Democrats To Introduce Supreme Court Ethics Bill

By Stephanie Mencimer/Mother Jones

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has been in the news recently after Mother Jones revealed her involvement in Groundswell, a secret effort by a group of conservatives to organize their fight against liberals, mainstream Republicans, andKarl Rove. Her political activity has once again raised questions about whether she is creating conflicts of interest for her husband, and whether he should be forced to recuse himself from cases that involve Ginni's work.

Such calls for Thomas to recuse from cases hit a fevered pitch when the Affordable Care Act was before the high court and Ginni was actively lobbying against it. As it turned out, there's no mechanism for concerned citizens to complain about a Supreme Court justice, or even a clear set of rules that the justices must follow in making recusal decisions. Supreme Court justices are exempt from the Code of Conduct for United State Judges, the rulebook that every other federal judge in the country has to follow.

That code would have prohibited the justices from a number of controversial activities the Supreme Court has engaged in over the past few years. In 2011, for instance, Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia headlined a fundraiser for the conservative legal group, the Federalist Society. Ordinary federal judges couldn't have done that. Both also have attended hush-hush political events hosted by Koch Industries that are billed as efforts "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it." Koch Industries is owned by the right-wing Koch family that's been dumping millions of dollars in the Republican politics, particularly after the court decided in Citizens United to allow unlimited corporate money into the electoral system. The code also requires federal judges to recuse themselves from cases in which a spouse or family member has a financial interest, a rule that might apply to the Thomases.

Several members have decided to try to do something about the appearance of impropriety by some of the justices. On Thursday, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Chris Murhpy (D-CT), and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), plan to introduce the Supreme Court Ethics Act of 2012 that would force the high court to adopt an ethics code much like the one that binds lower court judges. The idea has support from legal scholars, who've been urging the court to adopt such a code since last year. More than 125,000 people have signed a petition calling on Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. to apply the Code of Conduct to the court. But Roberts has been pretty adamant that he thinks the justices are perfectly capable of policing themselves without the need for silly codes (codes which most of the sitting justices once had to abide by on a lower court). 

Without buy-in from Roberts, any attempt, even by Congress, to require the justices to give themselves a written code of ethics is probably a tough sell. The new bill, if it could even pass through the full Congress (also doubtful), could set off an epic separation of powers battle between the two branches of government. A spokesman from Slaughter's office says that the bill is absolutely constitutional, as Congress has the authority to regulate the administration of the court—setting the number of justices and whatnot. Still, it's possible that the court could put up a fight—a fight that might ultimately have to be decided by....the Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife received $150,000 from anti-health care reform group

By Eric W. Dolan

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas released his new financial disclosure form on Friday under pressure from Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and others.

Mother Jones reported that his financial disclosure form indicates his wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, received a $150,000 salary from the group Liberty Central in 2010 and less than $15,000 from an anti-health care reform lobbying firm she founded.

Liberty Central, which she helped found, supports the repeal of the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Weiner had taunted Thomas via Twitter on Friday, but his criticisms where quickly overshadowed by the so-called"Weinergate" fiasco that broke out Sunday. The congressman had previously called on Thomas to recuse himself from casesinvolving health care reform because of his wife's financial connections to groups dedicated to its repeal.

"The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law," a letter written by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and signed by 74 Members of Congress stated. "From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of healthcare reform is blurred."

The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires Supreme Court justices to disclose their spouse's income, but Thomas had not disclosed Virginia's income on his financial disclosure forms for 20 years.

"We knew that Justice Thomas' family had a financial stake in opposing health care reform," Weiner said Friday in a statement. "Now we know even more. It's pretty clear the justice has one option here: recusal

74 Members of Congress Seek Justice Thomas’ Recusal From Affordable Care Act Lawsuits

By Ian Millhiser

Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas recently opened a lobbying firm which promises to give “voice to…the tea party movement in the halls of Congress.” The job will likely lead her to lobby in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, conservatives are mounting a nationwide litigation strategy to convince Ginni’s husband to give voice to the tea party movement in the halls of the Supreme Court.

In response to Ginni Thomas’ involvement with groups trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 74 Members of Congress signed a letter to Ginni’s husband — Justice Clarence Thomas — pointing out that his wife’s new job could have ethical consequences for him:

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act. [...]

Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the US Supreme Court’s decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.

To be fair, the case for Justice Thomas’ recusal could turn on whether his wife is actually being paid to lobby for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed. The federal recusal statute requires Thomas to recuse from any case that could “substantially affect[]” his wife’s finances:

(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances: …

(5) He or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person: . . .

(iii) Is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding;

It’s worth noting that conservatives have already interpreted this ethics law in a way that requires Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the health care litigation. After progressive Judge Stephen Reinhardt was assigned to the appellate panel that was to hear a challenge to anti-gay Proposition 8, supporters of the anti-gay law called for Reinhardt to recuse because his wife’s organization advocates against Prop 8.

But, of course, Ginni Thomas used to lead a Tea Party group called Liberty Central which vigorously opposes the Affordable Care Act. Liberty Central even briefly signed Ginni’s name to a memo claiming that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional — at least until news reports pointed out the ethical issues her signature raised for her husband. So, by the right’s very same arguments, Justice Thomas must drop out of the health care litigation.

REPORT: 49 GOP Congressional Candidates Join Ginni Thomas-Led Assault On Education

By Ian Millhiser Senate candidates Ken Buck (R-CO) and Sharron Angle (R-NV) have both received significant attention for their absurd claim the federal Department of

Education is unconstitutional, but because House races generally receive much less media attention than the higher-profile Senate contests, it’s unclear just how common this radical position is among the GOP’s full slate of candidates.

A questionnaire circulated by Liberty Central, the right-wing group led by Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas, sheds a great deal of light on this question — and the answer is not pretty. Of the 60 candidate questionnaires submitted by current GOP nominees for a House or Senate seat that ThinkProgress reviewed for this report, at least 49 expressly adopt a view that would declare much — if not all — of federal education policy unconstitutional.

The Liberty Central questionnaire includes the following question:

The overwhelming majority of GOP candidates who submitted this questionnaire answered “no” to this question, a position that would drastically limit the federal government’s ability to help struggling schools, and which could also threaten Medicaid and other essential programs. Several of these candidates offered ahistorical, ideological and occasionally paranoid constitutional theories:

• Robyn Hamlin (R-MS) explicitly calls for most of the Twentieth Century to be repealed, expressly listing “Aid to Dependent Children, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, unemployment compensation; federally subsidized housing or any of the other federal ‘Welfare’ projects” as constitutionally invalid.
• Joel Demos (R-MN) touts the “tenther” line that “[t]he original purpose of the ‘general welfare’ clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution was to connect Congress’s taxing and spending authority to already enumerated powers – such as regulating interstate commerce or building and sustaining a military.” This false view of the Constitution, which was rejected by President George Washington in the earliest days of the republic, would also lead to Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and countless other programs being declared unconstitutional.
• Merlin Froyd (R-CA) also sounds a dog whistle to the most extreme tenthers, railing against federal spending on subjects that aren’t “actually written in the Constitution.”
• Liz Carter (R-GA) calls for the federal government to “get OUT of education” altogether. That means no federal student loan assistance or Pell Grants for middle class students struggling to pay for college, and no education funds providing opportunities to students desperately trying to break into the middle class.
• Dan Sebring (R-WI) offers his own unique theory about what the Constitution allows, claiming that the “general welfare” is limited to programs that “promote personal responsiblity and enhance one’s ability to take care of one’s self.” Needless to say, Sebring does not point to a single word in the Constitution suggesting that this limit exists.
• Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) also invents a new constitutional theory out of whole cloth, claiming that general welfare does not include “social or collective welfare as currently utilized.”
• Bill Huizenga (R-MI) serves up a Glenn Beck-like rant, blaming nineteenth and twentieth century “Hegelian Progressives” who “successfully undermined the American Constitution using an organic interpretation of the document.”
• Eddie Zamora (R-TX) rails against an elusive enemy who acts “with no Fear of The LORD.”

To be fair, a handful of the candidates who answered “no” to Liberty Central’s question also indicate that their constitutional objections are limited in scope. Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-IL), for example, objects to No Child Left Behind, but also indicates that he would allow some federal education funding. Nevertheless, the candidates who embrace Ginni Thomas’ constitutional views would impose drastic new limits on the Department of Education and programs such as Medicaid.

The “General Welfare Clause” of the Constitution, also known as the “Spending Clause,” enables Congress to “provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States” by spending tax revenue on beneficial programs. Broadly speaking, this empowers Congress in two ways. Congress may spend directly to benefit the general welfare, as it does with programs like Medicare or Social Security, but it can also offer grants to the states which require the state to accept certain conditions if they take the money. Thus, for example, Congress requires states that accept federal Medicaid funding to actually spend that money on health care for the poor, and if a state doesn’t want to comply with this condition they can turn down the funds.

It’s not clear from Liberty Central’s question whether they object to all federal spending on matters that they view as “traditionally under the authority of the private sector, state, and local government,” or whether they merely object to laws that offer conditional grants to states. Yet, even if the candidates who answered “no” to this question only object to conditional grant programs, their position would make essential programs like Medicare and Title I education funds difficult or impossible to administer.

In other words, just like the many GOP Senate candidates who believe that the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean, much of the Republican slate of House candidates have no compunctions about inventing new and incoherent ways of reading the document in order to undermine laws they don’t like.

Center for American Progress Action Fund Intern Salvatore Colleluori contributed valuable research assistance to this report. A full list of the 49 candidates adopting Liberty Central’s position is below the jump.

Candidate (incumbents in bold, Senate candidates in italics)	State
Martha Roby	Alabama
Steve Womack	Arkansas
David Schweikert	Arizona
Gerald Hashimoto Merlin Froyd Ed Schmerling Bruce Brown Gary Miller	California
Stephen Bailey Scott Tipton	Colorado
Jerry Labriola	Connecticut
Steve Southerland Mike Yost Bill Posey Karen Harrington Sandy Adams	Florida
Liz Carter	Georgia
Don Manzullo Teri Newman	Illinois
Mariannette Miller-Meeks	Iowa
Mark Leyva	Indiana
Mike Pompeo	Kansas
Rand Paul Todd Lally	Kentucky
Roscoe Bartlett Charles Lollar	Maryland
Dan Benishek Bill Huizenga	Michigan
Joel Demos	Minnesota
Robyn Hamlin Todd Akin	Missouri
Ilario Pantano	North Carolina
Steve Austria Peter Corrigan Bob Gibbs	Ohio
Art Robinson	Oregon
Keith Rothfus Dee Adcock	Pennsylvania
Eddie Zamora Donna Campbell Stephen Broden	Texas
John Duncan	Tennessee
Morgan Philpot	Utah
Dino Rossi John Koster	Washington
Elliot “Spike” Maynard	West Virginia
Ron Johnson Reid Ribble Dan Sebring	Wisconsin