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Supreme Court to hear health reform case

The U.S.

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will take on the question of whether President Obama's health reform law is constitutional, with arguments by March 2012 and a decision in June. This note, from an earlier case, still matters:

There was no indication, on the other hand, that Justice Clarence Thomas had disqualified himself from the case involving the health care law. His wife, Virginia Thomas, has been affiliated with a group that opposes the law and has not disclosed its contributors.

Virginia Thomas has stepped back from that group, Liberty Central, which she founded, and the group has toned down some of its advocacy against health reform, but she is very much on record as working against it. Her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, initially filed financial disclosure forms that did not reveal the money she earned from political work on behalf a case the court will now hear. And so the old question becomes the new question again: Will Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself from the case?