In assessing the apparently endless stream of revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas’ corrupt receipt of thousands if not millions of dollars in benefits from sugar daddies with business before the Supreme Court and other such unbecoming behavior, Jamelle Bouie offers a modest first step for Democrats to take: to begin talking about the need to impeach the wayward justice. Bouie acknowledges the hard road ahead for such an effort — including a House controlled by the opposition party — but argues that putting impeachment on the table would essentially be a way to signal to the public that what the justice has done is neither ethical nor proper, and that Thomas deserves to face repercussions for his actions.
Given the head-in-the-sand approach that so many Democrats have taken towards Clarence’s disqualifying actions, Bouie’s suggestion feel solid, if for no other reason than that Democrats need to take some first steps in moving the discussion around Thomas from outraged acceptance to a public dialogue about its basic unacceptability. But I do wonder if too many elected Democrats are overly worried about the implications of raising too big a stink about Thomas. If they truly want to constrain his behavior, and, in an ideal future world, remove him from the court, then rousing public opinion into a groundswell of outrage over Thomas’ corruption is the essential ingredient. But between such outrage and removal lies a range of possible outcomes that may make faint-hearted Democrats hesitate. For instance, a Supreme Court with a justice deemed by much of the public to have betrayed his public trust and put the interests of his corporate donors over those of justice could quite plausibly corrode the public’s faith in Supreme Court decisions in which Thomas plays or has played a part — particularly cases where he was the deciding vote. Impugn Justice Thomas, in other words, and you might just end up impugning the whole Supreme Court as an institution.
But I think fears of de-legitimizing the Supreme Court wrongly underplay what actually ends up happening in the real world — what is happening, even now — when such corruption is not properly addressed and the baseline attitude is to continue along as if nothing has gone awry. As the American people and the American political system continue to grant legitimacy to a corrupted Supreme Court, it implicates both the public and the overall system — including Congress and the presidency — in this corruption. Our willingness to play along essentially green-lights the wrongdoing — because if it was so wrong, wouldn’t someone try to do something about it? Even worse, from the public’s point of view, it makes us complicit in our own collective degradation, as we simply accept Supreme Court rulings despite the taint of improper influence that surrounds them.
I’m not saying that Americans should start picking and choosing which laws they follow depending on whether Thomas was the deciding vote on a relevant Court decision - but I am saying that it’s far from crazy for Americans to talk openly and seriously about what it means to follow rules made by people who themselves refuse to follow any rules themselves. If this makes people angry, or feel like suckers, then that would seem to be an appropriate response. And if this makes people realize that the Court needs to be reformed, through mandatory ethics rules, expansion, or term limits, then that would be an appropriate, and I’d say necessary, response as well.