Opinion: Clarence Thomas' jurisprudence makes clear that he is openly, proudly committed to helping people like Crow use wealth to exercise power. That’s not just a Thomas problem. It’s a problem of the court and contemporary America, writes CoreyRobin.
The target of Thomas’ speech was the midcentury liberal — economists like John Kenneth Galbraith who held money and markets in bad odor and whose attacks on rich businessmen defined the common sense of the New Deal. Thomas’ view of liberalism may seem unrecognizable today, when many Democrats are as enamored of bankers and entrepreneurs as those bankers and entrepreneurs are of themselves. But the midcentury liberal was a different animal.
For liberals of the 1960s and 1970s, when Thomas was coming of age, the most sacred provision of the Constitution was freedom of speech. Like sexual intimacy or gender identity today, words were thought to be an expression of who we are, a disclosure of our deepest sense of self. That’s why liberals sought to surround them with a constitutional fence of rights and protect them from the state.
It is here, in the realm of campaigns and corruption, that Thomas has left his most permanent mark on the First Amendment — and a lengthy paper trail leading back to Harlan Crow.wrote Wallace Stevens. Thomas agrees. More than an aid to speech or speech in the metaphorical sense, money is speech. Not only do our donations to campaigns and candidates “generate essential political speech,” Thomas, but we also “speak through contributions” to those campaigns and candidates. He’s not wrong.
on money and politics: “Some views are heard only if interested individuals are willing to support financially the candidate or committee voicing the position. To be widely heard, mass communications may be necessary, and they are costly.” Costly communications require big donations. Big donations mean big donors.
With the revelations of Thomas’ connections to Harlan Crow, we can take one of two paths. We can focus on the salacious details of Crow’s largesse and. We can talk about getting Thomas investigated or impeached. We can talk about judicial ethics and how they don’t get enforced on the Supreme Court.
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