Academic

EUGENE VOLOKH: Justice Thomas and Judge Reinhardt: Today?s L.A. Times print edition carries an?

By Glenn Reynolds

EUGENE VOLOKH: Justice Thomas and Judge Reinhardt:

Today?s L.A. Times print edition carries an article with the headline, ?Challenging a judicial norm,? and the subhead, ?A justice?s wife may test impartiality standards by starting a ?tea party? group.? (The online version has a different headline and a slightly different subhead.) The article is about Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has just founded Liberty Central Inc., a conservative activist group.

Of course, Justice Thomas is not the only judge to have had a spouse in a prominent political role. Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt?s wife, Ramona Ripston, has just stepped down from being head of the Southern California ACLU. Third Circuit Judge Jane Roth?s husband was a U.S. Senator; Third Circuit Judge Marjorie Rendell?s husband is a governor. So I?m not sure that there?s really a judicial norm that judge?s spouses should stay out of politics, whether partisan politics, advocacy group politics, or public interest litigation (itself a form of politics, at least when done effectively).

Sure, but those spouses lean left. Meanwhile, let’s look at who the journalists are sleeping with . . . .

Plus, I can’t help but note that the Thomases are an interracial couple, something the L.A. Times stresses via a photograph of them together. Thus, this must really be all about racism.

And, anyway, it’s not like we have sitting judges comparing the President to Hitler and Mussolini or anything.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on March 15, 2010 (boomark / email).