The Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas
United States Supreme Court Building
1 First Street Northeast
Washington D.C., DC 20543
Dear Justice Thomas:
As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.
The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of healthcare reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has “experience and connections” and appeals to clients who want a particular decision - they want to overturn health care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of healthcare reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.
This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you “participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the <5-4> decision” on the Citizens United case. Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, a 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.
Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the US Supreme Court's decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.
We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
ANTHONY D. WEINER
The crate-loads of real cash lost in the fields of Iraq could not be investigated, never mind the over trillion dollars lost in blood and revenue.
War crimes could not be investigated.
The Republican agenda for 2010 - so obvious to all but the Press, could not be investigated.
The links of top Republican God botherers to the anti-gay murderers of Uganda could not be investigated.
The scandal of forcing poor people to pay money to clinics owned by the Governor of Florida is not investigated.
Even the obviousthat the GOP attack on Medicare is to pay for top rate tax cuts for billionaires and not deficit reduction is not even reported.
Journalists do your bloody job and stop acting as a patsy for a right-wing smear merchant who has proven himself to be nothing more than a well funded liar.