The Patriot Post® · Celebrating SCOTUS

Have you heard that we have a problem with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)? Critics claim that ethics there are in short supply. Their specific target is conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who — hold onto your seat — has enjoyed a long-term friendship with Harlan Crowe, who is wealthy, generous, and evidently also relatively conservative.

The attacks on Thomas were revealed via three articles appearing in ProPublica, a progressive online periodical. They detailed Thomas’s acceptance of generous gifts from Crowe, including lavish vacation travel, participation in a minor real estate transaction, and boarding school funding for Thomas’s nephew.

The ProPublica articles did not assert any illegal actions by Thomas, just the appearance of impropriety. Progressive print and broadcast media powerhouses and numerous politicians then piled on with hand-wringing dismay over SCOTUS’s supposed ethical collapse.

To deal with the supposedly grave situation, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing and proposed imposing an ethics standard on the Court. (One of its outspoken members was Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who famously grilled SCOTUS candidate Judge Brett Kavanaugh about handwritten notes in his high school yearbook.)

Let me offer a few counterpoints:

First of all, in elementary school civics (no longer taught in most schools), we learned that our government has three INDEPENDENT branches. The notion that one branch would dictate the ethical standards for the other is bizarre. And even if not, I for one would be much more comfortable with SCOTUS setting standards for Congress than vice versa.

Secondly, the framers of our Constitution went to great lengths to protect the judiciary from political attacks. That’s why the justices — Clarence Thomas and his eight counterparts — are appointed for life.

Keep in mind that our SCOTUS justices are all lawyers who have achieved the pinnacle of success through their careers — success as measured by actual performance, not by popularity with voters. The good news for Thomas and colleagues is that having secured that premiere stature, they are granted the ultimate job security — a lifetime post. The bad news is that the position demands a lifetime of work.

And as a newfound bonus, they get the opportunity to be raked through the media coals, be doxxed, have their privacy invaded, and be at risk of assassination (as was Kavanaugh). This latest assault on their integrity just adds fuel to that fire.

Thomas is 74 years old and has been on the Court for 31 years. He shows no inclination to retire, although he could do so with no loss of pay. His commitment and work ethic is not unusual for SCOTUS — on average, in recent decades, associate justices retire at age 79.

Supreme Court justices are well paid, but they commit to a lifetime of public service that provides far lower compensation than that of their counterparts in private practice. Their annual salary is roughly equivalent to that of a partner in a good-sized law firm, a position usually attainable by talented lawyers in their mid-40s and with the expectation of comfortable, early (pre-65) retirement.

As a more pertinent comparison, equity partners in major law firms usually take in seven-digit annual salaries, easily 10 times their SCOTUS counterparts.

The point here is very simply that our Supreme Court justices, each at the very top of his or her profession, consciously take on an extraordinarily challenging job for far longer service and with substantially lower return than their professional peers. By comparison, they live modest lives.

If Clarence Thomas were motivated by personal wealth, he would not be serving as a SCOTUS associate justice for life. More importantly, none of the accusations against Thomas has identified any episodes in which Harlan Crowe has had any personal involvement in any matters before the Supreme Court, or in which his financial interests might have been boosted in any way by Thomas’s actions on the Court.

Let’s face it. The one problem that The Washington Post, The New York Times, and 51 Democrat senators have with our Supreme Court is that its conservative justices currently hold a 5-3-1 majority. Court packing didn’t work, so Plan B is a scheme to convince Justice Thomas to resign so that Joe Biden can appoint a suitable (i.e., progressive) replacement.

The attack on Clarence Thomas — and, by extension, on SCOTUS itself — was unwarranted and itself inappropriate, as if we needed one more reason to question the legitimacy of the highest court in the land.

I have a better idea. Let’s celebrate the Court — all nine jurists — for their dedication and extraordinary contribution to the nation. Our Supreme Court is a national treasure. It deserves nothing less than our respect and appreciation.