Given that his wife participated in the insurrection, that would be the right thing to do.
Thurgood Marshall was the first African American voted and confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court in history. He was a solid advocate of economic and racial justice in this country especially arguing the famous case of Brown v. Board of education which convinced the Warren Court to get rid of those outdated and idiotic racial segregation laws in schools. Marshal served honorably from 1967 until his retirement in 1991 due to declining health.
Now that seat is filled by the famous ‘pubic hair on a Coke can’ and far-right conservative Justice Clarence Thomas who’s been there since 1991. Since that time, he has done everything against what African Americans have done to promote equal opportunity and justice for everyone. He voted to eliminate section 5 of the Voting Rights Act which required preclearance for jurisdictions that had a history of discrimination against minorities such as African Americans for voting changes. For instance, if a state made changes to their voting laws it was required to be pre-cleared by the US attorney general and a DC court under a metric system. That metric was eliminated in Shelby County v. Holder rendering section five unenforceable.
Several other decisions include staying a Florida recount in the 2000 election, gutting campaign finance laws which allow unlimited corporate money into our election system, barred Alabama from creating a second black-majority district, argued for torture and the death penalty for inmates, voted consistently against a women’s right to choose, and against affirmative action.
On top of that we find out that his neo-conservative wife was not only associated with the tea-party and mobilizing fringe candidates to run for office, but actively participated with the insurrection in January 2021. There are now text message conversations between Ginni Thomas and the Trump White House plotting to overturn the highest election result in nearly one hundred years. She perpetuated that myth about election fraud and helped bus people into Washington D.C. on January 6th which hours later would storm the Capitol building.
Furthermore, in many of the cases where there was a direct conflict of interest between her activist wife helping republicans fundraise from the same corporations that convinced Clarance Thomas to rule in their favor like Citizen’s United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC. Even if you are a conservative this conflict of interest should concern you as should her active participating in an attempted coup. At least the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg made sure to recuse herself from cases where she or her husband had a direct conflict of interest in entities that went before the high court. Thomas has not, in fact he blocked the January 6th committee from obtaining documents from the Trump White House about the insurrection that may have included his own wife’s name. If that’s not a conflict of interest, then I don’t know what is.
Not only should he resign but his wife should be held in contempt of Congress if she doesn’t testify before them. Or impeach him from the court for playing a direct role in overturning our democratic system of governance since 1789.
Then instead of one well qualified black woman on the court, we can have two on the court to more accurately reflect the gender and racial makeup of our country.
I have no doubt that if in an alternate history where Trump wins and Sotomayor’s husband had participated in an insurrection against a Republican President Mitch McConnel would have immediately impeached her, yesterday. Why allow this kind of behavior to continue if it leads to violence?
For the good of the country, Clarence Thomas should resign, and his wife must be compelled to testify under oath of Congress.
