WASHINGTON Virginia Lamp Thomas likes to invoke her Nebraska roots when discussing her conservative activism and her new group aimed at helping those holding tea party rallies.
“I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Nebraska, who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you,” she said at a recent panel discussion with conservative leaders in Washington.
Thomas, 52, went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Barack Obama’s “hard-left agenda.”
Married since 1987 to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “Ginni” Thomas recently announced plans to start the nonprofit Liberty Central Inc., which will encourage and assist “new citizen activists” holding tea party rallies across the country.
In doing so, she has stirred up a debate about the proper role of a Supreme Court spouse. But she is also just continuing a lifetime of political activism, one that earned her a place in the highest conservative circles on her own merits.
Thomas was surrounded by politics from an early age her parents, Donald and Marjorie Lamp, were Republican Party insiders, and by high school she already was at work on behalf of conservative causes.
She first arrived in Washington working for then-Rep. Hal Daub, R-Neb., and later became a top aide to then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. She lobbied on high-profile issues as a U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman and as an executive at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Her new group plans to issue score cards for members of Congress members and be involved in the November election.
According to the group’s Web site, its mission is “activating informed American patriots who are seeking knowledge of the core founding principles and passionate about preserving freedom and liberty.”
For some, her move raises questions about what would happen if companies or groups donated to her new organization in hopes of influencing the outcome of pending cases. To others, it might appear unseemly to have the spouse of a justice plunging into political debates.
Justice Thomas, 61, who joined the court in 1991, recently expressed sensitivity to such concerns, telling Florida law students he doesn’t attend the president’s State of the Union address because it is “so partisan.”
Experts say Virginia Thomas’ work doesn’t violate ethics rules for judges. But Liberty Central could create conflicts of interest for her husband, they said.
Thomas declined to comment in detail about her plans for LibertyCentral.org, which she said would fully launch in May.
In a brief phone interview with the Los Angeles Times, she did not directly answer questions about whether she and her husband had discussed how her role might affect perceptions of his impartiality.
“I don’t involve myself in litigation,” she said. “Are you asking that because there’s a different standard for conservatives? Did you ask Ed Rendell that question?” she asked, referring to the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, who is married to a federal appellate court judge.
The judicial code of conduct does require judges to separate themselves from their spouses’ political activity, so Marjorie Rendell, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has not attended political events, campaign rallies and debates in Pennsylvania.
In fall 2008, when Thomas joined Hillsdale College as an administrator, she called the school’s Washington campus “the safest place for me to be when it comes to conflicts.”
As in her appearance at the panel discussion, the new group’s Web site does not mention Clarence Thomas.
Stephen Sieberson, an associate professor who teaches legal ethics at Creighton University Law School, Virginia Thomas’ alma mater, noted that conflicts of interest involving the Supreme Court pose a unique challenge.
Unlike federal judges at the district and circuit court level, there is no mechanism for temporarily replacing a member of the highest court in the land.
Sieberson said that during his regular trips to speak at Creighton, Justice Thomas has addressed the general issue of conflicts of interest involving the Supreme Court.
“He takes a pretty firm position, and unapologetic, that Supreme Court justices have to operate under different rules because there’s no way to fill their seat,” Sieberson said.
He said he doesn’t think Virginia Thomas’ activism is troubling, at least until it involves a case pending before the court.
Retired Creighton law professor Richard Shugrue, who now lives in Arizona and has political leanings quite different from those of Virginia Thomas, said he doesn’t expect that she will exert any undue influence over her husband.
“These are two independent, intelligent people, and I doubt that their, shall we say, pillow talk gets ideological.”
Michael Fenner, a Creighton law professor who taught Virginia Thomas, said it might be unprecedented for a justice’s spouse to take such an active political role, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
“Somebody’s got to be the first one,” he said, “and it’s no surprise that it’s Virginia Thomas, because she’s been politically active her whole life.”
This report includes material from the Los Angeles Times.
Contact the writer:
202-662-7270, joe.morton@owh.com
