
Vice President-elect Mike Pence will be part of history next Friday when he takes the oath of office.
Pence will be sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who will become the first black Supreme Court justice to ever swear in the president or vice president.
The chief justice of the Supreme Court has the duty of administering the oath of office to the incoming president, which means that next Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in President-elect Donald Trump.
However, the ritual of the inauguration allows the incoming vice president some latitude in who will administer the oath.
In 2009, Vice President Joe Biden was sworn in by Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Sonia Sotomayor did the honors for Biden in 2013.
Thomas, 68, is part of the Supreme Court’s four-member conservative wing. During a speech last month to the Federalist Society, he touched upon the crisis caused by judges attempting to legislate from the bench.
“Today it is the view of many that the Supreme Court is the giver of liberties — what an odd conception of governance that ‘We the People’ are dependent on the third branch of government to grant us our freedom,” Thomas said.
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