Clarence Thomas Becomes 2nd Longest Serving Supreme Court Justice

Justice Clarence Thomas became the second-longest serving justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

That’s a milestone that underscores his decades-long commitment to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution that has helped restore protections for unborn children.

Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush and seated in October 1991 at age 43 to succeed liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall, surpassed Justice Stephen J. Field on Monday to move into third place. On Thursday he overtook Justice John Paul Stevens to claim second place.

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Now 77, Thomas has served more than 34 years on the bench. Only Justice William O. Douglas, who served from 1939 to 1975, has served longer.

If Thomas remains on the nation’s highest court until May 20, 2028, he will become the longest-serving justice in U.S. history.

Thomas has been a steadfast defender of returning the abortion issue to the states so they can protect babies from abortions.

In 1992, during his first term, he joined a dissent arguing that abortion should be decided at the state level and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Three decades later, he joined the majority in the landmark 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe and returned to the American people and their elected representatives the authority to protect unborn life.

His originalist approach — interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning — has also expanded Second Amendment rights, strengthened religious liberty and curbed executive overreach.

Former Thomas clerk Haley Proctor, now a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said his influence grew from persistence.

“He began his time on the court often in dissent, and he stood his ground,” Proctor said. “The justice’s influence on the law has been profound. And that is a consequence, not only of his many years on the court, but also of his persistence.”

Thomas has consistently grounded his jurisprudence in the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

In an April 15, 2026, speech at the University of Texas, he warned that progressivism “seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.”

In the same address he emphasized: “The first is that the rights of man come from God, not from the Constitution or the government.”

Pro-life advocates credit Thomas’s long service and unwavering fidelity to those founding principles with delivering the Dobbs victory that has already saved countless unborn children by allowing states to enact protections against abortion. His tenure has shifted the court away from decades of judicial activism that sought to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right.

Thomas has given no public indication he plans to retire. In a 2019 talk at Pepperdine University, when asked about retiring in 20 or 30 years, he replied simply, “No.”