Senator Ted Cruz reflects on Justice Thomas’s extraordinary character.
Senator Ted Cruz reflects on Justice Thomas’s extraordinary character.
I t’s the rare person who is truly content to be an outsider, ostracized by the in-crowd. In The Inner Ring, C. S. Lewis observes that “one of the most dominant elements” of the human experience is what he calls “the lure of the caucus” — and the accompanying “terror of being left outside.” He calls the desire to belong “one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action.” And he warns that “the passion for the Inner Ring is most skilful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.”
Judges are, first and foremost, human beings — susceptible to the same temptations and psychoses that consume others. And perhaps more so. The Constitution entrusts federal judges with life tenure — a privilege that our Founders gave no one else (they didn’t envision our modern bureaucracy). So federal judges are freer than most to be true to their nature — whatever that may be. It turns out that this is a big problem for the judiciary. And Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has just written a remarkable book, Going Further: The Incomparable Clarence Thomas, that assesses this problem perfectly.
Senator Cruz begins by identifying what makes Justice Thomas unique in the history of our Supreme Court. As the good senator explains, Justice Thomas has demonstrated in case after case that he has been willing to take lone positions and articulate views that others are shy to endorse. In his introduction, Senator Cruz recounts various instances in which Justice Thomas “would go further.” Space constraints no doubt limit him to just a few examples, but many others come readily to mind.
For example, in Printz v. United States (1997), Thomas was the only justice to urge the Court to reaffirm that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is “a personal right” — predating the Court’s Heller decision by over a decade. (I say “reaffirm” because the Court has actually regarded the Second Amendment as a fundamental civil right since at least 1950, in Johnson v. Eisentrager.)
Many judges have objected to the judicial expulsion of religion from the public square. But Justice Thomas’s lone effort in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004) offers the most definitive solution to the problem. He explains how the establishment clause is actually “a federalism provision” that “resists incorporation.” This means that the First Amendment clause regarding any “law respecting an establishment of religion” would not apply to state and local governments at all.
More recently, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), Justice Thomas authored a solo opinion urging the Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) and thereby restore the traditional definition of marriage in numerous states. Even more recently, in West Virginia v. B.P.J. (2026), he wrote by himself to state that men are not women, “even if they believe that they are” — and that to say otherwise is to “show indifference regarding the truth.”
But his arguably most sweeping individual opinion appears in United States v. Lopez (1995), where he offered a limited and originalist vision of federal power under the commerce clause that would threaten to eliminate large portions of the United States government.
No one should be surprised to learn that Justice Thomas has penned more solo dissents than the rest of the current members of the Court combined. But what stands out most is quality, not quantity. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote far more solo dissents than Justice Thomas — even though Thomas recently surpassed him in length of service on the Court. (Lord willing, Justice Thomas will become the longest-serving justice in U.S. history in May 2028 — and then extend his lead by another touchdown or two.) But Justice Stevens “drifted left” over his many years, garnering the adoration of the cultural elites who control the national discourse, while Justice Thomas has held fast to his jurisprudential approach and continued to express views detested by those cultural elites.
And the elites have made their disdain clear. After just one year on the Court, the New York Times editorial board condemned Thomas as the “youngest, cruelest justice.” The Times noted one particularly “withering reprimand” that Thomas had endured for having the temerity to stand apart from his colleagues: “Only four months after taking his oath as a Justice, Clarence Thomas finds himself rebuked by a seven-member majority of the Rehnquist Court for disregarding humane standards of decency.” It was an assault tailor-made to ensure that his future writings would be predominantly solo ones. That’s not speculation — the Times explicitly warned “future appointees” not to help Justice Thomas “move the Court still further to the right.”
Three decades later, Justice Thomas is no longer the youngest justice. But he remains the most disdained (if you believe the Times) — or the most constitutionally principled (if you believe in the text). It’s no wonder that so much has been written about him. But why would a leading member of the U.S. Senate, and the chairman of one of its most powerful committees, set aside so much time to write a book about Thomas?
Perhaps because Ted Cruz is an unusual senator. Had he not won election to the Senate in 2012, in his first run for office, Cruz would have been one of the nation’s most distinguished appellate litigators. He has argued more U.S. Supreme Court cases than every other sitting member of the U.S. Senate combined. (Former state Attorneys General Richard Blumenthal, John Cornyn, and Sheldon Whitehouse have argued four, two, and one, respectively.) Many politicians run for office promising to support judges and justices “in the mold of Justice Thomas.” Senator Cruz actually means it.
As he noted in his 2020 book One Vote Away, “Republicans have, historically speaking, been absolutely terrible at judicial nominations — especially nominations for Supreme Court justices. To borrow from baseball, Republicans at best bat .500. Once confirmed as justices, at most, half of Republicans’ Supreme Court nominations actually behave as we hoped they might behave in terms of remaining faithful to their oath of office and the Constitution.” And Cruz understands, better than most, that judicial selection should focus on character, not credentials.
It’s often boasted that federal appellate appointments are now dominated by former Supreme Court clerks and former state solicitors general. Yet Justice Thomas was neither. (Nor was Justice Alito, for that matter.) Supreme Court clerks are quickly invited to join the nation’s cultural elite — with the promise of huge law firm bonuses and fancy law partnerships in the future. Hardly a reliable proving ground for principled jurisprudential leadership. And don’t forget: Law clerks are basically staff attorneys. They don’t decide cases. And they’re typically chosen fresh out of (or during!) law school, for earning top grades at elite law schools — well before they’ve ever demonstrated what kind of leaders they might be if they were ever given real power. At least state solicitors general are seasoned lawyers. It’s said that they prove themselves in that job because they sometimes must take on controversial public positions, but solicitors general get to hide behind their clients. If they’re later selected for judicial office, they can distance themselves from their prior work.
But if you won’t take the blame, then you can’t take the credit. Because we can’t count on it. When John Roberts was a senior official in the Office of the U.S. Solicitor General, he filed an amicus brief in Rust v. Sullivan (1991), stating that Roe v. Wade (1973) was “wrongly decided and should be overruled” because there’s “no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution” for a right to an abortion. When he was later questioned about it, he said what everyone expected: “I do not believe it is proper to infer a lawyer’s personal views from the position taken on behalf of a client.” Serving a government boss is very different from serving a pro bono client. Pro bono is widely understood to be a matter of attorney choice — as evidenced by the debates over Roberts’s pro bono Supreme Court efforts in Romer v. Evans (1996). But government lawyers can always say that their bosses made them do it.
Let’s be real: Becoming a law clerk or solicitor general is usually about credentials. But being a judge is about character. Senator Cruz gets this. And that’s why he pays so much attention to Justice Thomas’s upbringing. Many judges are vulnerable to the lure of status, prestige, and popularity. Justice Thomas is different because Clarence Thomas has always been different, from the very beginning. Cruz’s hopeful message in the book is that, if you’ve spent your early years getting used to being unpopular — and being okay with it — you may be less vulnerable to the seduction of popularity later in life.
Senator Cruz also spills much ink examining Justice Thomas’s faith journey. And that’s essential. In an ideal world, being a Christian should have nothing to do with being a good judge. Because the text is the text. But in this fallen world, where fancy federal judges are offered the forbidden fruit of elite acceptance, being a Christian has everything to do with being a good judge. As Christians, we know that this is not home. We are not home. Hebrews 13:14: “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.” And as Christians, we’re supposed to be willing, ready, even eager to take heat for our beliefs. Jesus warned His disciples not to love “the praise of men more than the praise of God.” And He reassured them that, “if the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first.” Justice Thomas’s memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, ends with a reference to one of my favorite Bible verses — Genesis 50:20. What man intends for ill, God will use for good. I can think of no better way to capture how cultural elites have treated these two of our nation’s finest public servants.
From Day One, Chief Justice Roberts has expressed a desire for greater unanimity on the Court — even if it means narrower (and therefore necessarily less originalist) rulings. Invoking his predecessor John Marshall, Roberts said that he would discourage his colleagues from writing separately: “I think that every justice should be worried about the Court acting as a Court and functioning as a Court, and they should all be worried, when they’re writing separately, about the effect on the Court as an institution.”
Marshall’s message stuck. His time on the Court is known for its unanimity. Even when Justice William Johnson felt compelled to dissent over two centuries ago, he admitted that it was “painful.” And he expressed great relief when he was joined by one of his colleagues: “I feel myself much relieved from the painful sensation resulting from the necessity of dissenting from the majority of the Court in being supported by the opinion of one of my brethren.”
Justice Thomas needs no safety in numbers to do his job. And thank God for that. As Thomas himself has explained:
The thing that allows me to remain steady is an abiding faith. I use my litany of humility. I keep it directly across my desk from me. You understand that it’s not about you. It’s about things that are far more important than you. And whether people are mad at you has nothing to do with whether you’re right. You know, you can be in the middle of a hurricane. Or you can be on a calm day. North is still north. You can be in a thunderstorm. North is still north. People can yell at you. North is still north. It doesn’t change fundamental things. And in this business, right is still right. Even if you stand by yourself.
That’s Justice Thomas. Going further — by standing alone.