The Clarence Thomas Controversy Shows Why the Supreme Court Is Irredeemable
In the wake of revelations that Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, are deeply enmeshed in far-right networks, we shouldn’t shore up the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. We should attack the Court's undemocratic foundations.
Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
How do you solve a problem like Virginia Thomas? The wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, according to a slate of recent (and not-so-recent) reporting, has spent years enmeshed in right-wing networks directly connected to both her husband and the high court on which he sits. On top of that, evidence collected for the investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol has revealed that Ms Thomas sent text messages urging Donald Trump’s chief of staff to overturn the election results. (Mr Thomas went on to become the only dissenter in a case where Trump sought to block the inquiry from obtaining sensitive records.)
So what is Democrats’ answer to the “Ginni” question? Milquetoast calls for new ethics rules for the high court. While it is absurd that the Supreme Court lacks such rules — unlike other federal judges, the high court’s justices are not subject to an ethical code of conduct — this narrow focus on ethical indiscretions misses the mark.
As Peter Shamshiri, a lawyer and cohost of the 5-4 podcast, writes in Balls and Strikes, a progressive legal news blog:
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