After a report Alito will stay, a retirement announcement this year is a long shot

Bets that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito will announce his retirement by the end of the year have slid to a long shot after a report that he plans to stay on the court. Traders had considered such an announcement unlikely before the latest drop.

Bloomberg Law reported on Wednesday that Alito told a person who spoke with him that Democrats' victory in the Nov. 3 election had not changed his plan to remain on the court when the new Congress takes office. That report is the likely reason for the decline. It rests on a person's account of a conversation, not on an announcement from Alito or an official representative.

The report does not close the question. Staying in office through January would not stop Alito from announcing, before Dec. 31, a retirement that takes effect later. The question counts any announcement made by that date, whether the departure is immediate, at the end of the term or later.

The odds have been choppy. They climbed through the last week of October, then fell sharply on Oct. 27 and stayed low for several days. They rose again around the election and jumped on Wednesday, then gave back that gain through the day. They dropped further early Thursday. Bets on an announcement by next June have also weakened, falling from a toss-up to unlikely since the story began.

Speculation has surrounded Alito, 76, as Republicans weighed whether a younger conservative successor could be confirmed while their party holds the Senate. NPR mistakenly reported his retirement on June 30 and retracted the story, and the Supreme Court denied it. On Oct. 6, Alito told Bloomberg he intended to serve through the current court term even if Democrats won the Senate. That ruled out a lame-duck departure but not an earlier announcement of a later retirement.

Democrats won control of the Senate in the Nov. 3 election, renewing questions about whether a successor could be confirmed. Republicans keep control of the chamber during the lame-duck session, until the new Congress takes office on Jan. 3. Whether Alito or an official representative announces a retirement before the end of the year is the question still to be settled. The reasons for some of the earlier swings in late October remain unclear.