As Clarence Thomas hits a milestone, his conservative stamp on US Supreme Court endures

By Jan Wolfe

May 3 (Reuters) – Clarence Thomas will reach a major milestone on the U.S. Supreme Court this week, becoming the second longest-serving justice in American history. In the process, the courageous conservative played an important role in steering the court in the right direction, even if he did not achieve everything he stood for.

Thomas, 77, has been serving since October 1991, when he was appointed by Republican President George HW Bush at the age of 43 to replace liberal intellectual and civil rights pioneer Thurgood Marshall in the top judicial body of the United States. Marshall was the court’s first Black member. Thomas finished second after a contentious Senate confirmation battle.

Thomas will have the court’s third-longest tenure on Monday, surpassing Justice Stephen J. Field, who served from 1863 to 1897, according to the Supreme Court Historical Society. The association said Thomas will on Thursday surpass his late former colleague, Judge John Paul Stevens, who served from 1975 to 2010, for the second-longest term.

If Thomas remains in office until May 20, 2028, he would break the court’s longevity record, surpassing Justice William O. Douglas, who served from 1939 to 1975, the association said.

EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE

Thomas left his mark on the Supreme Court, even as his role changed over the years.

“He began his time on the court as a frequent dissenter and stood by his word,” said Haley Proctor, a University of Notre Dame law professor who previously clerked for Thomas.

“The impact of justice on the law has been profound,” Proctor said. “And that’s not just a result of his many years on the field, but also his persistence.”

Thomas helped assert the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which has been in place since 2020. On consecutive days in June 2022, he authored a landmark decision that expanded gun rights protected by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the 1973 Roe v. He joined other conservative justices in overturning the Wade decision.

Thomas has also advocated for a broad view of religious liberty, opposed same-sex marriage, fought minority affirmative action preferences in college admissions and hiring, supported the death penalty and broad presidential powers, and reined in campaign finance restrictions.

“Justice Thomas is the most radical conservative justice to serve on the Supreme Court in modern times,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “I say this because, in addition to being a conservative, he has taken positions that would dramatically change the law that the court has never accepted.”

Among other things, Chemerinsky noted that Thomas favors overturning Supreme Court precedents blocking laws against birth control and homosexual sex. Chemerinsky also noted the justice’s desire to end basic protections for press freedom and his criticism of the court’s precedent requiring states to provide defense counsel to defendants who cannot afford defense counsel.

“In some areas, he was able to change the law like the Second Amendment, override Roe v. Wade and end affirmative action,” Chemerinsky said. “But in most places his calls for a radical shift in conservative direction failed to gain support from the court’s majority.”

Thomas and other conservative justices allowed Republican President Donald Trump to implement a series of policies that were blocked by lower courts, undermining their legality. When the court rejected sweeping global tariffs in February, handing Trump a rare defeat, Thomas was one of three conservative justices who dissented, and the president heaped praise on him.

SENSE OF LOYALTY

Ken Masugi of the conservative Claremont Institute think tank said Thomas instilled a sense of loyalty in those who worked with him, especially former law clerks, many of whom have since become federal judges. Prior to his work on the Supreme Court, Thomas hired Masugi as counsel at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

“One notices that the clerks are incredibly loyal to him, even those who disagree with him,” Masugi said. “This is testament to the impact he had on the people on the court.”

Thomas was serving as a federal appellate judge when Bush nominated him for a life term on the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Thomas by a 52-48 vote after a confirmation fight in which he was accused of sexual harassment by a law professor named Anita Hill, a former subordinate of his at the EEOC. Thomas denied the allegation.

Future President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings that Thomas decried as “a high-tech lynching for arrogant Black people.” “This is a message that unless you submit to an old order… you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the United States Senate rather than hung from a tree,” Thomas told senators.

Thomas continues to be outspoken in his public statements. On April 15 at the University of Texas, Thomas described progressivism as a political philosophy that poses an existential threat to the United States and its founding principles in the 18th century.

Thomas said progressivism “seeks to replace the fundamental premises of the Declaration of Independence and thus of our form of government. It argues that our rights and dignity come from government, not God. It demands from the people an obedience and weakness that are incompatible with a Constitution based on the transcendent origin of our rights.”

American University law professor Stephen Wermiel said: “I understand that he’s a very gregarious guy and people on the court like him, but most of the time he comes across as an angry, bitter justice. There are times when you feel like he still hasn’t gotten over the Anita Hill incident and still has a seething anger about it.”

‘BAD EXAMPLES’

Bush’s other Supreme Court appointee, Judge David Souter, surprised conservatives by becoming a trusted member of the liberal wing. Thomas, on the other hand, became a favorite among conservatives, even though his contributions were sometimes overshadowed by his conservative contemporary, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.

In 1992, his first year on the court, Thomas argued that access to abortion should be decided at the state level and that Roe v. He joined the opposition arguing that the Wade case should be overturned. This was the first of many times in which Thomas had no qualms about overturning major precedents.

In 1995, Thomas wrote a concurring opinion condemning affirmative action programs, saying they encouraged the belief that racial minorities could not compete without assistance.

Now, decades later, these positions are enshrined in Supreme Court jurisprudence.

“If Thomas believes there were bad examples in the past, he doesn’t feel loyalty to them,” said Ralph Rossum, a Claremont McKenna College professor who wrote a book about Thomas.

And Thomas abandoned one of his hallmarks. During his first three decades on the court, he rarely asked questions during oral arguments in cases. That changed when the court began hearing arguments via teleconference during the COVID pandemic in 2020, and he has served as a regular interrogator ever since.

WHAT AWAITS THOMAS?

Thomas, who turns 78 on June 23, has given no indication that he plans to retire. Trump, who could make a fourth appointment if any vacancies arise on the court, said he hoped Thomas and fellow conservative judge Samuel Alito, 76, would remain on the bench.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that being the longest-serving justice didn’t mean anything to him,” Wermiel said.

Thomas has cited a long tenure in the past. During a 2019 speech at Pepperdine University in California, Thomas was asked what he might say at his retirement party 20 years from now.

“But I’m not retiring,” Thomas told the interviewer, who asked: “Not in 20 years?”

“No,” Thomas replied.

“Not in 30 years?” the interviewer insisted.

“No,” Thomas replied.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)