Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could (make that SHOULD) Raise Judicial Issues [View All]

[Mira]

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

full story here:
Stephen Crowley/ The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09thomas.html?_r=2&th&emc=th



Virginia Thomas, left, of the organization Liberty Central, and Diana Reimer, in May lobbying against the health care bill.

RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

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This month, Liberty Central began what it called its first ad campaign, but the ads were limited to Web sites for the conservative talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin — suggesting an effort to build membership for Liberty Central, not elect candidates. The ads link to Liberty Central’s Web site and a video of Mrs. Thomas soliciting 100,000 signatures against the “Obama tax increase” — referring to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts on Dec. 31.

The bigger question for many is how she is financing these activities. Liberty Central reported the initial $550,000 on its 2009 tax return, though the identities of the two donors are redacted.

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Mrs. Thomas’s political work has drawn criticism before from Democrats. In the weeks before a 5-to-4 majority of the Supreme Court, including her husband, decided the 2000 election for George W. Bush over Al Gore, Mrs. Thomas was compiling résumés for potential appointees to a Bush administration from her job at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative, Republican-leaning research group.

Mrs. Thomas’s supporters said she plays an important role as a bridge between grass-roots Tea Party activists and establishment Republicans in Washington. Ryan Hecker, a lawyer in Houston and a prominent Tea Party activist, said he had heard that Liberty Central was “doing a big get-out-the-vote effort” in some Congressional races. Despite the suspicion of many in the Tea Party that Republicans in Washington are trying to co-opt the movement, Mr. Hecker said the “charismatic and very genuine” Mrs. Thomas is not seen that way among activists.

“She’s been there for a long time, but she hasn’t been corrupted by it,” Mr. Hecker said. So she can be “a medium” to get the grass-roots’ views “to the people that matter.”