I have long complained that activist Republican ideologues, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas had a conflict of interest in the Citizens United and other nefarious decisions. I covered this last March in Teabuggery Reaches the Extreme Court and last December in When Scalia Goose Steps with the Tea Party. I’m pleased to report that Common Cause has filed a petition claiming exactly that.
When the conservative financier Charles Koch sent out invitations for a political retreat in Palm Springs later this month, he highlighted past appearances at the gathering of “notable leaders” like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.
A leading liberal group is now trying to use that connection to argue that Mr. Scalia and Mr. Thomas should disqualify themselves from hearing campaign finance cases because they may be biased toward Mr. Koch, a billionaire who has been a major player in financing conservative causes.
The group, Common Cause, filed a petition with the Justice Department on Wednesday asking it to investigate potential conflicts by Justices Scalia and Thomas and move for their disqualification from the landmark Citizens United case, in which the court last year lifted a ban on corporate spending on political campaigns. Common Cause also cited the role of Mr. Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, in forming a conservative political group opposed to the Obama administration as grounds for his disqualification.
The petition is a new tack for opponents of the court’s decision in the Citizens United case. Common Cause, by its own acknowledgment, faces a difficult task in getting the justices’ to remove themselves from the case and seeking to have the Citizens United decision itself vacated.
“We’re treading in new territory here for us,” said Arn H. Pearson, Common Cause’s vice president for programs. “But a situation like this raises fundamental questions about public confidence in the Supreme Court.”
Officials at Koch Industries, which Mr. Koch leads, did not respond to e-mails and a phone call Wednesday seeking comment on the petition. A spokeswoman at the Supreme Court declined comment.
Supreme Court justices have wide latitude in deciding whether to recuse themselves from hearing cases. In one of the more well-known examples in recent years, Justice Scalia refused to remove himself from hearing a challenge to Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force after he had gone duck hunting with Mr. Cheney in 2004.
“It’s a steep uphill climb for Common Cause, but not an insurmountable one,” said Steven Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University. At the very least, he said, the group’s petition could force a “public airing” of questions surrounding the two justices’ past appearances at the Koch retreat and their connections to the group… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
I won’t begin to claim sufficient legal expertise to discuss the legal ins and outs of this, but I’m sertain that the conflict of interest does exist. If it did not these Republican activists would not have exceeded the bounds of the question before them to reach an unconstitutional decision.
15 Responses to “Was the Citizens United Verdict Illegal?”
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Sorry I have not been for so long Tom, but flying by to say hi!
Hi Monique! 😀
Now i that I wish them the utmost success. Citizens United just might be the most harmful SCOTUS decision in regards to freedom and fairness of electioneering since well before Madison made the court a real player as the third arm of our way of government. It needs to be overturned or looked at again with out activist judges that by tradition are apolitical.
Mark, I could not agree more.
Scalia and Thomas are the most useless and worthless individuals on the Supreme Court. Both should be impeached and sent packing.
Well, if not BushCObama, can we at least Impeach THEM?!
I say, impeach Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas and boot them off the Court. NONE of them is acting in the public’s best interest; all are bought out fully; and none are interpreting the law in a manner consistent with previous Court rulings.
There’s a special place in hell for these bastards!
I wouldn’t bet against it, but their eternity is not mine to judge.
The saddest thing of all is that we live in an actual democracy. Please note, the continuation of maintaining our war in the Middle East. U.S. troops went to Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, they found none; they went to Afghanistan to catch Bin Ladin, he got away before Bush left office so the fight now is strickly with the Taliban – why? The U.S. lost the agreement to build the pipeline to be extended into the Caspian Sea. As they fight the Taliban there is no mention of the of Bin Ladin.
Welcome Ronald! 😀
I strongly agree and have posted many articles here on the connection between the US occupation and the plan take control of gas in the region of the STANS from Gazprom and give it to Western energy companies.
I don’t know what it takes to impeach a Justice, but I imagine it is not an easy task. Consorting with one party with disrepect to the other party should be impeachable. That includes golf outings, overseas trips, gifts and parties that specifically exclude the other party.
And fuck yeah that case was illegal; the only way to overturn it is through legislation – good luck with Repubs still in Congress. 😡
To everyone who wants these two impeached, count me in your number. Sadly, the Constitution provides the same requirements to impeach a Justice that it does to impeach a President. First the House must pass a Bill of Impeachment by a 2/3 majority. That bill is then tried in the Senate with a 2/3 majority required for removal. Unless loyal Democrats (not counting DINOs) control 2/3 of both bodies, it will not happen.
These activist judges are everything Conservatives complain about, but they seem to look the other way now.