I can’t get worked up over the OP’s link, but getting expense paid trips to go speak at a closed door session of the Koch Brothers prior to the campaign law seems to be questionable at best.
However, in the case of Justice Thomas: being married to a lobbiest that worked for the Heritage Foundation for 5 years, launched Tea Party Groupwww.libertycentral.org/, getting bankroledby private donors to set up her own non-profit (for which according to the IRS she can basically pay herself whatever she wants), not listing his wife’s $680,000 income for at least 5 years, perhapsreceiving a 4 day all expenses trip to speak at the Koch Brothers gathering before ruling on the campaign finance law.
Justice Thomas’ wife is certainly not a disinterested party. This alone should raise the debate that Justice Thomas at a minimum is not holding himself up to Supreme Court Judicial Standards of impartiality at least with regards to a future ruling on the Affordable HealthCare Act.
Righties are really shitty at trying to play the race card. They don’t have the slightest idea how and when to do it. No one has ever given a shit about Thomas’ sexual habits, but a blatant conflict of interest is a blatant conflict of interest. He’s pouring the pork to a lobbyist for an interest with a high potential for coming before the Supreme Court. Ham handedly trying to play the race card is patently evasive and doesn’t address the issue.
Ah. Anyone who calls you out on your nonsense is a “rightie” now. Gotcha. BTW, why is his being married irrelevant, but pouring the pork is? What accounts for your fascination with the latter?
Sure, but assuming in some fictional universe I were a “rightie” and I jumped in with heavy breathing to say Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been openly putting out for an abortionist, wouldn’t you wonder what was at the back of my mind to put it quite in that way?
IIRC (I nodded off during the last half of our local vast left wing conspiracy meeting) an adjustment needs to be made to the Supreme Court on the conservative side BEFORE Obama-Care comes before the court.
Kagan or, I can’t remember which liberal justice, might have to reccuse, so the conservative wing of the court has to take a comparable hit.
Sorry for the lax reporting, those conspiracy meetings are dull as watching mildew creep up a shower curtain.
I’ll try to be alert for the next one.
Apparently Scalia and Thomas attended a private retreat organized by the Koch brothers, billionaires who are behind many astroturf websites and campaigns. They are especially strong advocates for unlimited corporate political spending, and some people feel that association with them was a direct conflict of interest in the Citizen United case.
On the Rachel Maddow show tonight, there was a new development in the case. When previously asked about Thomas’s involvement in the retreat, the answer was he had just briefly “dropped in.”
Now someone has found that on his financial disclosure statement, he claimed reimbursement for four days of lodging and travel expenses to that retreat. So for the second time in a few weeks, he has been caught in a discrepancy involving his finances, and IMO there are VERY strong grounds for questioning his ethics in not recusing himself on the CU case.
I doubt if any of this approaches breaking laws. It is impropriety. It is the appearances .
They are making the court look more and more a political arm. it may have been truer in the past than we thought. But this court has brazenly removed the ability for us to delude ourselves.
Isn’t it simply efficient for someone considering drafting legislation to meet with one or more justices who can advise them on what is likely to and likely not to pass constitutional analysis? I’m assuming anything a Tea Party politician drafts will be challenged, so may as well not bother with something that’ll eventually get rejected 7-2.
The powers may have separate authority, but can’t they work together? As far as I know, the president can consult with members of congress on pending legislation, which I have to figure at some point includes “if you leave this clause in, I’ll veto the whole thing”, so why can’t SCOTUS?
“…former Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign for privately advising President Lyndon Johnson.”
So I am guessing it is a no-no.
Judges work differently than congress where making deals with the executive is how business is often done. If a judge advises you on some legislation and then that legislation comes before the court that’d be a conflict of interest. If the judge refuses to recuse him/herself what then?
It’s a no-no for a justice to say how he would rule on a specific case before it comes to him.
But it’s not at all a no-no for justices to speak to members of Congress on general principles of constitutional law. Indeed, at the state level, where there’s no case-or-controversy requirement, it’s quite common for state judges to issue advisory opinions on issues which are not yet otherwise before the court.
And as Bryan Ekers correctly points out, the other two co-equal branches routinely collaborate on legislation without violating “separation of powers, and all that.”
So, Whack: what, specifically, makes you believe “separation of powers, and all that,” forbids this action, and do you by chance have a cite for whatever you’re relying upon?
Do a little research into Abe Fortas, and you’ll learn that Fortas did not have to resign for “privately advising President Johnson.”
Fortas had to resign because he had accepted a huge, and lifetime ongoing, payment from a Wall Street financier, Louis Wolfson – payments that were for “advice” and would not only last the rest of Fortas’ life, but obligated Wolfson to continue pay Fortas’ widow after Fortas was dead.
Wolfson was later indicted for securities fraud, and it was alleged that Fortas met privately with LBJ to negotiate a pardon for Wolfson. THAT was the “private meeting” in question – meeting with the President to negotiate a pardon for a guy that was paying you $20,000 per year for life (in 1969!).
So there is no general prohibition against meeting privately with the President, or members of Congress. There is a prohibition against using your position as a SC justice to try to get a pardon for a “friend” who’s paying you a small fortune to do so.
I would be more concerned if the Justices met with other judges and attorneys because that would seem to be more of a conflict of interest. “Hey Bill, after oral arguments lets grab a beer and talk about that time with you and the llama in Philadelphia.” “I can’t overturn Susie’s decision. My wife met her at that symposium last week and she would kill me.”
But they do it all the time and I see nothing wrong with it.
Just as an aside: my father couldn’t STAND Abe Fortas, and although I was quite young I remember him toasting with a glass of champagne when Fortas resigned.
In that time period, when I was in elementary school, my dad thought there were several big crooks in government: Spiro Agnew, Marvin Mandel, and Abe Fortas. He and my mom moved to Virginia instead of Maryland because of Agnew and Mandel. And he thought Fortas was the biggest disgrace in the court system. He would often say that he came from a country where corruption in government was rampant and he KNEW, first hand, what happens if you let it foster.
Thanks, Bricker. I remembered Fortas’s being forced out for ‘financial irregularities’, but not the details. Some random items: Chief Justice Taft was close to people on both sides of the aisle in both the Executive and Legislative branches, and used his considerable influence as ex-President and Chief Justice largely but not exclusively for the court’s benefit. Felix Frankfurter advised FDR extensively. So did Burger, with Nixon, as well as Fortas with LBJ. Vinson was good friends with Truman; though I don’t know of specific instances of consultation, I’d be quite surprised if there were none. Hugo Black had years of Senate experience, and used his connections as he felt wise. Chief Justice Hughes was greatly respected by both parties, and did not often influence legislation, but when he did, he was listened to. His letter in behalf of the Court was the deciding factor in scuttling the Court-packing plan. Both Thurgood Marshall and Rehnquist came from the Dept. of Law and had numerous contacts there, which they used. Supposing the Court to work in a political vacuum is naive; what is reasonable is to presume that in general they are going to rule on the merits of the issue and not on the basis of political desiderata. (Note to conservatives: this is why Bush v, Gore left such a bad taste in liberals’ mouths: not that Bush won the case and with it the election, but that it appeared that the decision was made on political grounds and constitutional rationalizations trumped up to fit. Whether or not this was true, this was the impression many liberals and moderates got.)
No, Scalia did not do anything particularly wrong this time. There are many things I dislike about the man, but he was acting within traditional propriety in this case.