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Clarence Thomas, health care reform, and the case of the lobbyist wife
California Democrat Anna G. Eshoo and 75 other House members have called on Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the Supreme Court's almost certain deliberations on the constitutionality of the health care reform law. This demand doesn't go nearly far enough.
Of course, Thomas should remove himself from any involvement in the issue; as has been amply documented, his wife, Ginni, is a paid lobbyist for the Heritage Foundation, a relentless opponent of the health care law. Then there's all the other money that Thomas and his wife have received from assorted far-right organizations, not to mention the right-wing ties of her own advocacy group, Liberty Central, a Tea Party promoter that declared "ObamaCare" to be "unconstitutional" on its website last fall. (Those words have since been removed.)
Thomas's refusal to acknowledge Ginni's involvement with Liberty Central, much less disclose which far-right interests have funded the organization, is beyond laughable. The far more serious question is whether Thomas lied for over a number of years when he checked "none" in the section of his annual financial disclosure forms that asked about his spouse's earned income.