Hi and welcome to Amicus, Slate Supreme Court podcast. I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I cover the courts for Slate.

This week, as the court is on its long winter break, we thought we'd turn to another kind of current events.

And as some of you have pointed out in your letters, there is,

in fact, a presidential election upon us. The Iowa caucuses are just behind us. And as you probably

know, one of the lasting legacies of most presidencies will be the impact that that presidency has on

the Supreme Court. And so this week, we thought we turned to the topic of the Supreme Court

and the 2016

election. It's the first installment in a two-part series we're going to be doing this campaign

season about how the election might shape the court in the future. This week, to look at that

question from the political left, we have as our guest, one of my favorite court watchers,

Erwin Chemerinsky, current and founding dean of UC Irvine's School of Law.

Irwin is one of the most cited and most prolific law professors in the country.

He's published over 200 law review articles, and he's argued several important cases at the High Court.

And one of the few people I know who speaks in flawless outline form.

So, Erwin, welcome to Amicus.

It is a delight to have you here.

Oh, it's my great pleasure and thank you so much for the sweet introduction.

So, Erwin, let's first of all just put some facts on the table and then you react.

We have three justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy,

who will be 80 or over by election day. Stephen Breyer will be 78. And the average retirement age

for a justice is, I'm told, about 77. So this is a really significantly aged court, right?

This is a big, big election. Your statistics are right. Let me just

...