The Justices Speak Out

Justice Clarence Thomas recently gave a speech in Texas prompting all manner of praise and criticism from commentators and media outlets. Jim Geraghty, on today's edition of The Editors, says he feels "like we hear from Supreme Court justices a lot more often than we used to. And I don't entirely mind this."

"I would say, even 15 years ago, you would only hear from a Supreme Court justice maybe giving a commencement address at a law school . . . but by and large, they let their opinions do the talking for them."

Jim recalls "when Clarence Thomas generally wouldn't speak very much during oral arguments, and he kind of let the back and forth go and other justices spoke a great deal more. Clarence Thomas got a lot of grief for that." But "now Clarence Thomas speaks out more. He's making his viewpoint very, very clear. He's making his perspective, his philosophy, very, very clear. And I think he has a very compelling, clear, and direct one that the Founding of this country got a whole lot of things right.

"There's a part of me that wishes we could go back to those good old days of the Supreme Court," says Jim. "I think it had a certain . . . mystique to it. . . . I think that ship has sailed, unfortunately.

"So if you're going to see Justice Ketanji Brown [Jackson] and other folks making these kinds of speeches and making these kinds of comments . . . then you might as well have the right of center or strict constructionist justices going out and giving speeches and giving their perspective to the public as well."

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.