Justice Thomas' Wife, Virginia, Starts Conservative Lobbying Group

The LA Times is reporting that Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has started a new conservative lobbying group, Liberty Central Inc.  The paper terms it a "tea-party" organization.  The group will issue scorecards for the November election and will accept donations.  Virginia Thomas' conservative activism isn't new; she previously worked at the Heritage Foundation.  And it seems to me that spouses are (for the most part) entitled to do what they want for a living.  Look at Governor Ed Rendell and his wife, Judge Marjorie Rendell.  But the Court of Appeals is at least a little different than the U.S. Supreme Court - if only because of the Supreme's high profile (and for other reasons as well.)  And given that Clarence Thomas is  concerned about appearing politically neutral - that's why he skips the State of the Union - one wonders whether his wife's entry into bare-knuckle partisan politics will undermine this objective.

Still, people will see political bias underneath this report.  Look for the LA Times to take a beating over this story (among the conservative talking heads, at least)  in the coming week.

Comments

[anon]

Wait, for the last week we have been hearing that one should strictly, never, ever, infer someone's political views from his voluntary association with odious clients and their activities. But all of a sudden it is perfectly OK to infer Clarence Thomas' political views based on the activities of his spouse?

One response might be that we have every confidence that Thomas really is conservative and sympathetic with the political goals of Liberty Central; whereas few serious people think the DOJ lawyers actually are sympathetic with the goals of al-Qaeda. But we knew that without this guilt-by-association logic in both cases. We can tell Thomas is sympathetic to Republicans just by Bush v Gore.

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Since the 1930s the Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States in an expansive way that has dramatically expanded the scope of federal power