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Posted on 04/04/2014 4:07:44 AM PDT by markomalley
Justice Clarence Thomas’s influence was on full display in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to strike down a key campaign finance restriction.
And it’s just one in a string of cases in which Thomas could be dragging the court toward his way of thinking.
Chief Justice John Roberts penned Wednesday’s plurality decision, which eliminates the limit on the total dollar amount an individual may give to political candidates and committees.
But Thomas, seen by many as the court’s most conservative justice, wrote a concurring opinion that both represented the decisive vote in the 5-4 decision, and beckoned the justices to go further.
Thomas used his opinion to argue in favor of scrapping individual contribution caps altogether by reversing the court’s post-Watergate decision known as Buckley v. Valeo, which held that limits are justified as a measure to stave of corruption.
“This case represents yet another missed opportunity to right the course of our campaign finance jurisprudence by restoring a standard that is faithful to the First Amendment,” Thomas wrote. “Until we undertake that reexamination, we remain in a ‘halfway house’ of our own design.”
Thomas is the only Justice calling for the total elimination of individual contribution caps so far, but Wednesday’s ruling in McCutcheon vs. the FEC could give him hope that the court’s majority will eventually reach his conclusion.
It’s familiar terrain for Thomas, who experts said has often staked positions outside of the mainstream, even of the court’s conservative wing, during more than two decades on the bench.
“He is not one for half-measures,” said Tom Goldstein, an appellate advocate who has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court. “He, on more questions than most justices, he is willing to stake out the strongest position.”
For Thomas, that has often meant standing alone. But there have been cases – on Second Amendment and criminal justice issues, for instance – where Thomas started out alone in dissent, only to watch the court “cohere around that once lonely position,” Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar said.
Thomas famously remains silent during oral arguments before the court, as other justices spar and pepper the attorneys before them with questions. Amar, who described himself as a liberal admirer of Thomas, scoffed at suggestions that he takes his cues from the court’s other conservatives or cedes any of the power that comes with his robe.
"You could make a case that he’s been the most influential,” he said. “The game isn’t talking at oral arguments.”
Amar likened Thomas to former justices John Marshall Harlan, the only dissenter in the landmark 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision backing racial segregation, and William Rehnquist, who was dubbed as “the lone ranger” before the court gradually coalesced around him.
Whether that happens for Thomas will depend in part on the future makeup of the court, as well as the evolution of the law. In that sense, Thomas is taking an “intergenerational” approach to the court’s business, Goldstein said.
“This is the long view, and the long game for what the law is going to be like in 50 or 100 years," he said.
In the meantime, Thomas is subtly pulling the court in his direction simply by virtue of the positions he takes, Goldstein said. In McCutcheon, for example, Thomas’ push to overrule the Buckley ruling altogether likely made the court more inclined to weaken it, he said.
In other words, the justices need not adopt Thomas’ ideology to be influenced by it.
Goldstein, who publishes the SCOTUS blog providing Supreme Court analysis, said he believed that the court as currently constructed would be unlikely to toss aside contribution limits entirely. But he and other observers of the court said the Roberts court could further loosen restrictions incrementally, perhaps raising the threshold for individual contributions to a candidates.
Still, Thomas’ call to end all contribution limits entirely is not without backing. For instance, a Wall Street Journal editorial in response to the McCutcheon ruling embraced Thomas position.
“But the Justices didn't need to go that far to overturn overall donor limits, and Chief Justice Roberts prefers incremental legal progress,” the Journal said. “Justice Thomas is nonetheless a John the Baptist on political speech, and the current majority may vindicate his logic in a future case.”
i do not see it... if it were about the black man being dragged, then i could see it...
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My vote can’t be bought ..... My price is a polidiots established record, conservative and constitutional values and a love of all traditions called American .....
USSC decision to allow socialist rats and RINO’s to spend more of their handlers cash is sad yet may have a silver lining. Bust their bank as they try to bullshit and buy the sheeple.
I will vote for the poorest or richest of polidiots that meets my simple standards. Media presstitutes and money mongering merchants will never decide who I vote for.
My opinion...
Thomas should be cloned, although I don’t always like all his reasons, he’s always the best on most Constitutional issues.
Every FReeper needs to learn to see the long game. We don’t do that enough and it is hurting us. We need to think like God does - generationally.
Every liberal has attacked Thomas as a dummy. He’s off the plantation and the biggest threat to liberalism is a free thinking black man. If the GOP could pull 10-15% of black votes there are few statewide and national races Dems would win.
If Thomas got the positive press Obama got, blacks would already be voting our way in those numbers.
You’re exactly correct. They get it 24/7 home and away. It’s good to be a conservative in liberal land. You must stay sharp.
I dunno about all of that.
They are more dependable than any other. I can only assume the need to constantly defend why they are conservative hones their beliefs, while the constant attacks from the left and in particular other blacks drives then further right and solidifies their positions.
Indeed! Now you've got it.
__________
Sister needs her sugar
To get her through the day
She doesn't have the money
But always got a way to pay
It's 2:07; it's time to sell some Ghetto Heaven...
Yes and the Dims already are awash in money from America’s enemies. So it follows that they will get money from America’s enemies overseas.
It's as if it was pay-per-word.
Yes and the Dims already are awash in money from America’s enemies. So it follows that they will get money from America’s enemies overseas. And the Dims won’t report it. But we would have to. I think we are better off w/o reporting. IMHO
:-)
That would be because many of O'Connor's opinions weren't based on the law, but upon the fuzzy "fairness doctrine" that mommies impose to resolve disputes between two squabbling children.
I don’t know about that, but I imagine his briefcase has the monogram BMF.
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