Chatting with a Republican lawmaker after attending a conservative conference at a five-star resort, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was far from relaxed and rejuvenated.
“One or more justices will leave soon,” he warned the member of Congress, according to a June 2000 memo drafted for then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist in June 2000, as previously reported by ProPublica. Thomas’ gripe: His salary of just under $174,000, or more than $306,000 in today’s dollars, was not enough, and justices like him – at the time composing a narrow 5-4 conservative majority – might just quit “unless the compensation for Supreme Court justices is increased,” according to the memo’s draft, a staffer with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
