So your distinction is that Reinhardt, as a federal judge with a lifetime appointment, is correct to refuse to recuse himself. But Thomas, ALSO a federal judge with a lifetime appointment, is not correct to refuse to recuse himself, because Thomas is a Supreme Court justice and Reinhardt is not?
Doyou know how much law is made below the Supreme Court level?
She gets to keep her job.
Why would she? And why wouldn’t Thomas?
I’m not sure that counts, it seems pretty tenuous to me, but maybe Thomas and Reinhardt are both in the wrong.
Tenuous.
Like:
This is also “tenuous.”
Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I haven’t looked into Reinhardt. BTW, I believe it is board policy to attribute a long quote, such as the one from Reinhardt that you pasted above. The OP is about SCOTUS, my comments were about SCOTUS. You can open a seperate thread on the merits or lack thereof of having a higher standard applied to SCOTUS versus a federal judge with a lifetime limit.
I still believe that a Supreme Court Justice should hold themselves and be held to the highest standard. Both events highlighted, Thomas’ wife and the Koch Brothers, is on a slipperly slope to Supreme Court Justices accepting a bag of cash to make a decision.
Kagan was in Obama’s Justice Dept. and sat in on meetings about litigation of HCR. Seems like a bigger deal to me than the wife of a Justice having an opinion.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=133500229
Hey, I’m not going to argue that it’s proven that she profited, but I still think the two complaints are different.
In Reinhardt’s case it’s about his wife’s involvement in a non-profit which, as far as I can see, can’t benefit materially from the ruling. In Clarence’s case it’s about his wife’s business ventures which very conceivably can benefit materially. Conflict of interest is about possibilities isn’t it?
Unless we see minutes of the various meetings, we’re really only left with Kagan’s word, and she says she didn’t give advice on the litigation. According to your cite, she needn’t recuse herself unless she did give such advice.
And, it’s more than an “opinion” of Thomas’ wife, it’s her career. From which Thomas materially benefits, it shouldn’t be necessary to explain. And it isn’t much of a stretch to think she has the job because of his office.
It is possible for a justice of integrity not to recuse himself because of the political activities of his wife. However, as Anita Hill has shown us, Thomas is not a justice of integrity.
Reinhardt’s wife is the Executive Director of the ACLU. It’s her job – nay, her CAREER. Of course she can benefit materially from the same-sex marriage ruling.
How?
Having a track record of success is a material benefit for any job. The ACLU supports same-sex marriage – not as an abstract concept, but with amicus briefs and money spent on advertising. “Success” in this context is certainly seeing same-sex marriage required under constitutional law.
That statement is at least as solid as the claim that Thomas’ wife benefits materially from the Citizens United ruling.
Okay…he benefits from her occupation. I don’t think you can conclude that his benefit would be due to any SCOTUS ruling. Or am I missing something? Let’s say, for example, that the spouse of a justice works for a federal agency. Here, the justice benefits from her job as well. Should the judge recuse him/herself from every case that affects the agency of the spouse? I don’t know the answer to that but I think that would be more likely to be considered a conflict of interest.
I think we can all agree that none of the judges are recusing themselves, regardless of whether or not they should.
Agreed.
I still think it’s apple and oranges. In any case the Reinhardt case is moot since his wife is stepping down.
I wonder if Thomas’ wife will be doing the same.
Unless she’s getting her Delorean up to 88 miles per hour first, it’s NOT moot; Reinhardt already delivered his ruling.
Holy Hijack Batman!
Anyways, I don’t see why this isn’t a slam dunk constitutional law. If the government can prevent me from growing grain for myself, I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be able to force me to buy insurance.