- Clarence Thomas thinks OSHA may be unconstitutional.
- Justice Thomas dissented from the other justices who declined to hear the case challenging OSHA’s authority.
- It’s the latest target for the far-right judge, who has also questioned other rulings, including on same-sex marriage.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is looking at abolishing OSHA.
The Supreme Court announced on Tuesday which cases it will and will not hear next. Among the cases it rejected was one that challenged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) authority to set and enforce workplace health and safety standards.
And Thomas, widely considered the most conservative justice on an already conservative-majority Supreme Court, was not pleased.
He wrote a dissenting opinion explaining why he believes the Supreme Court should have heard the case because, he argued, OSHA’s authority is unconstitutional.
The case in question, Allstate Refractory Contractors v. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie A. Sue, was backed by conservative business groups and Republican attorneys general who want to limit OSHA’s authority over America’s workplaces, USA Today reported. In the suit, the plaintiff, an Ohio-based general contractor, argues that Congress unconstitutionally delegated law-making power to an outside agency when it created OSHA in 1970.
“Congress empowers executive branches to impose workplace safety standards it deems ‘appropriate,'” Thomas wrote in his dissent. “That authority extends to nearly every business in the United States.”
According to Reuters, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals will uphold OSHA’s constitutionality in 2023, arguing that the agency’s powers are valid because they are limited to workplace safety.
But Thomas believes the agency still has too much power.
“The agency claims it has the authority to regulate everything from the design of electric lawnmowers to the level of ‘interaction between trainers and whales at SeaWorld,'” he continues.
He argues that if OSHA doesn’t unconstitutionally give the agency excessive legislative power, “it’s hard to imagine what would be unconstitutional.”
“It would be equally reprehensible if Congress had given the Internal Revenue Service the power to tax any particular person it deems ‘appropriate,'” Thomas continued in his dissent.
This is not the first time Thomas has clashed with fellow justices over his extreme conservative views.
When the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in 2022, Thomas goes a step further, arguing that the court should also reconsider past decisions that protected access to contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.
