Thomas dispute plunges SCOTUS deep into party politics
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ failure to disclose his ties to billionaire conservative donor Harlan Crow has further tainted the integrity of the highest court in the land, plunging it deeper into party politics.
Justice Thomas has come under fire for neglecting to report that he and his wife vacationed on Crow’s yacht and flew on Crow’s private plane to a resort in upstate New York and a private club in Northern California also owned by Crow. Justice Thomas also failed to disclose that Crow, who funds conservative groups like the Federalist Society and Club for Growth, bought property from him, including the house where Thomas’ mother currently lives.
In response to these revelations, Senate Democrats want to investigate Justice Thomas and compel him to appear at a congressional hearing. While this extraordinary step might very well be appropriate and necessary, it would ultimately drag our nation’s “independent” judiciary further into the political fray.
Our Founding Fathers intended for the Supreme Court to be insulated from politics, as the job of the judiciary is to impartially interpret the laws written and enforced by partisan elected officials. Yet, the Supreme Court has come to be viewed as a partisan institution, and public trust in the high court is at an all-time-low. A recent Gallup poll found that just 25% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, which marks an 11-point decline in the past year alone.
Part of the reason confidence in the court has plummeted is because of the dramatic increase in political polarization over the last decade, which has rendered Congress unwilling and unable to enact compromise legislation on important issues. This has empowered unelected judges to essentially make sweeping changes to laws that affect millions of Americans’ lives.
In just one term, the current Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority delivered major wins for the right’s agenda and dramatically altered the course of American law in a way that largely went against the will of the public and — in the case of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which ended the legal right to abortion — upended decades of precedent.
Regrettably, the Supreme Court’s upcoming decisions this term are almost certain to continue this troubling trend. The high court is set to hear arguments in cases involving the legality of the most commonly-used abortion pill, gerrymandering, and the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions.
To be sure, both parties are also guilty of using the Supreme Court as a political weapon, which has damaged the institution’s integrity. Republicans outwardly manipulated the confirmation process to solidify a conservative majority on the Supreme Court during the previous two presidential administrations, and many Democrats have advocated for passing a law during Joe Biden’s presidency that would expand the size of the Supreme Court, i.e., “court packing,” in order to shift its ideological balance in their favor.
In many ways, both parties are responsible for the hyper-partisan situation the Supreme Court now finds itself in. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules so that they would not apply to the federal judiciary aside from Supreme Court justice confirmations. Republicans were deeply offended by this partisan move, with Sen. Susan Collins saying Democrats would “rue the day they broke the rules to change the rules.”
Just a few years later, Sen. Collins’ words would prove prophetic, when Republicans effectively froze former President Obama’s selection of now-Attorney General Merrick Garland from being confirmed to the high court, hastening enhanced partisanship in the selection process for the country’s most important court.
Also damaging to the integrity of the entire judicial branch is the growing trend of judge shopping at the District Court level. The judicial system is not built for plaintiffs to be able to handpick their judge, and yet, as we just witnessed with the U.S. District of Northern Texas, the plaintiffs set up an office in Amarillo solely to hand-pick an outwardly anti-abortion judge who they knew would rule in their favor.
The judiciary should not be mired in such political controversy, and in fact, has not been for much of America’s history. Even as recently as the 2000s, the court was not nearly as politicized, and qualified judges were usually confirmed almost unanimously, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative.
Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a 96-3 vote in 1993, and conservative Chief Justice John Roberts was confirmed by a 78-22 vote in 2005. Now, every jurist is confirmed essentially on party lines with very few crossover votes.
While suggestions such as court packing are counterproductive, there are actions Congress can take to restore public confidence in the Supreme Court and the courts generally.
The first step should be imposing the same formal code of ethics upon Supreme Court justices that the rest of the federal judiciary is subject to, which 69% of Americans support, per a YouGov poll taken after the Justice Thomas scandal broke. Additional steps could be term limiting federal judges and strictly enforcing guidelines for required recusals of judges in certain cases where conflicts are present.
Chief Justice John Roberts could also take initiative to hold his Court accountable by enforcing a self-ordered strict code of ethics on the sitting justices.
Ultimately, the politicization of the American judiciary has the country on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Congress and Chief Justice Roberts must act immediately in order to enforce accountability and restore integrity.