WASHINGTON ― Justice Samuel Alito kicked off on Thursday the annual gathering of The Federalist Society, one of the legal groups that helped Donald Trump select names for his lengthy wish list of Supreme Court candidates.
Yet neither Alito nor Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the conservative lawyers’ collective, brought up the president-elect by name or the results of last week’s election during the event’s opening ceremony.
Instead, the focus of Alito’s remarks ― and the theme of the conference ― was the legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose empty seat Trump will certainly get a chance to fill once he takes office in January. By then, the vacancy will be nearly a year old.
“There has been a palpable emptiness in the room,” Alito said, recounting Scalia’s absence from dozens of oral arguments and private conferences the justices have conducted without him.
Alito ran through Scalia’s biggest contributions to the law ― including the doctrines of textualism and originalism ― but saved some of his more pointed comments for the “constitutional fault lines” that exist in the country.
He name-checked ongoing issues with religious liberty, gun rights, the administrative state and freedom of speech ― particularly the “new orthodoxy” in college campuses to police the words students use.
Josh Blackman, a law professor from Texas, live-tweeted Alito’s speech and captured a line that drew laughter from the audience.
Alito stopped short of discussing how the vacancy has affected the functioning of the Supreme Court ― something that his more liberal bench mates Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan have been candid about in public appearances.
On Wednesday, Leo and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway confirmed to reporters that Trump was sticking to his 21-name list of hopefuls. Of those, all but Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) are sitting judges. Lee has said he has no interest in the job.
For many of the hundreds of lawyers and law students who have descended on Washington to participate in the Federalist Society’s national convention, which runs until Saturday, it will be their first opportunity to catch some of these jurists in action. Nine of them are expected at the gathering, either as panelists or moderators.
The Heritage Foundation’s John Malcolm, whose organization also contributed to Trump’s menu of high court candidates, wrote in a hopeful column Tuesday that the president-elect’s choices were “excellent.”
“Let’s hope Trump leaves a legacy that strengthens and preserves the Constitution for us all,” Malcolm wrote.
Depending on what other vacancies arise in the next four years, Trump could name up to three or four new justices to the Supreme Court.