Newsletter: ‘Regular stock’ Clarence Thomas, living on a billionaire’s dole

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, April 15, 2023. If you live outside three sparsely populated counties in California’s far north, then today is not Tax Day for you — you have until Oct. 16 to file. Let’s look back at the week in Opinion.

If Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a man who tells the truth, then he must have felt great pain vacationing with Texas billionaire Harlan Crow on the Republican donor’s superyacht, at his private resort in New York’s Adirondack Mountains or flying on his $50-million private jet. You see, Thomas recently told us he is a man of the people, someone who prefers “the RV parks [and] the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”

So his relaxed affect when smoking cigars with Crow and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo must have been a coping mechanism. His beaming smile in a picture taken during a luxurious island-hoping trip surely concealed the disgust that only a man who prefers RV parks and Walmarts over something like the Michaela Rose (Crow’s 161-foot yacht) feels in the presence of opulence.

Or, Thomas could be lying. I cannot tell what’s in the mind of the famously mercurial justice who, before 2021, had gone 10 years without asking a question in oral arguments. But whether Thomas is now lying about innocently failing to disclose his billionaire-funded leisure over the last 20 years or, more troublingly, not reporting a 2014 property sale to Crow, doesn’t have much bearing on Thomas’ future on the court — because the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court police themselves on ethics matters, unlike every federal judge below them who must abide by strict standards.

Whether Thomas faces consequences for refusing to disclose gifts and real estate transactions from his “dearest friends” Harlan and Kathy Crow — or whether his fellow justices convince him of the need to recuse himself from cases dealing with the 2020 election insurrection, in which his wife participated — isn’t really a test of toothless ethics policies or enforcement mechanisms for the justices. It’s a test of whether anything really matters in American government anymore — and if former President Trump couldn’t get convicted by the Senate for inciting a violent rebellion, then something tells me Thomas won’t face impeachment for brazenly violating the public trust.

Still, the justices and Congress can take action to shore up the court’s reputation. Michael Walden, president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, writes in a Times op-ed article:

“Start with a mandatory ethics code at the Supreme Court. The American Bar Assn. recently urged such a move, noting that the Supreme Court is the only court in the country without such binding rules. ‘If the legitimacy of the Court is diminished, the legitimacy of all our courts and our entire judicial system is imperiled,’ the association said. If the court refuses to adopt such a change, Congress can act.

“There are deeper structural issues at the Supreme Court itself. A surprisingly broad bipartisan national consensus supports limiting the justices to an 18-year limit, ending the life terms they now enjoy....

“In the meantime, Congress or the Justice Department should investigate Thomas’ conduct to let the public know the facts and whether the gifts and trips he received violated the law. There’s ample precedent. In 1968, Congress investigated Justice Abe Fortas when it was revealed he took undisclosed support from a wealthy friend. Fortas resigned before facing impeachment.”

Supreme Court justices should report lavish trips. Even those with “dearest friends.” It’s unfortunate this needs to be written down, but Thomas’ undisclosed travels with Crow and friends demand that simple reminder. Writes The Times’ editorial board: “Judicial ethics shouldn’t be a partisan issue. All justices of the Supreme Court, regardless of ideology or the president who appointed them, should be held to the highest ethical standards. And all justices should be aware of the appearance problem created when they accept generous gifts from political actors.” L.A. Times

A federal judge in Texas outlaws an abortion pill that’s safer than Tylenol. This is ridiculous. Mifepristone, one of two drugs taken for medication abortions, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 23 years ago and has been used safely ever since. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk revoked that approval in a ruling that was temporarily (but thankfully) stayed pending appeal. The editorial board sees through the farce: “The Texas lawsuit was always just a ploy to restrict abortion access masquerading as concern over the drug’s safety. Antiabortion activists found a sympathetic federal judge and got the result they wanted. The ruling ignores good sense, sound medical judgment and more than two decades of the drug’s safe usage around the world.” L.A. Times

More on the abortion ruling: Hang on to the pill and your IUD, says columnist Robin Abcarian, because after abortion, birth control is the next fight. UC Davis School of Law professor Mary Ziegler worries that “Kacsmaryk’s ruling reads like it was written by someone already sure of a high court win,” and that “soon enough, we will learn if that assumption is right.” The editorial board notes the confusion already taking hold over accessing mifepristone barely more than a week after the Texas judge’s ruling. A reader wonders in a letter to the editor whether judges can set interest rates if they can also determine a drug’s safety.

A San Diego neurosurgeon sees the devastating toll of the raised border wall. Dr. Alexander Tenorio shares a case that he says has become more typical in his practice: “At 2 in the morning and while I was caring for my hospitalized patients, my pager went off. The message was short: ‘30-year-old male. Unstable spinal fracture after border fall.’ I think of all the similar pages I have received in my three years as a resident physician in neurosurgery in San Diego: young individuals with life-changing severe injuries that they sustained falling from the wall that separates the United States from Mexico. The Trump administration raised sections of this wall to 30 feet high rather than 8 to 10 feet, after which more falls caused more serious injuries.” L.A. Times

I took my three children to Disneyland, spent a lot of money that I’m not sure I have, had a great time and wrote about. The experience my kids had over their spring break was a much rarer occurrence for them than it was for me or anyone who grew up around L.A. decades ago. Then, we got to Disneyland several times a year almost by accident — a $20 ticket here, a church group trip outing or friend’s birthday there, plus some freebies from others who worked for Disney. Today a trip to Disneyland is prohibitively expensive for most people, and the diminishing role it plays in a typical Southern California childhood reflects how other once-common features of life in L.A. (like $4 tickets to Dodger games) are increasingly set aside for the rich. L.A. Times