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Sullivan, like many Supreme Court precedents, is due for review against current textualist/originalist legal scholarship and criticism. A good case for doing so though has not yet reached the Court, so Thomas used this case for signaling his interest in that happening.

The effect of Thomas's opinion will be to draw money and some quite clever and high priced, elite level conservative appellate lawyers to such an effort. Over the coming months and years, cases in lower courts will be developed in order to get an opportunity to revisit Sullivan in front of the Supreme Court. The working surmise will be that Thomas and his allies on the Court are confident that they have the necessary votes to win the issue and a good idea of how Sullivan should be reworked.