I can still remember when Justice Antonin Scalia died.
I’d just returned home from California when I got the alert on my phone. His death was unexpected, and I was immediately overcome with fear and panic. Justice Scalia was one of the most influential members of the court, an originalist and a textualist. He once famously quipped that federal judges should be given a stamp reading “stupid but constitutional.”
Scalia’s death was monumentally consequential, as it created a vacancy on the Supreme Court, giving Barack Obama an opening to shift the court’s ideological balance.
Say what you want about Mitch McConnell — I know he’s not exactly winning the praise of the right these days — but if not for him (and Joe Biden), leftist wacko Merrick Garland would be a Supreme Court Justice right now.
I remember a couple of times that Justice Clarence Thomas was trending on Twitter (back before I was banned). I can’t recall what for now, but each time I saw his name, my heart sank and I had flashbacks to February 2016, when Justice Scalia died.
Recently, I learned about Thomas being admitted to the hospital with “flu-like symptoms” from a news alert on my phone, and once again, I immediately feared the worst was about to happen. It didn’t help that the statement from the Supreme Court was rather vague. Although court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said at the time that Thomas was expected to be released from the hospital in a day or two and would “participate in the consideration and discussion of any cases for which he is not present on the basis of the briefs, transcripts, and audio of the oral arguments.”
And then he didn’t. What was supposed to be a couple of days’ stint in the hospital turned out to be a week, with the Supreme Court curiously mum about Thomas’s condition. What was going on? Was the court not telling us something? Was Justice Thomas okay? We had no idea. I told my PJ Media colleague Cameron Arcand I had faith that Thomas would pull through, but deep down, I was panicking hardcore.
My relief at the news that Thomas had been released from the hospital was indescribable. Clarence Thomas is 73 years old and the longest-serving member of the court. Once Justice Breyer retires at the end of this term, Thomas will be the most senior justice on the bench. So I think I’m very well justified being nervous.
Adding to the stress of Thomas’s hospitalization was the timing: it occurred during the same week as confirmation hearings for Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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Imagine if Thomas could no longer serve on the court and Joe Biden got a second Supreme Court nominee. Jackson, should she be confirmed — and it’s looking likely that she will — won’t change the balance of the court, but a vacancy left by Thomas would. The so-called 6-3 conservative majority on the court would suddenly be 5-4, which is too close for comfort. Heck, the so-called 6-3 balance we have right now barely feels like a conservative majority sometimes.
So, please, Justice Thomas: don’t scare us like that again. Your country needs you on the court as long as possible.