This Justice Is Taking Over the Supreme Court, and He Won't Be Alone

Jill Abramson / The New York Times

After he took his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court 30 years ago this month, Justice Clarence Thomas assured his law clerks, “I ain’t evolving.”

What he meant was that he would not soften his sharp conservative edges or change ideological stripes as did some of his fellow justices, including Harry Blackmun and David Souter.

Justice Thomas has certainly kept his vow. Indeed, some legal analysts say he is the most consistently conservative member of the court since the 1930s. He has written a raft of concurring and dissenting opinions that are so far to the right that it is common for him to issue them solo, without any of his colleagues signing on.

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