SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said he’s concerned efforts to politicize the court or add additional justices may erode the institution’s credibility, speaking Friday in Utah at an event hosted by former Republican U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch’s foundation.
Thomas, the most senior justice on the nine-member court, said he often worries about the long-term repercussions of trends such as “cancel culture” and a lack of civil debate.
“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court. You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised,” he told an audience of about 500 people at an upscale hotel in Salt Lake City.
“By doing this, you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society,” Thomas said.
Rulings this year will set laws on hot-button political issues, including abortion, guns and voting rights.
The court has leaned increasingly conservative since three justices nominated by former President Donald Trump joined its ranks. Progressives have in turn called to expand the number of justices on the court, including during the 2020 presidential primary. Democrats in Congress introduced a bill last year to add four justices to the bench, and President Joe Biden has convened a commission to study expanding the court.
“I’m afraid, particularly in this world of cancel culture attack, I don’t know where you’re going to learn to engage as we did when I grew up,” he said. “If you don’t learn at that level in high school, in grammar school, in your neighborhood, or in civic organizations, then how do you have it when you’re making decisions in government, in the legislature, or in the courts?”
In addition to condemning “cancel culture,” Thomas also blasted the media for cultivating inaccurate impressions about public figures — including himself, his wife and late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
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Ginni Thomas, Justice Thomas’s wife and a longtime conservative activist, has faced scrutiny this year for her political activity and involvement in groups that file briefs about cases in front of the Supreme Court, as well as using her Facebook page to amplify partisan attacks.
As Congress prepares to hold confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Thomas recalled his 1991 confirmation process as a humiliating and embarrassing experience that taught him not to be overly prideful. During congressional hearings, lawmakers grilled Thomas about sexual harassment allegations from Anita Hill, a former employee, leading him to call the experience a “high tech lynching.”
If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman on the court, and would join Thomas as the current court’s second Black justice.
Thomas, who grew up in Georgia during segregation, said he held civility as one of his highest values. He said he learned to respect institutions and debate civilly with those who disagreed with him during his years in school. Based on conversations he’s had with students at his university lectures in recent years, he said he doesn’t believe colleges are welcoming places for productive debate, particularly for students who support what he described as traditional families or oppose abortion.
Thomas did not reference the future of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that extended abortion rights throughout the country. The court this year is scheduled to rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and whether Mississippi can ban abortions at 15 weeks. While the court deliberates over the case, lawmakers in Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky are advancing similar legislation hoping the court overturns Roe and establishes new precedent.
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Using uncivil means to corrupt civil American discourse has been a weapon of choice and the point of the spear that the Democrat leftists have been collectively using for years to attack our individual freedoms. The disrespect they show for our sacred freedom protecting institutions is just a reflection of the disrespect they have for themselves that they must force upon respectable people to bring others of success down to the forced equity of their own miserable failed lives. Their idea of courting the American people is not love, hugs, and kisses, and legal marriages, but law suits, packed courts, divorce from reason, death of American innocence, and the undermining of America laws by refusing to enforce them when placed into positions of power. When in doubt, vote them out, each and every chance you get.
AND its kind of hard to ‘ruin’ the credibility of the scotus, WHEN IT ALREADY DID IT TO ITSELF..
The one truly sane Justice we have. If the entire court was made up of Justices with his insight and capability, we would have one helluva Supreme Court.
Couldn’t agree with you more thunder… Best justice we have, without a doubt.
Strange, that HE is so good, when Trump SUPPOSEDLY had such heartache, getting all THREE of his picks, voted to the court, AND SO FAR have not impressed, one bit…
Clarence Thomas I Thought Had Put An End To People Being Juded By the Color Of Their Skin Nor Their Race But democrat President Joe Biden Has Proven That Discrimination for Nomination consideration to take A Seat On The Supreme Court Would Be On Sex, Race , And Qualified to Be Appointed To The Supreme CourtNo Males Of The White Race Would be Considered. Obviously , Joe Biden Still Believed That It Was All Right If democrat, Joe Biden Discriminated against White Raced Men, Joe Biden Obviously didn’t Hear Martin Luther King’s ” I Have A Dream Speech.
Correctiom to Above Comment
Discriminated Based On Race Sex Against White Race Males for Nomination To The Supreme Court .
Pnce again “Discrimination ” is All Right, If its done by democrats But they won’t Tolerat ” discrimination if a Republican or anybody else is suspected of ” Discrimination, ” against a Certain Race or sex in hiring or promotions in a Company but I guess ” discrimination ” is Ok to practice If Your the democrat President, as Joe Biden Just did in his selecting the next person to be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court, Joe Biden said, ( No White- Race – Male Would Be Considered for his nominee to the Supreme Court.