The petition to have Justice Clarence Thomas removed from the Supreme Court has now reaches nearly a million signatures. That total is nearly double the 500k that the petition had just three days ago. It now seems to be picking up steam in the aftermath of Thomas’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and more revelations suggesting that his wife Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas actively participated in an attempted coup.
https://twitter.com/CarolynFrawley1/status/1543444836719595521?s=20&t=e8MxK5JXVH05xybryNAf0A
According to Move On – the group spearheading the petition:
“Thomas’ failure to recuse himself warrants immediate investigation and heightened alarm. And it’s only the latest in a long history of conflicts of interest in the service of a right-wing agenda and mixing his powerful role with his conservative political activism. He has shown he cannot be an impartial justice and is more concerned with covering up his wife’s coup attempts than the health of the Supreme Court. He must resign—or Congress must immediately investigate and impeach.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) echoed that sentiment. She called Justice Thomas out after texts between Ginni Thomas and former Trump White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, were revealed. In January, Thomas was the lone dissenter when the Supreme Court declined to block the release of White House documents, per The Washington Post.
Clarence Thomas should resign.
If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 29, 2022
In the same week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Jamila Prayapal (D-WA) led a group of 13 House Democrats and seven Democratic Senators as signatories to a letter to the Supreme Court demanding Justice Thomas recuse himself.
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When the Court took up Dobbs v. Jackson Health Organization, the left was on high alert. Knowing that the days of Roe v. Wade – the 1973 SCOTUS decision granting a woman’s right to privacy and securing her constitutional right to abortion – were numbered. But it was Thomas’ accompanying opinion that solidified his commitment to rolling back the rights, not just of women, but the LGBTQ community. Move On says, “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—who sided with the majority on overturning Roe—made it clear what’s next: to overturn high court rulings that establish gay rights and contraception rights.”
Some of the reasons listed by petition signers on why Clarence Thomas should resign:
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“I no longer believe that Thomas is capable of being an “impartial” member of the “co-equal” 3rd branch of our government.”
Bobbi C. 06-27-2022
Another:
“A justice who gets their news from Alt-Right talk shows, whose wife staged a coup, and who has been quoted as saying “I will make [the liberal’s] lives miserable” CANNOT be impartial or neutral. Thomas is a living failure of a justice.”
According to one of his law clerks, as reported by @nytimes in 1993, Justice Clarence Thomas privately said,
"The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years, and I'm going to make their lives miserable for 43 years."— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 25, 2022
The Justice who spent a decade of silence on the court has stepped out of the shadows, taking a torch to democracy and the constitution in the process. As his wife’s involvement in Trump’s and the GOP’s attempt to subvert democracy and stage a coup becomes more evident, Thomas’ refusal to acknowledge the conflict of interest and recuse himself from future cases – as well as his stated commitment to seeing the rights of women and the LGBTQ community eradicated – means that it’s past time for Thomas’ reign of judicial terror to end.
The petition currently has 987,559 signatures. Let’s double that.
Follow Ty Ross on Twitter @cooltxchick
