Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas poured cold water on rumors that he will retire this summer. The conservative judge said Monday that he had “no idea” where the gossip came from.
“I have no idea where this stuff comes from,” Thomas said. “One of the things you have to get used to in this business, in here, is that people say things about you and for you that have nothing to do with you.”
Now would be a premature time for Thomas to retire. There may never have been a more auspicious time in Thomas’s career to advance his conservative agenda, now that the balance of the Supreme Court has tilted right under President Donald Trump.
Thomas won’t retire
Speaking at an event hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society, Thomas joked about the constant speculation over his retirement plans. The judge said that his wife Ginni, who “gets these alerts,” told him about the rumors.
“I said, ‘Wow’ – glad to know that,” Thomas said. “I mean, you have to know every day what’s on your schedule.”
Public speculation over the health and retirement plans of Supreme Court judges has intensified in a time of high-stakes politics. As the culture war grows more vicious, the Supreme Court has come to be seen as a weapon by progressives and conservatives alike. Rumors of bad health have become markedly political; when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suffered a health scare that made her miss work earlier this year, the left fretted — as some on the right spread a conspiracy theory that she was dead.
Asked whether his friends or enemies spread the rumors, Thomas quipped, “I think people just wanted to know what I was going to do, since I couldn’t figure it out myself.” Watch below:
Justice Clarence Thomas on retirement rumors: “I have no idea where this stuff comes from. One of the things you have to get used to in this business…is that people can say things about you and for you that have nothing to do with you.” #SCOTUS
Full video at 10pm ET on C-SPAN2. pic.twitter.com/NrbfGgRTnJ
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 3, 2019
Speaking at Pepperdine University in April, Thomas said simply, “I’m not retiring.”
Thomas is 70. Ginsburg, at 86, is the oldest judge on the court and its liberal axis.
Why now?
Nominated by George H.W. Bush in 1991, Thomas is the longest-serving justice on the court, and generally considered its most conservative — which begs the question, why would Thomas retire now, when the Supreme Court is more conservative than it has been in decades?
President Trump’s confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court solidified a conservative majority on the high court. The Court’s rightward shift has emboldened several states to seek sweeping abortion restrictions, seemingly with the aim of forcing the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade.
Thomas’ retirement would allow Trump to safely confirm a conservative replacement, however. Some have speculated that Thomas could step down to forestall the possibility of being replaced by a progressive president.
But if Thomas were to retire now, it would come at a time when the culture war, particularly on abortion, is reaching a boiling point. After years of patiently waiting in the wings, one would expect Thomas, a passionate pro-life Catholic, to stick around a while longer.
And Thomas has shown no signs of slowing down. In a blistering, 20-page opinion tracing the history of eugenics in the birth control movement last week, Thomas warned of the potential for abortion to “become a tool of eugenic manipulation” after the court declined to weigh in on the legality of abortion to select for race, sex, and disability. While agreeing that the issue should be adjudicated first by appeals courts, Thomas warned that the Supreme Court had punted bigger questions about the scope of abortion rights.
“Although the court declines to wade into these issues today, we cannot avoid them forever. Having created the constitutional right to an abortion, this court is dutybound to address its scope,” the justice said.
It certainly doesn’t sound like Thomas is thinking about his job in the short-term.
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