Thomas Must Resign, Says Former Judge, Lover

Year after year, the justice falsely denied on the simple, sworn forms that his wife received reportable income, according to the revised forms he submitted after Common Cause exposed the scandal in January, initially through a Los Angeles Times article. The non-partisan reform group has an updated chart here of allegations. The Alliance for Justice has a more general report on court ethics here.

Since then critics in Congress, public interest groups and the press have documented conflict of interest, false statement and bribery allegations involving at least two of the nation's most important cases of the past century, each decided on 5-4 votes with Thomas casting a deciding vote.

Bush v. Gore in effect awarded the 2000 presidency to the Bush administration by halting the Florida recount at a time when Thomas was arguably conflicted by his wife's work leading Bush transition planning for the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing advocacy group.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission last year upended federal election law by removing restrictions on campaign contributions by corporations and unions under the majority's theory that the law unduly burdens their First Amendment rights.

This column is excerpted from a longer version at the Justice Integrity Project site, with an extensive appendix of sources.

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