Absence of 3 Conservative Judges From State of the Union Address Turns Political

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts (L), along with (L–R) Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and (back) Ketanji Brown Jackson stand together ahead of President Joe Biden's third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on March 7, 2024. Shawn Thew/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Three of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices were conspicuously absent from President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

The no-shows of Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and Samuel Alito came just one week after the high court agreed to review the argument by former President Donald Trump that he has immunity against prosecution for allegedly inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The acceptance of the case was followed by an order from the court to stay the Court of Appeals ruling rejecting President Trump’s claim of prosecutorial immunity until oral arguments can be heard.

They are set for April 25.

Although it is not unusual for only some of the Supreme Court justices to attend State of the Union (SOTU) addresses, Democrats made the absence of the three conservative justices an issue on social media.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who is leading efforts to pressure Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the Court’s review of the Trump case, specifically mocked Justice Thomas in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Clarence Thomas recused himself from the #SOTU!” he wrote.

Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic political commentator and press secretary for the pro-Biden Gen-Z Dream for America and former digital organizer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, also posted sneering comments about the conservative justices’ absences.

President Biden’s singling out of the Supreme Court justices also fueled fury from Republicans such as Garrett Ventry, a congressional insider who was involved in Trump nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment, who slammed the president for personally attacking the Supreme Court justices.

“Joe Biden attacking the Supreme Court at the SOTU is disgusting, unprecedented, and dangerous. Totally inappropriate, and should be widely condemned,” Mr. Ventry posted on X.

Six justices were in attendance and had front row seats to President Biden’s address, including his sharp comments directed at the Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The 1973 ruling created a federal guarantee of a woman’s right to an abortion.

With the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, abortion rights now rest in the hands of the states.

“With all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral or political power,” President Biden said.

Democrats rose to their feet in thunderous applause and cheers in support of President Biden’s admonishment to the Supreme Court justices.

The three missing justices account for three of the five justices who voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Justice Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, attended President Biden’s past State of the Union addresses.

Justices Alito and Thomas have not attended any of President Biden’s State of the Union addresses.

Both have pending financial ethics complaints against them by Democrats for allegedly accepting lavish gifts from wealthy conservatives.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) also has called for an investigation into Justice Alito on allegations that he tried to block legislative reform of the Supreme Court’s ethical guidelines.

Justice Alito, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005, has not attended a State of the Union address since 2010. That year, he was captured on camera mouthing what many interpreted to be saying “not true” when then-President Barack Obama chastised the Supreme Court for lifting campaign spending limits.

Justice Thomas, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, has skipped all of President Biden’s State of the Union addresses.

In 2012, after skipping President Obama’s State of the Union address, Justice Thomas told a group of college students he did so because the presidential address has become so partisan and thus uncomfortable for a judge to sit through.

“There’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV—the catcalls, the whooping and hollering, and under-the-breath comments,” Justice Thomas told students at Stetson University College of Law, according to The New York Times. “One of the consequences is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It’s just an example of why I don’t go.”

On Dec. 15, 2023, a group of Democrats, including Mr. Johnson, penned a letter asking Justice Thomas to sit out the Supreme Court review of President Trump’s immunity claim.

They cited the involvement of Justice Thomas’s wife, Virginia Clarence, in a pro-Trump rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and her belief that the 2020 election was stolen.

Ms. Clarence was also investigated as a potential source of the leak of the Supreme Court ruling draft of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

In January 2023, Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley, responsible for investigating the leak, issued a report concluding it was impossible to determine who was the source of the leak.

Ms. Clarence has denied being the source of the leak or engaging in any wrongdoing relative to the Jan. 6 allegations.

In a 2022 letter to the Select Committee to investigate Jan. 6, her attorney Mark Paoletta, former chief counsel for Oversight & Investigations for the House Energy & Commerce Committee, said that Ms. Clarence has been subject to an “avalanche of death threats and other abuse by the unprecedented assault on the conservative Supreme Court Justices and their families.”

Mr. Paoletta shared and reposted Mr. Ventry’s comments about President Biden’s attacks on the Supreme Court justices.

Other Supreme Court justices who have absented themselves from State of the Union addresses include Antonin Scalia, now deceased, who said more than a decade ago that he doesn’t attend them because they are a “childish spectacle” and he doesn’t want “to be there to lend dignity to it.”