Justice Thomas Praised by Former Clerks, Colleagues

His former law clerks and colleagues in the Reagan administration had high praise for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to the high court on July 1, 1991 - 25 years ago.

Thomas, who replaced Thurgood Marshall as the 106th justice, was described by those who’ve known him for more than a quarter century not only as a principled defender of the Constitution and therefore a foe of unlimited government power, but also as an engaging, gregarious mentor and friend who “knows everything about the Supreme Court, down to the names of the janitors.”

Professor John Yoo, who teaches law at the University of California/Berkeley, clerked for Thomas between 1994 and ’95. Yoo recalled that time as the jurist’s “coming out party, because he published a number of opinions in a large variety of cases that showed his true colors” as a constitutional originalist, Yoo told CNSNews.com.

“The view of the legal establishment over the last 30 to 40 years has been that the Constitution gives individuals rights, and the government recognizes those rights. But Justice Thomas has an 18th century view that every individual has natural rights, and had them before government existed, so the government cannot take them away,” Yoo said, adding that unlike Thomas, “very few justices have cited the Declaration of Independence as a legal text.”

Thomas’ view of natural rights has allowed him to “go a lot deeper in debates before the court” on issues ranging from rejecting affirmative action to defending state laws decriminalizing marijuana.

The conservative justice’s belief that “the Constitution means what it says, and we have to interpret it as the framers originally understood” also gives him a solid basis for rejecting past court decisions that did not hew to the founding document, Yoo told CNSNews.

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