Thomas represents an ideal he hoped to emulate in efforts to shift the nation’s highest court even further right, the Florida governor said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis praised conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as the “gold standard” he seeks to emulate if elected president next year, pitching evangelical leaders on aspirations of building a conservative majority on the court that could potentially stand for a generation.
Speaking in Orlando at the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention on Monday, the conservative firebrand and leading contender for the Republican nomination for president sought to solidify his religious pedigree among the most influential evangelical voices in the nation, selling them not only on his personal faith but how it would be expressed in office.
He touted a fatherhood initiative and programs to aid pregnant mothers—a seeming supplement to his candidacy’s hardline stance on abortion—and how his first act as governor involved the baptism of his son. He outlined his support for Israel, a key but complicated U.S. ally in the Middle East and a topic of particular interest for religious conservatives. And he painted religious conservatives as a coalition under threat, highlighting allegations that the FBI was investigating Catholic groups for extremist activity.
“Make no mistake, weaponized government is one faction of society turning the reins of power against those people they don’t like,” he said. “And the people that are in power now do not like people of faith.”
But DeSantis—who has shown unprecedented zeal in efforts to shape Florida from a purple state into a stanchion of conservatism—also discussed his ambitions for the nation’s highest court, and his plans to use it to cement Republican objectives on the national stage for decades to come.
After control of the U.S. Supreme Court flipped to conservatives during the Trump years, DeSantis pitched attendees on potential opportunities in the coming years to fill vacancies on the court, allowing a Republican administration to create a 7-2 conservative majority “that would last a quarter-century.
