Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Thursday evening that Alexander Hamilton was right to call the judiciary the “least dangerous” branch of government, arguing that its limited power leaves it especially vulnerable to Congress and the president.
“We are the least dangerous branch, which is not to say that the federal judiciary cannot be dangerous when it moves astray,” Alito said during a fireside chat at the Federalist Society’s annual Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner in Washington.
Alito spoke with Mollie Hemingway, the author of Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, published in April. Thursday marked his first appearance as the dinner’s featured speaker since 2022. He has been a regular attendee over the years.
His return to the stage followed speculation earlier this year that he might retire. NPR published and retracted a report in June that he was stepping down. Alito addressed the speculation in an August interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, “I’m here for another term.”
Alito pointed to Congress’s control over court funding as one reason judicial independence needs protecting. His remarks came just over a week after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. Alito did not discuss the election or the incoming majority during the chat.
“Congress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they will not fund our activities,” Alito said. “And there are many, many, many other things that they can do, or at least try to do.”
Alito reached for a comparison to explain how even the least powerful branch can do damage.
“You think about a hand grenade and a 500-pound bomb and a nuclear weapon,” Alito said. “The hand grenade is the least dangerous, but that is not to say that it is not dangerous.”
He pointed to sweeping orders from federal district judges as one example. Alito said presidents have turned to unilateral action when they cannot get their agendas through Congress, prompting their opponents to sue in courts where they think they are most likely to win.
“District judges have issued, in some instances, very sweeping and unjustified orders, stopping what the president wants during the pendency of the appeal,” Alito said.
An appeal can take two or three years, Alito noted, leaving a president unable to carry out a policy for much of a four-year term even if the administration ultimately wins. He cited that pattern in explaining why more disputes have reached the Supreme Court on its emergency docket over the past decade or so.
That dynamic has played out in President Donald Trump’s second term. In July 2025, the Supreme Court granted an emergency request to pause a district judge’s order blocking federal agencies from moving ahead with plans for large-scale layoffs and reorganizations. The ruling let agencies proceed while the case continued and left the legality of individual agency plans unresolved.
Alito also argued that judges’ credentials are a poor substitute for sound judgment. He pointed to Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision upholding racial segregation in railway cars. Justice Henry Billings Brown, who attended both Harvard and Yale law schools, wrote the majority opinion. Justice John Marshall Harlan, whom Alito said some regarded as a “simplistic rube,” cast the lone dissent.
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Asked about developments in constitutional law since the Federalist Society’s founding, Alito singled out the court’s decision curtailing race-conscious college admissions, its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, and District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to keep a handgun at home for self-defense.
Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 abortion case that overturned Roe, said Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett “showed great courage” in joining it. He also called Heller “a great accomplishment,” saying the ruling corrected a long period of neglect of the Second Amendment.