Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?

(Guardian UK) Clarence Thomas, the hardline conservative supreme court justice, is facing calls for his recusal in the case over race-based affirmative action in college admissions that the court agreed to hear this week.

The case, which is being brought against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, is the latest potential conflict of interest involving Thomas and his wife Virginia Thomas. Ginni, as she is known, is a prominent rightwing activist who speaks out on a raft of issues that frequently come before the nation’s highest court.

A one-person conservative powerhouse, she set up her own lobbying company Liberty Consulting in 2010. By her own description, she has “battled for conservative principles in Washington” for over 35 years.

The challenge to the two universities’ race-conscious admissions policies is being brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). Its leader Edward Blum has been a relentless opponent of affirmative action and voting rights laws.

His argument that race-based affirmative action is a quota system that discriminates against Asian students is framed with the supreme court’s newly emboldened rightwing majority in mind. A central player in that new six-justice conservative supermajority is Clarence Thomas, who is the longest-serving of the justices and at 73 will be the oldest once Stephen Breyer retires. ............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jan/28/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-ginni-thomas