Petition to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas garners over a million signatures

A petition to impeach Justice Clarence Thomas, which was setup on the website MoveOn, has now gained more than 1 million signatures. At the time of writing 1,060,254 have signed the petition.

The petition has set out its reasons for wanting Thomas to either resign or be impeached. The author of the petition has stated that a “right-wing rigged” Supreme Court has taken away a woman’s choice of what to do with her body. They also go onto express concern about the future of gay rights and access to contraception.

They also state that both Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni have sided with Trump in the January 6th hearings.

They have ended their cases by saying that Thomas cannot remain impartial, and he should either leave voluntarily, or be forced out of his position.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) voiced her support for Thomas being impeached. “Clarence Thomas should resign,” she wrote on Twitter. “If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.” 

Ilhan Omar (D-MN) agreed, Tweeting: “Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached.”

Supreme Court Justices are lifetime appointments. Their tenures are generally ended only by retirement or death. The only sitting Supreme Court Justice to ever be impeached was Samuel Chase in 1804. He was acquitted of all charges and remained on the Supreme Court until his death of a heart attack in 1811.

An official Senate website describes Chase as a “staunch Federalist with a volcanic personality” who “showed no willingness to tone down his bitter partisan rhetoric after Jeffersonian Republicans gained control of Congress in 1801.” Then-President Thomas Jefferson was fully supportive of the impeachment effort.