constitutional rights ppl

10/20<div>
</div><div>not sure what this node is for yet, maybe losss by we the ppl, but sparked by sketchy/bogus/crytpo use by:</div><div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/1851_Center_for_Constitutional_Law" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/1851_Center_for_Constitutional_Law</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">1851 Center for Constitutional Law is a right-wing 501(c)3 nonprofit legal center based out of Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 2008 as a spin-off of the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Buckeye_Institute" class="mw-redirect" title="Buckeye Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Buckeye Institute</a>, the 1851 Center is an associate member of the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">State Policy Network</a> (SPN).<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/1851_Center_for_Constitutional_Law#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 102);">[</a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/1851_Center_for_Constitutional_Law#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">1]</a>According to the 1851 Center's website, the organization is "dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of Ohioans from government abuse. The 1851 Center litigates constitutional issues related to property rights, voting rights, regulation, taxation, and search and seizures."<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/1851_Center_for_Constitutional_Law#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[2]</a> It has filed lawsuits challenging project labor agreements, prevailing wage rates, campaign finance limits and disclosure laws, health care expansion and smoking bans. =ppl lose amend rights (somone gov? wants webcam on teachers //cops ~ CRT<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/central-florida-sheriffs-department-draws-sharp-criticism-for-advanced-surveillance-program-report/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/central-florida-sheriffs-department-draws-sharp-criticism-for-advanced-surveillance-program-report/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div>===
cmd 1020A new review of grant documents, first published on the dark web, provides a snapshot of how groups tied to Leonard Leo–the man who put Amy Barrett on President Trump’s list for the Supreme Court–have been secretly funded to file briefs with the Supreme Court to overturn U.S. laws, including the Affordable Care Act.Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society;s board, was previously the group’s Executive Vice President. Earlier this year, he announced the launch of a for-profit firm called CRC Advisors, which is working closely with Leo-tied non-profits that were being rebranded–including one previously known only as the “Judicial Education Project” (JEP).His move came in the aftermath of an in-depth <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">investigation of Leo in 2019</a> by Robert O’Harrow and Shawn Boberg of the Washington Post’s investigative unit, which documented how Leo directed millions from big donors to groups spending big to get nominees of Trump confirmed and to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Senators Stabenow, Schumer, and Whitehouse recently <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> that they will be issuing a new series of reports about the impact of court capture on Americans’ rights, following on earlier <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=839500" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">white papers</a>, and Senator Whitehouse recently <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-testifies-on-the-right-wing-capture-of-our-courts" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">testified</a> about these issues before the House.<a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people">https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people</a>
In May, Stabenow, Schumer and Whitehouse released <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">a report</a> to shed a light on the right-wing takeover of our judicial system. Working hand in hand with the administration and anonymously funded outside groups, the Senate has confirmed more than 200 new life-tenured federal judges to aggressively remake the federal courts and rewrite the Constitution. Most were chosen not for their qualifications or experience—which are often lacking—but for their demonstrated allegiance to Republican Party political goals.
<a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf">https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf</a>long incl amicusno lnx...This has not come about by happenstance. It is the product of a long-term strategy toinfluence judicial selections and outcomes, which is well-funded by millions of dollars inanonymous, special-interest money.Playing the Long Game: The Right’s 50-Year Project to Capture the CourtsLewis Powell, Edwin Meese, and the Origins of the Republican Judicial TakeoverThe right-wing plan to reshape our nation’s courts finds its roots in the 1960s and 1970s,amid a deep sense of corporate grievance and conservative racial resentment.While the post-World War II economic boom broadened the middle class and allowedAmerican business interests to prosper, many Americans still labored in unsafe andunsanitary workplaces, or suffered exposure to toxic consumer products and pollutedair and water.Against that backdrop, Americans mobilized to demand a government that wouldprotect them from corporateexcesses. The result was the bipartisanestablishment of public safety andwelfare programs and agencies thatprotect us to this day—such as PresidentJohnson’s “Great Society” programs andthe Environmental Protection Agency,established by President Nixon.In certain corporate circles, thesedevelopments were met with alarm. In1971, at the request of the U.S. Chamberof Commerce—which would grow tobecome, in the words of its president,“the biggest gorilla” in Washington12— acorporate lawyer in Virginia wrote aconfidential memo titled “Attack onAmerican Free Enterprise System.” That lawyer was future Supreme Court JusticeLewis Powell.The 1971 Powell Memo10The Powell Memo sought to galvanize the business community toward politicalaction. It announced that the “American economic system is under broad attack”from academics, the media, liberal politicians, and other progressives. In the wakeof watershed civil rights advancements like the Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board ofEducation and Congress’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Powell claimed that“we have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks inour universities and schools.” Against the popular force ofthe anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements,Powell argued:[I]ndependent and uncoordinated activity byindividual corporations, as important as this is, willnot be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, incareful long-range planning and implementation,in consistency of action over an indefinite periodof years, in the scale of financing available onlythrough joint effort, and in the political poweravailable only through united action and nationalorganizations.Powell urged the business community to mobilize itscounterattack through “a broader and more vigorous rolein the political arena.” This meant corporate lobbyingin Congress.13 And lobby corporations did. In 1971, only 175corporate firms had registered lobbyists in Washington;by 1982, nearly 2,500 firms had registered lobbyists.14Powell also identified the courts as a “vast area of opportunity.” Bemoaning the“exploit[ation] of the judicial system” by groups such as the American Civil LibertiesUnion, Powell called on the business community to aggressively invest in the courts.“Under our constitutional system,” Powell argued, “especially with an activist-mindedSupreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social,economic and political change.”Just two months after submitting his memo, Powell was nominated by President Nixonto the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 89-1. This memo wasnot disclosed.Growth of the Conservative Legal MovementIn the following decades, conservative Republicans and the American businesscommunity took up Powell’s cause with remarkable zeal. Major business interests suchas Exxon, Pfizer, RJR Nabisco, Koch Industries, Dow Chemical, Aetna, and Monsantopumped millions of dollars into industry trade associations like the U.S. Chamber ofCommerce. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, and his state attorney general,Edwin Meese, encouraged the founding of Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the first ofseveral business-funded “public interest” law firms. These groups filed strategicSupreme Court JusticeLewis F. Powell Jr.11lawsuits to advance business interests—and rewrite the laws—through the courtswhile obscuring the identities of the interests backing them. Ideological foundationsestablished by wealthy industrialists—such as the Olin Foundation, the Sarah ScaifeFoundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—joined the fray. “Combiningtheir vast resources,” these “self-interested business concerns and ideologically drivenfoundations” invested millions of dollars into a broad array of programs designedto build the intellectual framework “for a new legal vision that was predominantlyconcerned with promoting and protecting commercial and private wealth”, accordingto a report from Alliance for Justice.15By the time Reagan became president, the conservative legal movement was wellunderway and well-funded. It now had an ally in the White House—and soon, underAttorney General Edwin Meese, one in the U.S. Department of Justice as well. Themovement began aggressively pushing the courts to play an active role by strikingdown laws and reversing precedents it disliked.Originalism is apolitical project,not a legal orconstitutional one.The New Judicial ActivismIronically, this aggressively activist legal movementcame masked as a call for “judicial restraint.”In the years following the Second World War,the Supreme Court recognized a constitutionalright to privacy and reproductive rights, allowedgovernment agencies to regulate pollution andother harmful externalities of industry, provideddue process protections for criminal defendants,and imposed school desegregation andconstitutional civil rights protections forminorities. In particular, Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark Supreme Courtcase that unanimously declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional—became a lightning rod for conservative outrage.Arguing that these developments were the product of liberal “judicial activism,” theconservative movement countered by advancing the legal theory of originalism—that the Constitution’s meaning should be treated as frozen in time at the momentof its ratification. The movement claimed that sticking closely to the “original intent”of the Framers was the only authoritative, neutral, and objective way to “follow theConstitution.” In contrast to the liberals’ so-called “activism” and the idea that ourcenturies-old Constitution must be interpreted to account for the needs of an evolvingsociety, they argued that originalism was a model for “judicial restraint.” Hardly.Originalism is a political project, not a legal or constitutional one. Originalism isa judicial tool to achieve political and policy ends that serve corporate interests, socialconservatives, and ultra-rich Americans. In the 1980s, the conservative legal movementbegan weaving an ornate tapestry of jurisprudential theory around “originalism,”injecting it into legal academia and government. This provided an excellent screen forthe work’s true, political purpose, which was crystal clear behind the scenes. In a 1986internal memo to Attorney General Edwin Meese, for example, Justice Department12lawyer Steven Calabresi criticized his department for “not acting as an agent ofcounterrevolutionary change.”16 Calabresi denounced the idea of “judicial restraint,”insisting that aggressive originalism should be the driving force of the conservativelegal movement. Calabresi argued that “the courts and the executive must startusing their constitutional powers to hold the Congress within its proper constitutionalsphere.”17As one scholar wrote, “in addition to rolling back liberal judicial precedent, themovement conservatives in the Republican Party were intent on relitigating the NewDeal by thoroughly reconceiving the scope of Congress’s power vis-à-vis the states, andby attacking the constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state.”18Calabresi, who had co-founded the Federalist Society four years earlier, became aninfluential figure in the conservative legal movement. His vision of judicial activismand executive power, and of right-wing “counterrevolutionary” change through thecourts, became the guiding light of the Federalist Society’s legal movement. Notcoincidentally, as Republicans gained political and judicial power under Reagan,George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump, the purportedly foundationaloriginalist concept of “judicial restraint” fell quickly by the wayside in favor of aggressivejudicial review of Congressional lawmaking.Before long, this “counterrevolutionary” project took hold at the Supreme Court.Originalism—with its aura of objectivity—provided the perfect cover. And where itdidn’t lead to sufficiently “counterrevolutionary” policy results, originalism—like other,actually law-conserving principles such as stare decisis and deference to factfinders—was conveniently ignored.A Right-Wing Rout at the Supreme CourtThe proof is in the numbers. During John Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice, theCourt’s five-justice Republican-appointed majority has handed down more than 80partisan 5-4 decisions—joined by no Democratic appointee—that delivered wins tothe Republican Party and the big corporate interests behind it. As we will address ingreater detail as part of future efforts, these decisions have had dire consequences forordinary American...----
....This has not come about by happenstance. It is the product of a long-term strategy to

influence judicial selections and outcomes, which is well-funded by millions of dollars in

anonymous, special-interest money.

Playing the Long Game: The Right’s 50-Year Project to Capture the Courts

Lewis Powell, Edwin Meese, and the Origins of the Republican Judicial Takeover

The right-wing plan to reshape our nation’s courts finds its roots in the 1960s and 1970s,

amid a deep sense of corporate grievance and conservative racial resentment.

While the post-World War II economic boom broadened the middle class and allowed

American business interests to prosper, many Americans still labored in unsafe and

unsanitary workplaces, or suffered exposure to toxic consumer products and polluted

air and water.

Against that backdrop, Americans mobilized to demand a government that would

protect them from corporate

excesses. The result was the bipartisan

establishment of public safety and

welfare programs and agencies that

protect us to this day—such as President

Johnson’s “Great Society” programs and

the Environmental Protection Agency,

established by President Nixon.

In certain corporate circles, these

developments were met with alarm. In

1971, at the request of the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce—which would grow to

become, in the words of its president,

“the biggest gorilla” in Washington12— a

corporate lawyer in Virginia wrote a

confidential memo titled “Attack on

American Free Enterprise System.” That lawyer was future Supreme Court Justice

Lewis Powell.

The 1971 Powell Memo

The Powell Memo sought to galvanize the business community toward political

action. It announced that the “American economic system is under broad attack”

from academics, the media, liberal politicians, and other progressives. In the wake

of watershed civil rights advancements like the Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of

Education and Congress’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Powell claimed that

“we have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in

our universities and schools.” Against the popular force of

the anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements,

Powell argued:

[I]ndependent and uncoordinated activity by

individual corporations, as important as this is, will

not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in

careful long-range planning and implementation,

in consistency of action over an indefinite period

of years, in the scale of financing available only

through joint effort, and in the political power

available only through united action and national

organizations.

Powell urged the business community to mobilize its

counterattack through “a broader and more vigorous role

in the political arena.” This meant corporate lobbying

in Congress.13 And lobby corporations did. In 1971, only 175

corporate firms had registered lobbyists in Washington;

by 1982, nearly 2,500 firms had registered lobbyists.14

Powell also identified the courts as a “vast area of opportunity.” Bemoaning the

“exploit[ation] of the judicial system” by groups such as the American Civil Liberties

Union, Powell called on the business community to aggressively invest in the courts.

“Under our constitutional system,” Powell argued, “especially with an activist-minded

Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social,

economic and political change.”

Just two months after submitting his memo, Powell was nominated by President Nixon

to the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 89-1. This memo was

not disclosed.

Growth of the Conservative Legal Movement

In the following decades, conservative Republicans and the American business

community took up Powell’s cause with remarkable zeal. Major business interests such

as Exxon, Pfizer, RJR Nabisco, Koch Industries, Dow Chemical, Aetna, and Monsanto

pumped millions of dollars into industry trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, and his state attorney general,

Edwin Meese, encouraged the founding of Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the first of

several business-funded “public interest” law firms. These groups filed strategic

Supreme Court Justice

Lewis F. Powell Jr.

lawsuits to advance business interests—and rewrite the laws—through the courts

while obscuring the identities of the interests backing them. Ideological foundations

established by wealthy industrialists—such as the Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife

Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—joined the fray. “Combining

their vast resources,” these “self-interested business concerns and ideologically driven

foundations” invested millions of dollars into a broad array of programs designed

to build the intellectual framework “for a new legal vision that was predominantly

concerned with promoting and protecting commercial and private wealth”, according

to a report from Alliance for Justice.15

By the time Reagan became president, the conservative legal movement was well

underway and well-funded. It now had an ally in the White House—and soon, under

Attorney General Edwin Meese, one in the U.S. Department of Justice as well. The

movement began aggressively pushing the courts to play an active role by striking

down laws and reversing precedents it disliked.

Originalism is a

political project,

not a legal or

constitutional one.

The New Judicial Activism

Ironically, this aggressively activist legal movement

came masked as a call for “judicial restraint.”

In the years following the Second World War,

the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional

right to privacy and reproductive rights, allowed

government agencies to regulate pollution and

other harmful externalities of industry, provided

due process protections for criminal defendants,

and imposed school desegregation and

constitutional civil rights protections for

minorities. In particular, Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark Supreme Court

case that unanimously declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional—

became a lightning rod for conservative outrage.

Arguing that these developments were the product of liberal “judicial activism,” the

conservative movement countered by advancing the legal theory of originalism—

that the Constitution’s meaning should be treated as frozen in time at the moment

of its ratification. The movement claimed that sticking closely to the “original intent”

of the Framers was the only authoritative, neutral, and objective way to “follow the

Constitution.” In contrast to the liberals’ so-called “activism” and the idea that our

centuries-old Constitution must be interpreted to account for the needs of an evolving

society, they argued that originalism was a model for “judicial restraint.” Hardly.

Originalism is a political project, not a legal or constitutional one. Originalism is

a judicial tool to achieve political and policy ends that serve corporate interests, social

conservatives, and ultra-rich Americans. In the 1980s, the conservative legal movement

began weaving an ornate tapestry of jurisprudential theory around “originalism,”

injecting it into legal academia and government. This provided an excellent screen for

the work’s true, political purpose, which was crystal clear behind the scenes. In a 1986

internal memo to Attorney General Edwin Meese, for example, Justice Department

lawyer Steven Calabresi criticized his department for “not acting as an agent of

counterrevolutionary change.”16 Calabresi denounced the idea of “judicial restraint,”

insisting that aggressive originalism should be the driving force of the conservative

legal movement. Calabresi argued that “the courts and the executive must start

using their constitutional powers to hold the Congress within its proper constitutional

sphere.”17

As one scholar wrote, “in addition to rolling back liberal judicial precedent, the

movement conservatives in the Republican Party were intent on relitigating the New

Deal by thoroughly reconceiving the scope of Congress’s power vis-à-vis the states, and

by attacking the constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state.”18

Calabresi, who had co-founded the Federalist Society four years earlier, became an

influential figure in the conservative legal movement. His vision of judicial activism

and executive power, and of right-wing “counterrevolutionary” change through the

courts, became the guiding light of the Federalist Society’s legal movement. Not

coincidentally, as Republicans gained political and judicial power under Reagan,

George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump, the purportedly foundational

originalist concept of “judicial restraint” fell quickly by the wayside in favor of aggressive

judicial review of Congressional lawmaking.

Before long, this “counterrevolutionary” project took hold at the Supreme Court.

Originalism—with its aura of objectivity—provided the perfect cover. And where it

didn’t lead to sufficiently “counterrevolutionary” policy results, originalism—like other,

actually law-conserving principles such as stare decisis and deference to fact

finders—was conveniently ignored.

A Right-Wing Rout at the Supreme Court

The proof is in the numbers. During John Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice, the

Court’s five-justice Republican-appointed majority has handed down more than 80

partisan 5-4 decisions—joined by no Democratic appointee—that delivered wins to

the Republican Party and the big corporate interests behind it. As we will address in

greater detail as part of future efforts, these decisions have had dire consequences for

ordinary American....
Shadow Justice: Leonard Leo and the $250 Million

Dark Money Judicial Influence Machine In May 2019, the Washington Post published a

groundbreaking investigation into Leonard Leo

and his judicial-influence network. “At a time when

Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

are rapidly reshaping federal courts by installing

conservative judges and Supreme Court justices,” the

Post explained, “few people outside government have

more influence over judicial appointments now than

Leo.” “For two decades, Leo has been on a mission to

turn back the clock” at the Supreme Court.53

At a closed-door gathering of allies, Leo explained,

“we’re going to have to understand that judicial

confirmations these days are more like political

campaigns. . . . No one in this room has probably

experienced the kind of transformation that I think

we are beginning to see.” Introduced as having

“a significant leadership role in the selection and

successful confirmation of a third of the currently

sitting justices on the Supreme Court,” Leo flexed his

muscles: “I’ve seen that comment about the third of

the Supreme Court, I prefer controlling interests,” Leo

said to laughs from the crowd. “But we haven’t quite

been able to launch a hostile takeover yet.”54

While Leo was already “widely known as a confidant to

Trump and as executive vice president of the Federalist

Society,” the Post’s reporting revealed that, “behind the

scenes, Leo is the maestro of a network of interlocking

nonprofits working on media campaigns and other

initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public

support for conservative judges.”55

When pressed by the Post to explain his role

coordinating the millions of dollars of special-interest

money he is connected to, Leo avoided the question:

“The Washington Post and other entities are more

than welcome to write stories about money in politics,”

he demurred, “but I don’t engage in that conversation

because one, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about

a lot of it, but, secondly, because it’s just not what I

do. . . . I don’t waste my time on stories that involve

money in politics because what I care about is ideas.”56

IS IT LEGAL?

While presidents can

of course seek advice,

conflict-of-interest-laws

require federal employees

to disclose their potential

conflicts of interest and to

take steps to address them.

Transparency prevents

corruption.

Senate Democrats are

investigating whether the

Trump Administration

and Leonard Leo, who

took leave from his

Federalist Society job

to advise the Trump

Administration, complied

with these laws.

Working to help

certain people to

become judges is not

in itself wrong. But

orchestrating secret,

multi-million-dollar

campaigns to get judges

on the bench who will

reliably support your

donors’ interests may

run afoul of federal

law. And it certainly

undermines the integrity

of the courts.

But building off previous investigative efforts by OpenSecrets and MapLight, the Post

report found Leonard Leo at the heart of a network of more than two dozen right-wing

nonprofit entities–groups that raised over $250 million between 2014 and 2017 alone.57

As the Post reported, the money was largely used to promote far-right policies and

legal doctrines, and the judicial nominees who advance them. The public has little idea

who is funding this effort, or what their political or financial interests are before the

courts, or how they stand to gain.

One thing seems clear: no one spends a quarter-billion dollars, anonymously, for

no good reason.

Behind the Veil: Understanding Leo’s Secret Influence Machine

In January 2020, Leonard Leo announced that he was stepping aside from his

$400,000-per-year job as the Federalist Society’s Executive Vice President.58 While

remaining as co-chair of the Federalist Society’s board, Leo announced the formation of

a new venture, CRC Advisors. Leo indicated it would spend a “minimum of $10 million

for an issue advocacy campaign focusing on judges in the 2020 cycle.”59

CRC Advisors is just one cog in the complicated and opaque machine working to

influence and capture our judicial system. Even Leo himself seems unable to keep

track of it all: “I have no idea how many groups I’ve been involved with over the years,”

he told the Post. But as the Post reported, “the groups in Leo’s network often work in

concert and are linked to Leo and one another by finances, shared board members,

phone numbers, addresses, back-office support and other operational details,

according to tax filings, incorporation records, other documents and interviews.”60 The

extraordinary overlaps suggest a common effort seeking to hide behind a confusing

but coordinated array of front groups....Judicial Lobbying: Special-Interest “Friends of the

Court” In recent years, amicus curiae briefs have become a

favored vehicle for the Federalist Society network, allowing

it to inject its boundary-pushing theories directly into

Supreme Court jurisprudence. Submitted by

non-parties to a case for the purpose of providing

information, expertise, insight, or advocacy, amicus

briefs have become a powerful judicial lobbying tool, and

have increased in both volume and influence in the past

decade. During the Supreme Court’s 2014 term, amici

submitted 781 amicus briefs, an increase of over 800%

from the 1950s and a 95% increase from 1995. From 2008

to 2013, the Supreme Court cited amicus briefs 606 times

in 417 opinions.

Although interest groups that lobby Congress face

stringent financial-disclosure requirements, no similar

requirements exist for this form of judicial lobbying.

The Supreme Court, for its part, does not require

meaningful disclosure of amicus funding. So there is

no way for the public to know either who the funders are

or what those anonymous funders’ interests before the

Court might be. Two recent examples show that many

seemingly independent amici may be hiding common

funders—financial ties that connect them to each other

and to the ideological hothouse of the Federalist Society.

The first is the pending challenge to the constitutionality

of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

Seila Law v. CFPB. The Center for Media and Democracy

found that since 2014, 16 right-wing foundations donated

a total of nearly $69 million to 11 groups that filed amicus

briefs in favor of scrapping the CFPB. Over the same

period, the same 16 foundations donated over $33 million

to the Federalist Society.119 Why does this matter? The

challenge to the CFPB is based on the so-called “Unitary

Executive Theory,” a once-fringe theory of constitutional

interpretation giving the president political dominance

over any and all expert administrative agencies. The

Federalist Society has promoted this theory for decades. It

could now become law.

Janus v. AFSCME, the 2018 decision that dealt a major blow

to public-sector labor unions, is another textbook example

of a coordinated judicial lobbying campaign with massive

political implications. That case garnered over 75 amicus

briefs opposing the rights of public-sector labor unions,

including many from groups funded by Federalist Society

donors. Investigative reporting revealed that at least 13 of

those “friends of the court” had been funded by the Koch

brothers’ DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.120 Similarly,

the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—a long-time

Federalist Society donor and avowed foe of public-sector

unions—is known to have funded 12 groups that filed

amicus briefs in the Janus case.... =
===</div></div>