Associate Justice Samuel Alito sat down for multiple interviews with Jan Crawford of CBS News in advance of the opening of the Supreme Court's term and the release of his book, So Ordered: An Originalist's View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country. Video clips from the interviews were released yesterday, as I noted here.
An extensive article based upon the interviews, and Crawford's reporting, is now up on CBSNews.com. It notes that Justice Alito is "one of the most influential Supreme Court justices of our time." Crawford writes:
The current Supreme Court is referred to as the "Roberts Court," after Chief Justice John Roberts, and Roberts is typically the justice most often in the majority. But Alito is in many ways the Court's conservative leader. His legal positions going back years on abortion, affirmative action, voting rights and religious liberty now are law of the land. . . .
Among the nine, Alito is especially skilled in bringing together five justices for a majority on some of the Court's most difficult and contentious issues. That includes his 5-4 majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue of abortion back to the states.
That may seem a contradiction: The justice often publicly portrayed as unyielding and inflexible is, behind the scenes, the conservative who is uniquely adept at finding common ground on the most divisive issues.
It's a skill formed on the fields and classrooms of Hamilton Township: His focus and attention to detail, his loyalty, his quiet leadership style, and his ability to survey the playing field and adjust, all to make the winning play.
