A Supreme Court justice could retire this summer.

Mollie Hemingway thinks Chief Justice Roberts may. Fox News reports that Alito is unlikely to retire. Our own inside sources in the Senate believe a vacancy is more likely than not.

One thing is certain: if a vacancy occurs, our ability to move the court further toward constitutional fidelity will vary based on which justice retires. Replacing Chief Justice Roberts would create a much greater opportunity to shift the Court to the right than replacing Justice Alito or Thomas.

Contrary to widespread belief, we do not have a reliable 6-3 conservative majority on the Court. It functions more like a 2-3-1-3 Court. It is helpful to think of Republican-nominated justices in four tiers. Tier 1 justices are Thomas and Alito. Tier 2 justices are Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Our only Tier 3 justice is Chief Justice Roberts. Thankfully, we do not presently have any Republican-nominated Tier 4 justices, but tragic past examples include Kennedy and Souter, who happily sided with their liberal counterparts whenever the opportunity presented itself.

There is a temptation on the right to lower the standard for a replacement justice based on the quality (or tier) of the justice who departs. In other words, some errantly accept that a Tier 1 justice must be replaced by........

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