December 18, 2023
Reporters at ProPublica have uncovered yet more news about the right-wing network of wealthy donors who have supported Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. According to Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, and Brett Murphy, in January 2000, on a plane flight home from a conservative conference, Thomas complained to Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his salary. He warned that if lawmakers didn’t give Supreme Court justices a pay raise, “one or more justices will leave soon.”
After the trip, Stearns wrote to Thomas that he agreed “it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted.” Stearns immediately set out to pass legislation separating the salaries of Supreme Court justices from the rest of the judiciary, and then raising pay for the Supreme Court justices alone. But the top administrative official of the judiciary, L. Ralph Mecham, in June 2000 wrote to then–chief justice William Rehnquist to suggest that this was the wrong approach for this “delicate matter.”
“From a tactical point of view,” Mecham wrote, “it will not take the Democrats and liberals in Congress very long to figure out that the prime beneficiaries who might otherwise leave the court presumably are Justices Thomas and Scalia. The Democrats might be perfectly happy to have them leave and would see little incentive to act on separate legislation devoted solely to Supreme Court justices if the apparent purpose is to keep Justices Scalia and Thomas on the Court. Moreover, the fact that Representative Stearns is a conservative Republican may not help dissuade the Democrats and liberals from this view.”
Mecham distinguished between Republicans he thought of as “liberals,” and those, presumably like himself, Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, who were pushing “to have the constitution properly interpreted.” By this, he meant those who wanted the concept of “originalism” to undermine the federal government’s regulation of business, provision of a basic social safety net, promotion of infrastructure, and protection of civil rights, principles on which “liberal” Republicans and Democrats agreed.
Although the extremist faction has now captured the Republican Party, as late as 2000 there were enough “liberals” in the Republican Party that members of the extremist faction worried they could not enact their chosen program. So they must have the Supreme Court. Stearns told the ProPublica reporters that Thomas’s “importance as a conservative [as they called themselves] was paramount…. We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and was being paid properly.”
About this time, wealthy Republican donors began to provide Thomas and his wife Ginni with expensive vacations and gifts. Ginni went to work for the Heritage Foundation, making a salary in the low six figures. Yale law school professor George Priest, who has joined Thomas and billionaire donor Harlan Crow on vacation, says that Crow “views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary. So he provides benefits for him.”
That is, a Republican billionaire donor “provides benefits” for a Supreme Court justice who voted in favor of—among other things—the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that reversed campaign finance restrictions in place for over 100 years, permitting corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, and the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting minority voting rights in the United States.
The determination of wealthy Republicans to control our political system for their own economic benefit is now matched on the other side of the political equation by religious voters hellbent on overthrowing democracy to impose their religious will on the American majority.
After voters in Republican-dominated states have tried to protect the right to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, antiabortion forces are trying to stop voters from having the right to decide the matter. They are trying to prevent voters from signing petitions to put such measures on ballots.
Steven Aden, the chief legal officer of the antiabortion group Americans United for Life, told Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly of Politico: “Because we believe that abortion is truly about the right to life of human individuals in the womb, we don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”
Breaking faith in democracy has led us to a place where the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is openly praising dictators, trying to join the United States into a rising global authoritarian movement based in the idea that democracy, with its focus on equal rights, is destroying traditional society by getting rid of patriarchy, racial hierarchies, and heteronormative society. A Fox News poll released over the weekend showed that 3 in 10 Republicans agreed that “things in the U.S. are so far off track that we need a president willing to break some rules and laws to set things right.”
Today, Pope Francis undermined that argument when he said in a landmark ruling that Roman Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples. While this is not the same as the sacrament of heterosexual marriage, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said this is a sign that God welcomes everyone.
Pope Francis has tended to ignore the rise of right-wing extremism in the U.S. church but now appears to be defending his message that the church should be tolerant and welcoming in the face of the growing intersection of religion and authoritarianism. Last month, he relieved from duty Bishop Joseph H. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who has vocally supported right-wing politics and openly revolted against the Pope’s positions.
There is a strong economic reason to reinforce the idea of democracy, as well. After forty years in which a minority worked to push tax cuts and deregulation with the argument that they would promote investment in the economy, the Biden administration quite deliberately has used the government not to prop up the “supply side,” but rather to bolster the “demand side.” Despite the history that showed such a system worked, economists and pundits warned that Biden’s policies would dump the U.S. into a terrible recession.
The 2023 numbers are in, and they show exactly what the U.S. Treasury under Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted: inflation has dropped significantly, unemployment is at a low 3.7%, the economy grew at an astonishing 4.9% in the last quarter, and the stock and financial markets are at or near all-time highs.
The economic news is tangible proof that a government that serves the majority, rather than a wealthy few, works.
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Notes:
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24190168-stearns-note-to-thomas-2000
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24214202-2000-memo-to-rehnquist
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/26/gdp-third-quarter-economy-growth/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/18/recession-economy-inflation/
This court is teetering on the edge of illegitimacy. What they do about Trump will help decide whether they are a failed body or merely a damaged one.
I hope they choose carefully.
Agreed Annabel, we are at a crossroads between Democracy and a failed republic. Our biggest problem is the only people out there addressing the mis information are Heather Joyce and Robert. Where the hell are our elected democrats pounding on the media and public. Democrats need to flood the airwaves and flood them now!!!!
Thanks Heather!