Legal News

Ginni Thomas, Wife of Clarence, Launches Political-Organizing Group

By Ashby Jones

We’ve got to get the Constitution back to a place where it means something . . . or we’re headed for tyranny.

– Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, during an interview at a Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in February.

It’s a provocative quote, one you’d expect more to hear from the head of a lobbying and political-organizing group than from the wife of a Supreme Court justice.

Well, lo and behold, Ginni Thomas is both the latter and the former. She recently founded a new nonprofit lobbying and political-organizing group meant to appeal to folks aligned with the “tea party” movements. Click here for Tuesday’s Washington Post story; here for a recent LA Times story.

Thomas’s group, called Liberty Central (click here for the group’s Web site), was founded in January. But partly spurred by recent press coverage, a debate has broken out about the propriety of a justice’s spouse diving headlong into a political movement.

A central question, it seems: could Virginia Thomas’s work present a conflict of interest for her husband?

Sue Hamblen, Liberty Central’s national coordinator, told the WaPo that Virginia Thomas met with ethics officials for the federal courts and was told her work “was in no way a conflict of interest.” Hamblen added that the group does not intend to make endorsements in political campaigns but that it will issue “scorecards” ranking candidates on conservative issues. The group is reportedly not aligned with the conservative “tea party” groups.

This isn’t Thomas’s first foray into activism. She has worked for former House Republican leader Richard A. Armey (Tex.), the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She most recently worked in Washington for Hillsdale College, a small liberal arts school in Michigan.

Hamblen said other judges have had politically active spouses. For instance, Third Circuit Judge Marjorie O. Rendell is married to Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Ed Rendell. Following the judicial Committee on Codes of Conduct, Marjorie Rendell does not accompany her husband to political events.

And out in California, Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt recuses himself in cases brought by the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is headed by his wife, Ramona Ripston.

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 16, 2010 (boomark / email).