Thomas has consistently supported narrowing the court's interpretation of the constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause (often simply called the "Commerce Clause") to limit federal power, though he has broadly interpreted states' sovereign immunity from lawsuits under the clause. In United States v. Lopez and United States v.
Thomas's opinion was criticized by the seven-member majority of the court, which wrote that, by comparing physical assault to other prison conditions such as poor prison food, Thomas's opinion ignored "the concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency that animate the Eighth Amendment".
"Clarence Thomas fixes reports to include wife's pay". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 28, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2011. ^ Coyle, Marcia (October 27, 2016). "Young Scholar, Now Lawyer, Says Clarence Thomas Groped Her in 1999". Law.com. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Thomas issued a one-page dissent in which he called the Texas statute prohibiting sodomy "uncommonly silly", a phrase originally used by Justice Stewart.
In 2009, Akasegawa’s book HyperArt Thomasson was published in English translation. The American publishers wanted to get a conversation going stateside. They set up a blog where people could offer up their own potential Thomassons for analysis and debate, much like Akasegawa’s original column. People sent in their Thomassons from around the world. (NB: the blog is now defunct, but continues in a different form here .)
The term comes from Gary Thomasson, an American baseball player who was traded to the Yomiuri Giants, a team in Tokyo, Japan. Thomasson was paid exorbitant amount of money for a two year contract.