The Los Angeles Times is reporting that questions have been raised about Justice Ginsburg impartiality after she spoke at a NOW Legal Defense Fund lecture series that is named after her. She then voted in favor of the position that NOWLDEF advocated in a friend of the court brief this term. I had wondered when someone would raise something like this. Ginsburg’s career before becoming a judge was that as an public interest advocate. She was counsel for the ACLU for years, and was involved in many of the most important gender discrimination cases heard by the Supreme Court. My sense is that the L.A. Times missed the real story. It’s not just that she appeared before the group, but I would find it difficult to believe that she does not attend social functions with friends who work with the ACLU and NOW--groups which file briefs before the Supreme Court every term. How is this different than Scalia going on a trip with his friend the Vice President? (Personally, I really don’t have a problem with either.) While there has been a drumbeat for Scalia’s recusal in the Vice President’s case, prepare for the deafening silence to be applied to the new found Ginsburg ethical questions.