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Alito has had it with a fellow SCOTUS judge, penning a scathing response to her dissent

May 5, 2026 | | Print Article

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has had it with a fellow SCOTUS judge, penning a scathing response to her dissent.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only judge to offer dissent in the case of Callais v. Louisiana, and Alito wasn’t about to let it go unanswered.

Look:

“The dissent in this suit levels charges that cannot go unanswered,” he writes, with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas concurring. “The dissent would require that the 2026 congressional elections in Louisiana be held under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional. The dissent does not claim that it is now too late for the state legislature or the District Court to adopt a new map that complies with the Constitution. Nor does the dissent assert that it is not feasible for the elections to be held under such a map. Instead, the dissent offers two reasons for its proposed course of action. One is trivial at best, and the other is baseless and insulting.”

But he wasn’t done there.

“The first is compliance with the 32-day default rule set out in this Court’s Rule 45.3, but as the Court’s order explains, there is a good reason to depart from the default rule here. The principal reason for the 32-day default rule is to give a losing party time to prepare a petition for rehearing. But here, the Robinson appellees have not expressed an intent to file such a petition, much less set out any ground on which a petition might be based. And the need for prompt action by this Court is clear,” Alito continued. “The date scheduled for the beginning of early voting in the primary election has already passed. The congressional districting map enacted by the legislature has been held to be unconstitutional, and the general election will be held in just six months.”

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“The second reason offered by the dissent is that we should allow the 32-day period to run out in order to ‘avoid the appearance of partiality.’ But the dissent does not explain why its insistence on unthinking compliance with Rule 45.3’s default rule does not create the appearance of partiality (by running out the clock) on behalf of those who may find it politically advantageous to have the election occur under the unconstitutional map,” the flame-thrower response notes. “The dissent goes on to claim that our decision represents an unprincipled use of power. That is a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge. What principle has the Court violated? The principle of Rule 45.2’s 32-day default period should never be so shortened even when there is a good reason to do so? The principle that we should never take any action that might unjustifiably be criticized as partisan?”

He ended his calling out of Jackson with this: “The dissent accuses the court of ‘unshackl[ing]’ itself from ‘constraints.’ It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint.”

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