{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/releases?ContentRecord_id=3A8AA564-9411-478B-9AE2-69E0D042E219", "Hatch Pays Tribute to Justice Thomas 25 Years After Senate Confirmation", "2016-09-22", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "House", "UT", "Orrin Hatch", "H000338", "www.hatch.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.\u2014 Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, paid tribute to Justice Clarence Thomas today to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his confirmation to the\u00a0Supreme Court.\r\n\u00a0Reflecting on their friendship, Hatch said, \u201cI have known Clarence for 35 years, and chaired or served on the committees that oversaw each of his appointments. His impact on our nation comes from his own strength of character fueling his deep conviction about the principles of liberty.\u201d\r\n[YOUTUBE LINK TO SPEECH]\r\n\u00a0Select Quotes from the Speech\r\n\"Justice Thomas is the kind of judge that our liberty requires, and defending liberty is what he is doing for America and for each one of us.\u00a0 We have all passed by the National Archives building, which sits on Constitution Avenue just blocks from here.\u00a0 One of the statues in front bears the inscription\u00a0eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.\u00a0 Justice Thomas is paying that price of vigilance.\u201d\u00a0\r\nOn Justice Thomas and the Principles of Liberty\r\n\u201cHis strength of character makes it possible for Justice Thomas to advance his deep conviction about the principles of liberty.\u201d\r\n\u00a0\u201cJustice Thomas draws a direct connection between equality and God-given unalienable rights, limited government, and liberty itself.\u00a0 This means that each branch of government, including the judiciary, should be active but only within its proper bounds.\u00a0 A judiciary consistent with liberty will be active in properly interpreting and applying the Constitution and will be restrained in declining to exercise power to manipulate or change the law.\u201d\r\n\u00a0\u201cThe principles of liberty established by America\u2019s founders are the same principles to which Clarence Thomas is deeply committed.\u00a0 But it is when those principles are fueled by personal character, integrity, and brilliance that they become a powerful force that defines a nation and helps chart its future.\u201d\r\nOn Justice Thomas\u2019s Judicial Philosophy\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\u201cIn 1990, after being appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Clarence had lunch with a friend and reflected on his new judicial role.\u00a0 Every time I put on the robe, he said, I have to remember that I am only a judge.\u00a0 The only reason that sounds unusual today is that we live in an era of run-amok judges.\u00a0 That sounds unusual today, but then we live in an age of run-amok judges engaging in what the late Justice Antonin Scalia called power-judging.\u201d\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\u201cIn 2008, two legal scholars wrote about Justice Thomas in the Wall Street Journal.\u00a0 They quoted him describing his basic yet profound judicial philosophy this way.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my constitution to play around with, he said. \u201cI just think that we should interpret the Constitution as it\u2019s drafted, not as we would have drafted it.\u201d A properly active judiciary will interpret the Constitution as it is already drafted, and a properly restrained judiciary will refuse to interpret the Constitution the way judges would have drafted it.\u201d\u00a0\r\n\u00a0On Justice Thomas\u2019s confirmation and what it represented\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\u201cThis is the kind of judge that we knew Clarence Thomas would be: a judge who knows both the purpose and the limits of the power the Constitution gives him.\u00a0 This is also the reason that many fought so hard against his appointment and continue to criticize his service.\u00a0 The debate over Justice Thomas\u2019 Supreme Court nomination was a debate over what kind of judge should be appointed in America.\u00a0 His opponents and critics want judges who will interpret the Constitution as the judges would have drafted it.\u00a0 In other words, they want a judiciary that is inconsistent with liberty, a judiciary that will control the law rather than be controlled by it.\u00a0 They are concerned more about power than about liberty.\u201d\r\nThe full speech, as prepared for delivery.\r\nMr. President, I rise today to celebrate an event that both represents and helps preserve what is best about this great country.\u00a0 Twenty-five years ago next month, the Senate confirmed, and President George H.W. Bush appointed, Clarence Thomas to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.\r\n\u00a0To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, I would like to note both what this country has done for Justice Thomas and what Justice Thomas is doing for this country.\r\n\u00a0President Bush made the announcement of then-Judge Thomas\u2019 Supreme Court nomination on July 1, 1991, at the Bush home in Maine.\u00a0 In his brief remarks, Judge Thomas said that \u201conly in America could this have been possible.\u201d\u00a0 He was right.\u00a0 It would be difficult to find a more powerful story about how far someone can go in this country.\r\n\u00a0Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in a small wood frame house in the rural town of Pinpoint, Georgia.\u00a0 Six people lived in that house, which had no indoor plumbing.\u00a0 Life in the world of Clarence\u2019s youth was fully segregated.\u00a0 In 1955, the year after the Supreme Court ruled segregated education unconstitutional, he and his brother moved to live with their maternal grandparents, Myers and Christine Anderson.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0Myers Anderson lacked the outward material signs of success that many prize so highly today.\u00a0 He grew up poor, without a father, and had only a third grade education.\u00a0 Yet it was what he had, rather than what he lacked, that would make him the most profound influence on his grandson Clarence.\u00a0 Mr. Anderson\u2019s strength of character, his principles and values, and his example shaped the man whose memoir would later be titled My Grandfather\u2019s Son.\r\n\u00a0Clarence\u2019s grandparents were honest, hardworking, and deeply religious people.\u00a0 They taught decency and respect for others, insisting that Clarence never refuse to do an errand for a neighbor.\u00a0 Mr. Anderson wanted his grandson to be self-sufficient, able to stand on his own two feet even in a hostile world where the odds seemed heavily stacked against him.\r\n\u00a0The other powerful influence for young Clarence were the nuns who taught him at St. Benedict\u2019s Grammar School.\u00a0 There, and at St. Benedict\u2019s Catholic Church, Clarence learned that all people are inherently equal, no matter what the law or society might say at a particular time.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0Clarence graduated from high school in 1967, the only black student in his class, and was the first person in his family to attend college.\u00a0 After graduating from Yale Law School, Clarence went to work for Missouri Attorney General John Danforth, arguing his first case before the Missouri Supreme Court just three days after being sworn in as a member of the Missouri bar.\u00a0 He came to Washington in 1979 to join then-Senator Danforth as a legislative assistant.\r\n\u00a0Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the Senate for the first of five times in 1981 as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights.\u00a0 He would become the longest-serving Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1982, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1990, and a Supreme Court Justice in 1991, at the age of 43.\u00a0 America gave him opportunities that do not exist anywhere else in the world.\r\n\u00a0Since this anniversary is about Justice Thomas\u2019 service on the Supreme Court, let me turn from what America has done for him to what he is doing for America.\u00a0 I have known Clarence for 35 years, and chaired or served on the committees that oversaw each of his appointments.\u00a0 His impact on our nation comes from his own strength of character fueling his deep conviction about the principles of liberty.\r\n\u00a0I have already touched on some of the building blocks of Clarence\u2019s character, including his grandfather\u2019s example of standing firm on his beliefs.\u00a0 In one interview, Clarence said that his professional career is a vindication of the way he was raised.\u00a0 He described that upbringing this way in a 1986 article: \u201cBut my training by the nuns and my grandparents paid off.\u00a0 I decided then\u2026that it was better to be respected than liked.\u201d\r\n\u00a0At the time of Clarence\u2019s Supreme Court nomination, reporters noted that he defied categorization and refuses to uncritically accept orthodoxy of any stripe.\u00a0 Even liberal columnists acknowledged the nominee\u2019s intellectual independence.\u00a0 This strength of character has not changed and makes it possible for Justice Thomas to advance his deep conviction about the principles of liberty.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0The first principle is the inherent equality of every human being.\u00a0 As the Declaration of Independence states, government exists to secure the unalienable rights of individuals.\u00a0 Justice Thomas has called the Constitution a logical extension of the Declaration\u2019s principles.\r\n\u00a0The second principle of liberty that defines Justice Thomas\u2019 service is the necessity of limits on government, including judges.\u00a0 In 1988, while chairman of the EEOC, he made an important presentation at the Federalist Society\u2019s annual symposium.\u00a0 The related principles of equality and God-given unalienable rights, he said, are \u201cthe best defense of limited government, of the separation of powers, and of the judicial restraint that flows from the commitment to limited government.\u201d\u00a0\r\n\u00a0Justice Thomas has said many times that he resists a single label or category for his judicial philosophy, or his understanding of the power and role of judges in our system of government.\u00a0 In that 1988 speech, however, he said that liberty and limited government are the foundation for what he called \u201ca judiciary active in defending the Constitution, but judicious in its restraint and moderation.\u201d\u00a0 This judiciary, he explained, \u201cis the only alternative to the willfulness of both run-amok majorities and run-amok judges.\u201d\r\n\u00a0To put it simply, Justice Thomas draws a direct connection between equality and God-given unalienable rights, limited government, and liberty itself.\u00a0 This means that each branch of government, including the judiciary, should be active but only within its proper bounds.\u00a0 A judiciary consistent with liberty will be active in properly interpreting and applying the Constitution and will be restrained in declining to exercise power to manipulate or change the law.\r\n\u00a0In 1990, after being appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Clarence had lunch with a friend and reflected on his new judicial role.\u00a0 Every time I put on the robe, he said, I have to remember that I am only a judge.\u00a0 The only reason that sounds unusual today is that we live in an era of run-amok judges.\u00a0 That sounds unusual today, but then we live in an age of run-amok judges engaging in what the late Justice Antonin Scalia called power-judging.\r\n\u00a0Justice Thomas\u2019 statement would not, however, have sounded strange to America\u2019s founders.\u00a0 Alexander Hamilton, after all, wrote that because the judiciary may exercise judgment, but may not exercise will, it is the weakest and least dangerous branch.\r\n\u00a0In 2008, two legal scholars wrote about Justice Thomas in the Wall Street Journal.\u00a0 They quoted him describing his basic yet profound judicial philosophy this way.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my constitution to play around with, he said. \u201cI just think that we should interpret the Constitution as it\u2019s drafted, not as we would have drafted it.\u201d A properly active judiciary will interpret the Constitution as it is already drafted, and a properly restrained judiciary will refuse to interpret the Constitution the way judges would have drafted it.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0That is what judges are supposed to do in our system of government.\u00a0 They are supposed to interpret the Constitution \u2013 and statutes too, for that matter \u2013 as it was drafted.\u00a0 Judges must take the law as they find it and apply it impartially to decide cases.\u00a0 That is their job, their part of the system of government that supports liberty.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0This is the kind of judge that we knew Clarence Thomas would be: a judge who knows both the purpose and the limits of the power the Constitution gives him.\u00a0 This is also the reason that many fought so hard against his appointment and continue to criticize his service.\u00a0 The debate over Justice Thomas\u2019 Supreme Court nomination was a debate over what kind of judge should be appointed in America.\u00a0 His opponents and critics want judges who will interpret the Constitution as the judges would have drafted it.\u00a0 In other words, they want a judiciary that is inconsistent with liberty, a judiciary that will control the law rather than be controlled by it.\u00a0 They are concerned more about power than about liberty.\r\n\u00a0Thankfully, Justice Thomas is the kind of judge that our liberty requires, and defending liberty is what he is doing for America and for each one of us.\u00a0 We have all passed by the National Archives building, which sits on Constitution Avenue just blocks from here.\u00a0 One of the statues in front bears the inscription eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.\u00a0 Justice Thomas is paying that price of vigilance.\r\n\u00a0Mr. President, a judge\u2019s clerks, in a unique and special way, become a family.\u00a0 Justice Thomas\u2019 clerks have become partners at America\u2019s best law firms and professors at her finest law schools, carrying with them the principles and lessons he taught about how to protect liberty.\u00a0 As I did five years ago when celebrating Justice Thomas\u2019 20th anniversary, I asked some of his former clerks to send letters about the Justice and I ask consent that they be included in the record following my remarks.\r\n\u00a0The principles of liberty established by America\u2019s founders are the same principles to which Clarence Thomas is deeply committed.\u00a0 But it is when those principles are fueled by personal character, integrity, and brilliance that they become a powerful force that defines a nation and helps chart its future.\r\n\u00a0On July 1, 1991, when President Bush announced that he was nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Clarence said that his grandparents, his mother, and the nuns who taught him \u201cwere adamant that I grow up and make something of myself.\u201d\u00a0 To my friend Clarence, I have to say that not only did you exceed all of those expectations, but your service, character, and example are helping to make something good out of the rest of us.\r\n\u00a0Also on a more personal note, the unexpected death of Justice Scalia has been a profound loss in many ways, including for his friend and colleague Clarence Thomas.\u00a0 On several different levels \u2013 personally, philosophically, even spiritually \u2013 they were close, fellow travelers if you will.\u00a0 Justice Scalia\u2019s death is a great personal loss but also created a void that I am confident Justice Thomas is already filling in continuing to stand for the principles they shared.\r\n\u00a0A few months ago Justice Thomas was the commencement speaker at Hillsdale College in Michigan.\u00a0 He cautioned that today there is more emphasis on our rights and what we are owed than on our obligations and what we can give.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0And he asked this question: \u201cIf we are not making deposits to replenish our liberties, then who is?\u201d\u00a0 By his character and convictions, Clarence Thomas continues to make those deposits and maintain the vigilance necessary to replenish and protect our liberty.\u00a0 America gave him much and he is returning even more.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": 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