The real battle over the confirmation of Clarence Thomas was joined four years ago with the nomination of Robert Bork, but the roots of the struggle go back even farther to the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. The voters gave Reagan a mandate but the losers overturned the results of the election by engineering Bork's rejection. In that case, it took only one vote for the Senate majority leader, Howard Baker, and his fellow Republicans to block President Reagan's nominee from being confirmed. But by every measure available the public gave Thomas landslide support and Thomas They'd rather fight their battles inside the Beltway, which lets them operate free of input from this nation's huge electorate. is the first Justice to sit on the Supreme Court with a popular mandate.
The real battle over the confirmation of Clarence Thomas was joined four years ago with the nomination of Robert Bork, but the roots of the struggle go back even farther to the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. The voters gave Reagan a mandate but the losers overturned the results of the election by engineering Bork's rejection. In that case, it took only one vote for the Senate majority leader, Howard Baker, and his fellow Republicans to block President Reagan's nominee from being confirmed. But by every measure available the public gave Thomas landslide support and Thomas is the first Justice to sit on the Supreme Court with a popular mandate.