Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09thomas.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: October 8, 2010

RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

should require Thomas's recusal.

:shrug:



" A federal law requires justices to recuse themselves in a number of circumstances where real or perceived conflicts of interest could arise, including in cases where their spouses could have a financial interest. But the decision to step aside is up to each justice; there is no appeal from the nation’s highest court.

“It’s shocking that you would have a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case that might implicate in a very fundamental way the interests of someone who might have contributed to his wife’s organization,” said Deborah L. Rhode, a law professor and director of the Stanford University Center on the Legal Profession.

“The fact that we can’t find that out is the first problem,” she said, adding, “And how can the public form a judgment about propriety if it doesn’t have the basic underlying facts?”

I just sent a long long email and asked them about this same thing. If this woman is to continue in this travesty then Justice Thomas should step down not just recluse himself He would have to recluse himself from every case and there would be no need for him to be on the court. If they can impeach a president for telling a lie about a sex act, then he can be impeached for telling a lie about him not being influenced by his wife's activism. And doesn't the Hatch Act cover this somewhere. if enough people wrote to the DOJ maybe they would take it serious and have him investigated.

think ANY SCOTUS spouse should be an activist on either side.

Thomas is considered to be one of the worst, if not THE worst Supreme Court Justice ever, and that's based strictly on his post-appointment behavior. Never mind his pre-Supreme Court judicial mediocrity and the Anita Hill debacle.

Now Thomas and his spouse are ignoring blatant conflict of interest issues, and will no doubt whine about being persecuted if someone tries to stop them.