In This Installment (02.20.2004): CLARENCE THOMAS: U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE
Clarence Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush on October 23, 1991. He replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall, the negro responsible for Brown v. Board of Education. Having personally endured the torture of "Affirmative Action" – which heartlessly propelled him into a prestigious law school and the Judicial Branch itself – Justice Thomas knows full well that the best way for coloreds to excel is to nod pensively while William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia formulate their opinions for them. Justice Thomas likes canned cola, rented movies in brown paper bags, and stacked office underlings who won't give "no" for an answer. He's ready to take your questions now, so let's begin.
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Beatrice Braun, from Altoona, PA writes:
Mr. Thomas – let me just say that you are my all-time favorite black Supreme Court justice! Your 13 years on the bench have been an inspiration to all real Americans like me who had almost given up on the idea that you people could just swallow your pride, get with our program, and stop making waves. Truth be told, if you could sing, I'd swear you were the reincarnation of Nat King Cole! I think many of today's colored youth would benefit greatly from hearing your story. Can you please tell us all about your personal evolution – especially any inspiring anectotes about defining moments in your journey to become the poster child for black right-wingdom?
Justice Thomas:
[Blinks.]
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Rohan Brown, from Oxford, UK writes:
I was wondering what your thoughts are on the intervention of the Supreme Court in the ballot recount in Florida in 2000. Specifically, could you please share your opinions on the legality of Governor Jeb Bush having employed aggressive tactics to disenfranchise thousands of predominantly black Florida residents from voting simply because they shared common or similar names with ex-felons?
Justice Thomas:
[Shrugs.]
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Claire Heflin, from Middlebury, VT writes:
I understand that back in 1993, you presided over the ceremony at Rush Limbaugh's marriage to the young girl he met in a Compuserve chat room. Is it true that at the reception, you and Justice Rehnquist performed a brilliant minstrel ventriloquism routine atop the counter of the open pharmacy kiosk?
Justice Thomas:
[Nods.]
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Mike, from Los Angeles, CA writes:
Justice Thomas--
As you know, Justice Scalia and Vice President Cheney are embroiled in a scandal [ http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2004/012304.asp ] involving their ill-conceived duck hunting trip while a case involving Cheney was (and is) pending before your court. My question is, does the Vice President ever invite you to accompany him on luxury vacations such as this?
Justice Thomas:
Once. To caddy.
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Buck Bronson, from Lancaster, CA writes:
It has been widely reported that you are unique among all the Supreme Court justices in that you never personally partipate in oral arguments during appeals. Is this because you:
1) Are shy 2) Don't understand what is happening 3) Don't want to appear stupid 4) Are not allowed to
Justice Thomas:
[Nods.]
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John Rosencrantz, from New York, NY writes:
Currently 650 people are being held without charge in inhumane conditions in Guantanamo Bay - some for more than two years - and may face military trials before hand-picked military officers, with hand-picked "defense" counsels, and no right to appeal against a likely death sentence. Do you see any discrepancy between this and our government's professed commitment to human rights and the rule of law?
Justice Thomas:
[Clears throat.]
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John Hartsfield, from Lubbock, TX writes:
Justice Thomas I see that you are married to a white woman. I assume in the past you've dated black women because of the whole Anita Hill debacle. Could you tell me if it's true what they say – that a white woman's snarly hair is really more rough on the face than a sister's snarleys?
Justice Thomas:
[Smiles widely. Big nod.]
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Craig, from San Antonio, TX writes:
With America's checkered past of lynching black men like yourself just for fun, do you ever experience any pangs of doubt in your steadfast support of the death penalty, knowing that the vast majority of those executed are African American men who have had inadequate legal representation?
Justice Thomas:
[Nibbles fingernail.]
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Scott Burke, from Washington, DC writes:
As a fellow Yale graduate, I'm sure we both have many fond memories of our time in beautiful New Haven. The stories I heard about you indicate that you almost got fired from your job at the Legal Clinic because you failed to show up. Is that true?
Justice Thomas:
[Scowls.]
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Will Hendershot, from Frederick, MD writes:
I am writing to you to ask you why no steps are being done to stop police corruption. Mainly targeting the youth and minorites. I think it is the number one problem we have in America. A country where the flag stands for Freedom and Equality. How can you say that is what our country stands for when "we" can't walk down the street with out a Police officer wanting to search us, just because the color of our skin or our age. That doesn't sound like Freedom and Equality to me. I would like your advice on what I should do to help get this problem solved. Since you are at a high level and your voice is heard easier then mine, I would also really appreciate (and I know millions of other Americans would) it if you took it in to consideration to let your voice be heard about this problem in America. Discrimination is not JUSTICE. Thank You.
Justice Thomas:
[Squints.]
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Calvin Jeharnish, from New York, NY writes:
Dear Brother Thomas,
When Orin Hatch asked you the question, "Have you ever uttered the name, 'Long Dong Silver'?", it was my favorite moment in Senatorial history, and I am sure you are proud that is in the record. That being said, if Long Dong films aren't your favorites, can you tell us what are?
Justice Thomas:
To be honest, I always found John Holmes' performances to be uninspired. While some his earlier efforts, including Johnny Wadd ('73) and The Orgy Machine ('72) impressed me with their attention to volume discharge and imaginative contortionism, I can honestly say I had soured on his work by the time Dr. Gonad's Sex Tails entered Savannah nickle booths in the fall of 1977.
Through much of the 1980's, I focused on building a home library made up of solid installments from dependable franchises, particularly anything from the Devil in Miss Jones and Taboo series. Of course I was disappointed to see the slow but steady disappearance of the BetaMax format, whose superior resolution made for considerably more stimulating viewing. My Beta copy of I Saw Mommy Eating Santa Claus died a few years back, and I can't find a replacement for the life of me.
Moving on, I'd say that my favortie thing about the 90's was discovering the sub-genre of playful-yet-artistic adult reimaginings of more mainstream Hollywood fare. From On Golden Blonde to The Rodfather and Sperms of Endearment, I really couldn't get enough of the stuff. If you haven't yet dabbled, I'd recommend starting with something accessible like Titty Slickers IV, then moving on Edward Penishands, Muffy the Vampire Layer, and Saturday Night Beaver.
Of course, the rise of the DVD has changed everything. I've been particularly impressed with titles whose producers have shown a determination to really push the envelope by making full use of the new multi-angle features and widescreen aspect ratios. Moving forward, I'm relishing the potential of coupling next-generation micro-optics with cutting edge sigmoidoscope and colonoscope technologies that will really take us inside the action!
(because I left the comma right at the end of the link, rather than separated from the link with a space, the link doesn't work [unless one tries the link and then removes the comma from the link in the browser's address line and tries again])
Thomas' Acceptance of Gifts Tops Justices By Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage Times Staff Writer
5:13 PM PST, December 30, 2004
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts since joining the Supreme Court, from $1,200 worth of tires to valuable historical items and a $5,000 personal check to help pay a relative's education expenses.
The gifts included a Bible once owned by the 19th century author and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, which Thomas valued at $19,000, and a bust of President Lincoln valued at $15,000.
He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in northern California -- arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who has helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court.
Those and other gifts were disclosed by Thomas under a 1978 federal ethics law that requires high-ranking government officials, including the nine Supreme Court justices, to file a report each year that lists gifts, money and other items they have received.
Thomas has reported accepting much more valuable gifts than his Supreme Court colleagues over the last six years, according to their disclosure forms on file at the court.
The Ethics in Government Act of 1989 prohibits all federal employees, including the justices, from accepting "anything of value" from a person with official business before them. However, under the rules that the federal judicial system adopted to implement that law, judges are free to accept gifts of unlimited value from people without official business before the court.
Representatives for the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court argue that requiring the disclosure of any gifts is sufficient to prevent corruption or the appearance of favoritism.
But in October, an American Bar Association panel called for tightening the rules to forbid judges from taking expensive gifts, free tickets and other valuable items, regardless of who is the donor.
"Why would someone do that -- give a gift to Clarence Thomas? Unless they are family members or really close friends, the only reason to give gifts is to influence the judge," said Mark I. Harrison, a Phoenix lawyer who heads the ABA's Commission on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. "And we think it is not helpful to have judges accepting gifts for no apparent reason."
"The public has to wonder when a justice accepts lavish gifts," said Northwestern University law professor Steven Lubet, a legal ethics expert. "The rich and powerful have a different set of economic interests than other people, and they can afford to give lavish gifts."
Thomas, through a court spokeswoman, declined to comment when asked in writing why he deemed it appropriate to accept some of the larger gifts. But a former clerk to Thomas defended the practice.
"I don't see anything wrong in this. I don't see why it is inappropriate to get gifts from friends," said John C. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "This reflects a bizarre effort to over-ethicize everyday life. If one of these people were to appear before the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas would recuse himself. So I don't see the problem."
Despite the open-ended rules, most of the other Supreme Court justices reported accepting only items of lesser value, or token gifts for speaking at formal events, or nothing at all.
The Los Angeles Times reviewed the disclosures of all nine justices for the years 1998 through 2003, the only period of time for which disclosure forms were still on file at the court. They reported receiving cash, which they usually gave to charity, but kept or used various valuable items, mementos and club memberships.
In that six-year period, Thomas accepted $42,200 in gifts, making him easily the top recipient.
Next was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who accepted $5,825 in gifts, mostly small crystal figurines and other items. She also reported an $18,000 award in 2003 from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, but listed it as income. The money was for the society's Benjamin Franklin Award for Distinguished Public Service. She gave other cash awards to charity.
Third was Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who accepted a $5,000-award from Fordham University -- the only gift he reported for the six-year period.
In addition, the Times obtained a full set of disclosure forms for Thomas's 13-year tenure on the court, as well as forms dating to 1992 from Justice Antonin Scalia, 1993 for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 1996 for O'Connor.
Since joining the court, Thomas reported accepting gifts valued at $47,745. He also reported other gifts without citing a dollar value, ranging from "small gifts and flowers" to free plane trips and accommodations from friends.
Ginsburg has received a number of large monetary awards since joining the court in 1993, which she reported giving to charity. In 1996 she received $100,000 from the philanthropic Kaul Foundation and distributed the money among 26 charities and nonprofit organizations, including law schools, women's organizations and theatrical companies.
Justices earned $194,300 this year and will get $199,200 in 2005, comfortable salaries but modest compared with some private-sector lawyers. They are permitted to earn as much as $23,000 more through outside activities, such as teaching.
But membership on the court offers perks in addition to the prestige and power unique to the role of the Supreme Court.
Nearly all the justices accept honorary memberships to private clubs, worth thousands of dollars annually. Most are Washington-area clubs that donate the memberships.
For example, Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy listed honorary memberships in the Washington Golf and Country Club, which they valued last year at $4,000. These sums appeared to be in line with annual membership fees for such clubs in the Washington area. However, a court spokesman said the rules don't require justices to disclose the initiation fees for joining such clubs, which can be far higher.
Because of inconsistencies in the way the justices reported their memberships, they were not included in the Times' tally of the value of their gifts.
Several justices also take lengthy, all-expenses-paid summer sojourns abroad where they are paid to lecture on the law. Locales have included Italy, the French Riviera and the Greek isles.
Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter reported turning down all gifts and club memberships. Breyer has traveled to Paris, Barcelona, Spain, and Florence, Italy, on law school programs. But Souter has stayed home and checked the box marked "NONE" for gifts on his yearly disclosure forms. Thomas also routinely passes up the overseas trips.
In calling for tighter restrictions on gifts to judges, the ABA commission was strongly influenced by the strict no-gift rules adopted in 1995 by the House and Senate, said another panel member, Jan W. Baran, a former general counsel to the Republican National Committee.
Members of Congress and their staffs may not accept "anything of monetary value" greater than $50 at one time, or more than $100 from one person during the year. The only exceptions are gifts from family members and close personal friends.
"The House and Senate concluded it is not healthy to the integrity of their institutions to allow members to accept valuable gifts from strangers. That was the issue for us," Baran said.
"We would place a limit on the value of gifts from anyone. . . . To get a new set of tires from a generous car dealer would not be OK under these new rules."
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, a legal ethicist, said the federal judiciary should adopt a similarly strict ban on judges accepting valuable gifts.
"A justice of the Supreme Court attracts friends and generosity. These gifts are being given not because he is Clarence Thomas, but because he is Justice Clarence Thomas," Gillers said.
Gillers added that, despite the lax rules, he thinks most judges refuse to accept valuable gifts. "I have friends who have become judges, and once they do, they will not let me pay for lunch," he said.
This year, Scalia was involved in a controversy over whether a free plane ride aboard Air Force II to go duck hunting in Louisiana with Vice President Dick Cheney amounted to a gift, at a time when an energy case involving Cheney was before the court.
Scalia rejected a demand from the Sierra Club that he withdraw from the case, arguing that his trip on Air Force II did not amount to something of value. Scalia noted that he, his son and his son-in-law had bought round-trip tickets so they could return home on a commercial flight.
"In other words, none of us saved a cent by flying on the vice president's plane," Scalia said in a March 18 opinion. He subsequently voted for Cheney in the court case.
By law and tradition, the Supreme Court justices are exempt from many of the rules that govern lesser federal judges. Moreover, each of the justices is free to decide how the general ethics guidelines apply to them.
For example, when the Sierra Club filed its motion with the Supreme Court asserting that Scalia should step aside in the Cheney case, the court referred the matter to Scalia for him to decide.
Similarly, neither the ethics rules nor the court stands in the way of justices benefiting from the generosity of others.
Even if the ABA panel's recommendation to tighten the rules on gifts were adopted for federal judges, it would serve only as a guide for members of the Supreme Court.
Thomas, nominated to the Supreme Court at age 43 by President George H.W. Bush, has won many admirers who see inspiration in his rise from a childhood of poverty in the segregated South. Some of the gifts he has accepted have come from casual acquaintances or, in one case, a stranger. More often, they came from new, conservative friends who voice admiration for him.
Foremost among those conservative friends is Harlan Crow. The son of well-known Dallas real estate executive Trammell Crow, he runs a family holding company that owns 10 percent of Trammell Crow Co., one of the nation's biggest commercial real estate companies.
A big Republican donor, Crow last summer gave $25,000 to help launch the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign deriding the Vietnam War record of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
In an interview, Crow said he met Thomas 10 years ago at a conference in Dallas where the justice was a speaker. "I was in the audience and I was impressed," Crow said.
Soon afterward, Crow invited Thomas to a family campground in east Texas. Roger Connor, a businessman who was at the camp-out, remembers the all-male gathering.
"They were all smoking cigars. It was a very manly Texas thing," Connor said. He said the participants slept in sleeping bags and tents, and that the activities included a greased pig race.
In 1997, Crow flew Thomas on his personal plane to the San Francisco area and sponsored him as his guest at the Bohemian Grove, a private organization that for more than 125 years has held male retreats in the redwoods of Northern California for government and business leaders.
Crow and his wife, Kathy, in 2001 also gave Thomas the Bible that once belonged to Frederick Douglass. In disclosing the gift in his report for that year, Thomas valued the Bible at $19,000 and listed the Crows as "personal friends."
"I just knew that he was a fan of Frederick Douglass, and I saw that item come available at an auction and I bought it and gave it to him," Crow said.
Crow also donated $175,000 for a new Clarence Thomas wing at the justice's childhood library in Pin Point, Ga.
At the time, Crow was a national board member of the Center for the Community Interest, an advocacy group that filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court espousing conservative views on cases involving such issues as crime and pornography. Crow said he was not deeply involved with the group, which is now defunct.
Gillers, the NYU professor, questioned whether Thomas should have accepted anything from Crow.
The federal rules say a judge "shall not accept a gift from anyone who is seeking official action from or doing business with the court," Gillers noted.
"If Harlan Crow is a member of the board of a group that files amicus briefs with the court, then I think he comes within that provision," Gillers said.
Thomas reported receiving gifts nearly every year he has been on the Supreme Court. They included $100 worth of cigars from talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, a $500-Stetson hat from the Houston Club, and another $150 worth of cigars from Kansas City businessman Tim Trabon, who said he had never met the justice. He also took a $375 "performance chip" for the computer on his Corvette, a gift from a Corvette supplier he met at a rally.
There was an $800 Daytona 500 commemorative jacket after Thomas served as grand marshal at the race in 1999, $1,200 worth of tires from a businessman in Omaha, Neb., in 2002, and $1,375 in cowboy boots, Stetson hats, rawhide coat and a silver buckle after engagements in Texas in 1995 and 1996.
The only year Thomas listed no gifts or club memberships was 2003, the year he reported receiving $500,000 as part of a reported $1.5-million book contract for an autobiography with HarperCollins, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Another businessman who calls Thomas a friend is Earl Dixon. A pest control company executive in Jacksonville, Fla., and former Republican state legislator, Dixon is also a motor-home enthusiast -- a hobby shared by Thomas. He said they met about four years ago at a motor-coach repair shop in Florida.
Their friendship grew, Dixon said, and when he learned that Thomas was raising a grand-nephew, he gave the justice a $5,000 check to defray his education costs.
"I enjoy talking with him. I enjoy visiting with him. He's a class act," Dixon said of the justice. In 2001, the same year Crow gave him the Douglass Bible, the American Enterprise Institute -- of which Crow is a trustee -- presented Thomas with a bust of Lincoln that the justice valued at $15,000. The think tank praised him for his "clear, consistent, and courageous jurisprudence" on the Supreme Court.
Will President Bush actually have the guts to nominate Clarence Thomas for chief justice of the Supreme Court when that opportunity arises, probably soon? You know he's just aching to do it. Because of their shared judicial philosophy, of course. But also because of that arrogant willfulness Bush has that a more generous person than myself might even call integrity.
And will the Democrats have the guts to oppose Justice Thomas' elevation to chief, resisting all the Republican cries of, "Oh, for mercy's sake, you people — not that again"? Those cries are starting preemptively, in an effort to cow the opposition party out of opposing a Thomas nomination. I wish I could be as confident of the Democrats' guts as I am of the president's.
Ordinarily, and sensibly, it's considered to be an advantage when a presidential nominee has already gone through a Senate confirmation hearing. One reason Bush chose Michael Chertoff as secretary of Homeland Security after his first nominee imploded is that Chertoff already has gone before the Senate for confirmation three times. He's filled out the forms, he's been investigated, he's testified: Like a preapproved mortgage, he can slip right through.
But Clarence Thomas is different, because his famous 1991 confirmation was different. His strategy was to do or say anything that would allow him to crawl past the finish line. When the prize is a virtually invulnerable lifetime appointment, that's a good strategy. But it can, and should, come back to haunt you when you put in for a promotion.
Thomas' performances at the hearings, as well as the things we know now that we didn't know then, and even the things we knew then but were bullied or rushed into ignoring, are not just fair game — they are disqualifying. If he wasn't unworthy of the Supreme Court when his confirmation hearings began, he certainly was by the time they were over. The fact that he got confirmed as an associate justice anyway is no reason to give him a free pass to chief justice. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And yes, some of Thomas' opponents may have been as demagogic and dishonest as he was, but that's not the point. When Anita Hill is nominated for chief justice, we can consider her qualifications.
To take the most obvious example of an issue that was opened, rather than closed, by Thomas' 1991 testimony: Thomas avoided revealing his opinion about Roe vs. Wade, the abortion decision, by insisting that he didn't have one.
It is beyond legitimate dispute that he tried to leave the impression that he'd never even thought or talked about Roe. This was implausible on its face — Roe is the most controversial Supreme Court ruling of the last century, and it came down while Thomas was in law school — but no one could prove Thomas a liar during the hearings. Since then, however, several people have popped up with memories of having discussed Roe with Thomas. His views were as you would suspect, and he has reasserted them with a vengeance from the moment he joined the court.
Thomas' supporters say he didn't commit perjury because he testified only that he had never "debated" Roe, not that he had never "discussed" it. They also like to point out that he said he had no view on Roe "this day," which doesn't make him a liar if he expressed a view some other day.
This is pathetic. But it's also irrelevant. The standard for becoming chief justice ought to be a bit higher than the standard for staying out of jail. Thomas indisputably did his best to deceive senators trying to perform their constitutional duty of advice and consent. If that isn't something the Senate should consider when passing judgment on his fitness for an even higher job, then "advice and consent" has no meaning. And we have endured too many sermons from Clarence Thomas, strict constructionist, to believe that the words of the Constitution have no meaning.
Since the hearing, various witnesses and pieces of evidence have come out lending credence to the stories about his personal life that he so indignantly denied at the time. Maybe most of this stuff should never have been raised. But that didn't give him the right to lie about it. Meanwhile, various remarks and rulings by Justice Thomas since 1991 have cast doubt on his professions of agnosticism on almost every important legal issue during his confirmation.
Because he chose an outright fib on abortion, Thomas relied somewhat less than most recent Supreme Court nominees on the silly pretense that discussing actual judicial issues at their confirmation hearings would amount to "prejudging" future cases. It's silly because sitting judges do nothing else but issue opinions on judicial issues, and no one thinks that this year's opinions are illegitimately "prejudging" next year's opinions. The nomination of a sitting justice for elevation to chief, if it happens, ought to snuff this pretense once and for all. After almost 14 years of strongly held and strongly worded opinions, it would be preposterous for Thomas to decline to discuss his judicial ideology, or to insist that he does not have one, on the nonexistent principle that a judge should never tip his hand.
It would be preposterous, but that is no guarantee that it won't happen. Saying the preposterous under oath has served Clarence Thomas well so far. If he is given the opportunity to be preposterous again, and the Senate Democrats let him get away with it — again — they will get the chief justice they deserve, and they'll deserve the justice that they get.
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