A Very Toxic Marriage
“Thomas the opponent of voting rights laws: Holder v. Hall (1994) - Thomas argued that the Court should abolish vote dilution claims, and effectively allow states to deny voting rights to certain racial groups so long as the state does it with a degree of subtlety. In Holder, a majority of the Court concluded that vote dilution claims could not be used to challenge the number of people who sit on a governing body, but only Justice Antonin Scalia joined Thomas’s opinion seeking to shut down vote dilution lawsuits altogether.
Thomas supports “independent state legislature doctrine,” - a theory that would allow state lawmakers to ignore their state constitution altogether when writing the laws governing congressional and presidential elections. In its strongest form, this doctrine would allow a state legislature to simply gift a state’s electoral votes to the Republican presidential candidate (or, in theory, to any presidential candidate), regardless of what the people of the state, the state’s governor, or the state’s supreme court has to say about it.
Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), Thomas joined an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch which suggested that no private party is allowed to bring a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act — only the US Justice Department could do so.” (1)
Thomas the opponent of Freedom of the Press: “The New York Times decision prevented this outcome by holding that the First Amendment imposes limits on defamation lawsuits. When someone speaks about a public figure and about a matter of public concern, the Court held, they cannot be held liable for making false statements unless that statement was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Thomas argued in McKee v. Cosby (2019) that New York Times should be overruled. Indeed, Thomas’s opinion suggests that states should be free to define their own defamation law free of constitutional constraints. “The States are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm,” Thomas wrote.
Yet Justice Clarence Thomas claimed in three separate cases — U.S. v. Lopez, U.S. v. Morrison, and Gonzales v. Raich — that this “substantial effects” test is “at odds with the constitutional design.” It is possible that Thomas’s vision would still allow some limited federal labor regulation — such as a law prohibiting children from becoming railway workers — but anything resembling the essential web of federal laws that protect American workers today would be impossible. […]” (1)
Thomas the opponent of workers rights: “Congress may regulate activities that “substantially affect interstate commerce.” This “substantial effects” power is the basis of Congress’s authority to make labor laws universal throughout all places of employment.
Yet Justice Clarence Thomas claimed in three separate cases — U.S. v. Lopez, U.S. v. Morrison, and Gonzales v. Raich — that this “substantial effects” test is “at odds with the constitutional design.” It is possible that Thomas’s vision would still allow some limited federal labor regulation — such as a law prohibiting children from becoming railway workers — but anything resembling the essential web of federal laws that protect American workers today would be impossible. […]” (2) (3)
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s long fight against fair elections
2022EnglishIan MillhiserVox
Millhiser, I. (2018, July 3). Clarence Thomas is the most important legal thinker in America. Think Progress. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://archive.thinkprogress.org/clarence-thomas-most-important-legal-thinker-in-america-c12af3d08c98/
Millhiser, I. (2011, September 19). Justice Thomas, Who Thinks Federal Child Labor Laws Are Unconstitutional, Complains About Judicial Activism. Think Progress. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://archive.thinkprogress.org/justice-thomas-who-thinks-federal-child-labor-laws-are-unconstitutional-complains-about-judicial-d64e0e5c1e53/
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