Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s remarks on a peculiar aspect of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, giving us a glimpse into the hidden world of the high court, but also into the characters of Thomas and Sotomayor.
Here’s the Sotomayor quote mentioned in this episode, from The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2022, print edition ‘Notable & Quotable section:
I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice, that we have not joined each other’s opinions more than anybody else. And yet Justice [Clarence] Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name. Every one of them. And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families’ names and histories. He’s the first one who will go up to someone, when you’re walking with him, and say, “Is your son OK? How’s your daughter doing in college?” He’s the first one that when my stepfather died sent me flowers in Florida. He is a man who keeps cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there, but about people. . . . You really can’t begin to understand an adversary unless you step away from looking at their views as motivated in bad faith, but until you can look at their views and think about what the human reaction is that’s motivating those views.
— Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Scott Ott, Stephen Green and Bill Whittle have produced a panel discussion news show five times weekly for more than a decade. Our Members support this work using the big green and blue buttons above.