Justice Thomas fans create website dedicated to his originalist jurisprudence
Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justice Clarence Thomas is beginning his 26th year on the U.S. Supreme Court without Justice Antonin Scalia, who like Thomas was dedicated to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
Former law clerks and other defenders of Justice Clarence Thomas are highlighting his jurisprudence with a new website called JusticeThomas.com, USA Today reports. And there are differences between Thomas’ and Scalia’s views.
Former Thomas law clerk Neomi Rao says Thomas, in some ways, is “a more thoroughgoing originalist” than Scalia was. Thomas “is more willing to go back and overturn precedents, to go back and find the original meaning of the Constitution,” Rao tells USA Today.
In his years on the court, Thomas, 68, has opposed power concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats by rejecting precedent that gives deference to federal agency interpretations of law, according to the article. He opposes racial preferences, saying affirmative action programs begin with the notion that blacks are inferior.
He isn’t the type to write landmark decisions that require compromise to gather a majority, says Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet. Thomas’ decisions for the court are more likely to be technical, unanimous decisions, he told USA Today.
Thomas often writes concurrences or dissents. In the last two terms, he wrote 37 dissents and 25 concurrences, which is nearly twice the number written by any other justice. There could be more of them if the court gains a liberal majority, the article points out.
Thomas apparently relishes his role, according to the article. “I never thought that I would treasure doing my job, and I’ve reached that point,” he said at a Federalist Society dinner in 2013. “Even the most boring cases to others are fascinating to me.”
