Clarence Thomas was in the court majority in the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which overturned a century’s worth of regulations barring unlimited spending by corporations in political campaigns. Virginia Thomas, Clarence Thomas’s wife, is preparing to take advantage of this SCOTUS ruling to start her own Tea Party group, which will take corporate donations to spend on support of political candidates.
She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a tea-party-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court.
In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative “core principles,” she said.
The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources — including corporations — as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.
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Justice Thomas, 61, recently expressed sensitivity to such concerns, telling law students in Florida that he doesn’t attend the State of the Union because it is “so partisan.” Thomas, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush, has been a reliable conservative vote since he joined the court in 1991.
Experts say Virginia Thomas’ work doesn’t violate ethical rules for judges. But Liberty Central could give rise to conflicts of interest for her husband, they said, as it tests the norms for judicial spouses. The couple have been married since 1987.
Gee, I’m glad he’s “sensitive.” If he really cared, he’d give up his Supreme Court seat or ask his wife to stay on the sidelines. I think we’ll need to watch this group very, very closely – I’d certainly like to know who’s funneling money to the wife of a Supreme Court justice. Will Thomas recuse himself from decisions affecting these clients and these groups associated with her politics?