impeachment options open when they take control of Congress, accusing the court of shielding President Donald Trump from accountability. Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju whether Democrats would try to impeach Trump, the New York Democrat said the court had “legalized a lot of his criminality” and added that “all options are on the table.”
Ocasio-Cortez gave no names of justices she would seek to impeach and announced no plan to bring articles against them. She also declined to put Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first in line for impeachment, while predicting multiple investigations and subpoenas once Democrats take over.
House Minority Leader-elect Jim Jordan, meanwhile, has predicted that Democrats will try to impeach Trump a third time and use House committees to investigate Cabinet officials and others.
Funding has been a pressure point before
Democrats have previously considered using funding as leverage over the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. The idea has circulated in debates over ethics rules and court reform, though no defunding effort has advanced.
The justices themselves have lobbied Congress for money. Over the summer, Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett visited Capitol Hill to press for the judiciary’s budget and additional security funding, a visit that came amid increased threats against judges.
The Constitution bars Congress from reducing a sitting justice’s salary, but the court’s operating budget — like the rest of the federal judiciary’s funding — is set through the annual appropriations process, giving lawmakers real leverage over how the institution runs. For context on the Democrats’ congressional sweep, see our report on the Senate leadership fight — and on Democrats’ use of congressional pressure, Epstein files fight.
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Why this matters
Alito’s remarks were unusually direct for a sitting justice speaking about the other branches. Supreme Court justices rarely discuss the political pressures on the court in public, and Alito’s warning amounts to a preemptive argument against using the power of the purse as a weapon in the coming Congress.
The speech also underscored how the court’s legitimacy has become a partisan battleground. Alito is the author of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, and his public defenses of the court have drawn sharp reactions from Democrats and liberal legal groups in the past.
With Democrats set to take control of both chambers in January, the fight over the judiciary — its budget, its ethics rules and its decisions — is likely to intensify. Alito’s message to the Federalist Society audience was that the stakes go beyond any single ruling.
Latest developments
- Alito delivered the remarks Thursday evening at the Federalist Society’s Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner, named for the late justice and held during the group’s November convention. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett appeared together at the dinner last year, following an appearance by Neil Gorsuch and Stephen Breyer the year before.
- Ocasio-Cortez’s impeachment comments came Wednesday in a CNN interview. She gave no timetable for any effort and named no justices.
- The new Congress takes control in January, after the lame-duck session. Republicans are using the remaining weeks to advance their legislative priorities, including a congressional stock trading ban and border measures.
Frequently asked questions
What did Justice Alito say about Congress and the Supreme Court?
Speaking at the Federalist Society’s Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner on Thursday, Alito warned that Congress could “turn off the lights at the Supreme Court” by cutting off its funding, and argued that preserving judicial independence is essential to keeping the constitutional system adopted in 1789 intact.
Where and when did Alito make the remarks?
He spoke Thursday evening at the Federalist Society’s annual Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner in Washington, before an audience of more than 1,000 conservative lawyers attending the group’s November convention.
Why are Democrats talking about impeaching Supreme Court justices?
Democrats won control of the House and Senate in last week’s midterm elections. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday that Democrats should keep their impeachment options open, accusing the court of shielding President Donald Trump from accountability — but she named no justices and gave no timetable.
Can Congress actually defund the Supreme Court?
Congress controls the federal budget through appropriations, including the judiciary’s operating funds, so it has real leverage over how the court runs. The Constitution does protect sitting justices’ salaries from being reduced, but that protection does not cover the court’s overall budget.
The lame-duck session will show whether Democrats’ court-related plans move beyond rhetoric before January. Watch for any formal proposals on judiciary funding or ethics rules, for the new Congress’s first oversight hearings, and for whether any justice responds publicly to the funding debate Alito raised.
Sources
- The Hill — “Alito warns Congress can ‘turn off the lights’ at Supreme Court” (original report, Nov 13, 2026)
- Morning Report — Supreme Court Faces New Threat As AOC Floats Impeachment
- HuffPost — report on Alito’s Federalist Society remarks on the judiciary’s vulnerability
- Raw Story — “‘Turn off the lights’: Alito admits Congress can effectively shut down the Supreme Court”
- DAMMNEWS — ALITO WARNS CONGRESS CAN ‘TURN OFF THE LIGHTS’ AT SUPREME COURT
