ljc liberty justice ctr

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AN 11 25

On Wednesday, November 5 — the day after the United States' 2025 off-year elections — the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, a case involving President Donald Trump's ability to unilaterally impose tariffs via executive order under the Emergency Powers Act of 1977.

Many Democrats are hoping that the High Court will rule against Trump in the case, but opposition is coming from the right as well — including a group called the Liberty Justice Institute.

According to Washington Post reporter Kat Zakrzewski, the Institute is generously funding the anti-tariffs argument from the right.

"President Donald Trump is used to battles at the Supreme Court against liberal advocacy groups," Zakrzewski explains in an article published on November 4. "But Wednesday's high-stakes argument over his tariff policy features a very different foe — a legal center funded without public disclosure by some of the country's wealthiest conservatives. The cases on which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments were brought by small businesses, which argue that Trump's tariffs have harmed them by raising their costs."

Zakrzewski adds, "Standing behind them, however — and paying for some of the high-priced legal talent — is the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit group with a libertarian-leaning agenda that has previously challenged public-sector unions and sued to prevent the ban on TikTok from taking effect."

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According to Zakrzewski, prominent conservatives are funding the Liberty Justice Center.

"Liberty Justice Center does not disclose the names of its donors," the reporter notes, "but a Washington Post analysis of tax filings found that since 2020, it has received money from Donors Trust, the Walton Family Foundation and the Bradley Foundation, all of which have been prominent conservative donors. Donors Trust is a fund that receives money from wealthy donors whose identities are not disclosed and steers it toward conservative causes."

Zakrzewski continues, "The group has frequently backed organizations associated with Federalist Society co-Chairman Leonard Leo, who counseled Trump on judicial picks during his first presidential term, but whom Trump denounced in May, in part because of the tariff case. Liberty Justice Center is also listed as a national partner of the State Policy Network, a network of conservative nonprofit organizations with links to Charles and David Koch that also receives funding from Donors Trust."

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SWITCH SIDES SUE TRUMP 4 25

A conservative, pro-business nonprofit group is now taking President Donald Trump's administration to court, alleging that he is stepping outside the bounds of his authority to set new tariff rates.

The Daily Beast reported Monday that the libertarian-leaning Liberty Justice Center (LJC) is representing five small business owners in a lawsuit challenging Trump's use of emergency powers to bypass Congress and unilaterally impose tariffs on most of the world. The plaintiffs are arguing that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1997 is unprecedented, as no prior president has used it to implement new trade duties.

"Our system is not set up so that one person in the system can have the power to impose taxes across the world economy," LJC senior counsel Jeffrey Schwab told The Hill. "That’s not how our constitutional republic works."

"That is the thing we’re very concerned about," he continued. "Because today it’s tariffs, but could it be something else in the future."

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In the lawsuit, plaintiffs say that Trump is improperly using the IEEPA to raise import taxes "immediately, with no notice, or public comment, or phase-in, or delay in implementation, despite massive economic impacts that are likely to do severe damage to the global economy." And they referred to his April tariffs as an "unprecedented power grab."

"His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination: trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency,” the LJC's complaint reads. “Nor do these trade deficits constitute an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat.‘”

The businesses that filed the complaint with LJC's help include a New York-based liquor business that imports products from six different countries, a plastics company in Utah that depends on Asian imports for its raw materials, a fishing gear business in Pennsylvania, a musical instrument company in Virginia and a women's cycling apparel store in Vermont. They filed their complaint in the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Click here to read the Beast's full article.

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Daniel R. Suhr

Counsel of Record

James J. McQuaid

LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER

440 N. Wells Street, Suite 200

Chicago, Illinois 60654

dsuhr@libertyjusticecenter.org

312-637-2280

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LEITCH V. AFSCME

ON MAY 1, 2019, NINE WORKERS IN ILLINOIS GOVERNMENT FILED A FEDERAL CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST AFSCME, DEMANDING THE UNION RETURN MONEY TAKEN FROM THEIR PAYCHECKS FOR UNION “AGENCY” OR “FAIR SHARE” FEES BEFORE THE COURT’S JUNE 2018 RULING IN JANUS V. AFSCME. IF SUCCESSFUL, THESE WORKERS AND MORE THAN…

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SOLOMON V. AFSCME DC 37

The Liberty Justice Center filed a class action lawsuit on July 23, 2019, against AFSCME District Council 37 seeking a refund of illegal union fees plaintiff Scott Solomon and other city employees paid from July 23, 2016, through June 27, 2018. If successful, approximately 7,000 New York City government employees…

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WOLF V. UPTE

In May 2019, Isaac Wolf filed a federal lawsuit against his employer, the Regents of the University of California, and University Professional & Technical Employees Communications Workers of America Local 9119 for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. Wolf began…

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LEITCH V. AFSCME

On May 1, 2019, nine workers in Illinois government filed a federal class action lawsuit against AFSCME, demanding the union return money taken from their paychecks for union “agency” or “fair share” fees before the Court’s June 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. If successful, these workers and more than…

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HANNAY V. KENT STATE

Annamarie Hannay, Adda Gape and John Kohl are custodians for student residence halls at Kent State University. Since they started working at the university, they were required to pay money to AFSCME, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Several months after the Supreme Court ruling in Janus v.

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BENNETT V. AFSCME

Susan Bennett has worked for the Moline-Coal Valley School District since 2009. Since then she has been required to pay either membership dues or non-member fees to AFSCME Local 672. But in June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Janus v. AFSCME that mandatory…

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SWEET V. CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHIATRIC TECHNICIANS

Alfred Sweet is a psychiatric technician at Atascadero State Hospital in Paso Robles. Sweet joined the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians when he started working at the hospital in 2011 and began making requests to resign and become an agency fee payer in 2014. Those requests were denied. After the…

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O’CALLAGHAN V. NAPOLITANO

Two University of California workers filed a federal lawsuit alleging union dues were illegally deducted from their paychecks. Cara O’Callaghan has worked as the finance manager of the Sport Club program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, since 2009. Jenée Misraje has worked as an administrative assistant at the…

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OLIVER V. SEIU

Shalea Oliver has worked as an income maintenance caseworker for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services since 2014. In her position, she helps a variety of people, including the under or unemployed, disabled and other vulnerable populations in Philadelphia. As a Philadelphia native, service…

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ADAMS, ET AL V. TEAMSTERS

Four mental health workers in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, tried for months to quit their government union, Teamsters Local 429, with no success. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that it is unconstitutional to require government workers to pay…

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GROSSMAN V. HGEA

In January 2019, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Patricia Grossman, an employee of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, against the University and the Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA) for refusing to allow her to resign union membership. Ms. Grossman has…

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MANDEL V. SEIU

In December 2018, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Illinois school district employee Erich Mandel against his government union, SEIU Local 73 and his employer, Community Consolidated School District 15, for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association.

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HENDRICKSON V. AFSCME

In November 2018, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of New Mexico state employee Brett Hendrickson against his government union, AFSCME, and the state of New Mexico for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. Despite the…

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FEW V. UTLA

In November 2018, the Liberty Justice Center and California Policy Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of special education teacher Thomas Few against the United Teachers of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District for violating Few’s First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. Despite…

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DAN PROFT V. KWAME RAOUL

Individuals, corporations, unions and political parties can give unlimited amounts of money to political candidates, but independent expenditure groups cannot, creating an uneven playing field.

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COOKE V. ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS

This case began in February 2016 after David Cooke, a Streator resident, filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections alleging that the Committee for Frank J. Mautino violated the Illinois Election Code. Attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center have provided free legal representation to Cooke in…

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VUGO V. CITY OF CHICAGO

Chicago's ban on advertisements in and on ridesharing vehicles – but not in or on taxis and other vehicles – violates drivers' and advertisers' constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection.

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MENDEZ V. CITY OF CHICAGO

Chicago has imposed some of the nation's most extreme restrictions on people's ability to share their homes through online platforms such as Airbnb. We're challenging the law for violating homeowners' constitutional rights.

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HARLAN V. SCHOLZ

The Liberty Justice Center is challenging an Illinois law that guarantees some voters – but not others – the right to register to vote at their local polling places on Election Day.

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DEFENDING LOCAL RIGHT-TO-WORK LAWS

In December 2015, the village of Lincolnshire, Illinois, sought to protect worker freedom and boost the local economy by becoming the first municipality in the state – and one of the first local governments in the U.S. – to enact a local "Right-to-Work" ordinance. The Liberty Justice Center is defending the law against a union lawsuit challenging it.

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LABELL V. CITY OF CHICAGO

In 2015, Chicago enacted the nation's first tax on streaming entertainment services such as Netflix and Spotify. We're challenging Chicago's amusement tax because it violates the Illinois Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, and federal law.

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JANUS V. AFSCME

WE WON! In a major victory for First Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government workers can no longer be required to pay a union as a condition of working in public service. Learn more about Janus v. AFSCME and what it means for you.

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LEIBUNDGUTH STORAGE & VAN SERVICE V. VILLAGE OF DOWNERS GROVE

Should a local government be allowed to ruin a long-existing business if it decides it doesn’t like a sign that’s been on the business’s property for decades?

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ILLINOIS LIBERTY PAC V. RAOUL

Illinois shouldn't be allowed to use campaign finance rules to favor some donors and candidates over others.

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"The Liberty Justice Center pursues its goals through strategic, precedent-setting litigation to revitalize constitutional restraints on government power and protections for individual rights."

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https://libertyjusticecenter.org/cases/janus-v-afscme/

In a major victory for First Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 27, 2018 in Janus v. AFSCME that non-union government workers cannot be required to pay union fees as a condition of working in public service. This landmark case restores the First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of association to more than five million public school teachers, first responders and other government workers across the country.

Mark Janus, plaintiff in the case and a child support specialist for state government in Illinois offered the following reaction: “I’m thrilled that the Supreme Court has restored not only my First Amendment rights, but the rights of millions of other government workers across the country. So many of us have been forced to pay for political speech and policy positions with which we disagree, just so we can keep our jobs. This is a victory for all of us. The right to say ‘no’ to a union is just as important as the right to say ‘yes.’ Finally our rights have been restored.”

Meet Mark Janus, the man who could end forced union dues for government workers

Janus filed his case in Illinois in 2015 with free legal representation from the Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Jacob Huebert, Janus’ attorney from the Liberty Justice Center, responded to today’s ruling: “This is the biggest victory for workers’ rights in a generation. The First Amendment guarantees each of us, as individuals, the right to choose which groups we will and won’t support with our money. Today the Supreme Court recognized that no one should be forced to give up that right just to be allowed to work in government. The Court recognized that unions have the right to organize and to advocate for the policies they believe in – but they don’t have a special right to force people to pay for their lobbying. They have to play by the same rules as everyone else.”

Background:The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCMEon Feb. 26, 2018. On the day of oral arguments, a large crowd of public school teachers, other government workers and supporters from across the country rallied outside the Supreme Court on Janus’ behalf, calling on the court to “Stand with Mark” and “Stand With Workers.”

Illinois is among 22 states that has required many government workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment. Plaintiff Mark Janus has worked for state government in Illinois as a child support specialist since 2007. Over the past decade, he was forced to pay thousands of dollars in union fees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) – even though he opposes many of the union’s positions on public policy issues, felt he would be better off without the union’s so-called representation and was never asked if he wanted to be covered by a union contract. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in his favor, Janus will not be required to pay these union fees.

The fight over non-member union fees intensified in Illinois in 2015, when Gov. Bruce Rauner filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge in Chicago to declare non-member union fees unconstitutional. Lower courts ruled that the governor did not have standing to bring this suit because he personally was not required to pay union fees. That’s when state worker Mark Janus intervened in the lawsuit with the help of the Liberty Justice Center and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The case was renamed Janus v. AFSCME, and Janus was successful in taking this fight all the way to the highest court in the nation.

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Get answers to frequently asked questions about Janus v. AFSCME.

BRIEFS

First Amended Complaint (June 1, 2015)

Exhibits to First Amended Complaint (June 1, 2015)

Second Amended Complaint (July 21, 2016)

District court decision (September 16, 2016)

Plaintiffs' Seventh Circuit brief (November 21, 2016)

AFSCME's Seventh Circuit brief (December 21, 2016)

Plaintiffs' Seventh Circuit reply brief (January 4, 2017)

Seventh Circuit decision (March 21, 2017)

U.S. Supreme Court petition for certiorari (June 6, 2017)

U.S. Supreme Court merits brief (November 29, 2017)

U.S. Supreme Court joint appendix (November 29, 2017)

Plaintiffs' Seventh Circuit reply brief (July 3, 2019)

OUR TEAM

Mark Janus is represented by attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. For more information, or to schedule an interview about the case, contact Diana Rickert at 773-809-4403 or by email atmedia@libertyjusticecenter.org.

https://www.iatse728.org/blog/meet-the-money-backing-mark-janus-and-his-case-v-afscme

Meet the Money Backing Mark Janus and his Case v AFSCME

Janus v. AFSCME is a crowning triumph of a loose network of right-wing think tanks and legal foundations which have spent decades chipping away at the government safety net, environmental and business restrictions, and the rights of unions.

Janus challenges a 1977 ruling, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Except in right-to-work states (where none of these rules apply), each state decides whether state employees are obligated to pay agency fees. Because unions engage in political activity, Abood ruled that compulsory union membership violated state employees’ freedom of speech. However, the court also upheld employees’ obligation to reimburse unions for their advocacy, which worked on behalf of both those in the union and those who weren’t. (Otherwise they would be “free riders,” who gain material benefits from the unions but do not pay for these services.) Abood held that these employees could be obligated to pay agency fees, which covered all union costs except for political campaigns; these are usually 90 percent of union dues. Janus will revisit this question. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “the case will affect about 17 million public-sector workers across the country.” It will also disproportionately affect black women, who “make up 17.7 percent of public-sector workers, or about 1.5 million workers.”

The case’s plaintiff is Mark Janus, who works for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, and is represented by AFSCME. Mr. Janus makes an annual salary of $71,000, and is suing over a $45 monthly agency fee to AFSCME.

But this isn’t an instance of one angry man driven by a litigious rage to make it easier for his employer to decrease his income. Mr. Janus is backed by a slew of think tanks and foundations who are funded by the Koch Brothers, among others. Behind Mark Janus are millionaires and billionaires whose life work is to destroy, not just unions, but all social guarantees for people in the US.

The case originated with billionaire private equity fund manager Bruce Rauner’s run for Illinois governor in 2014. He went to court to stop the collection of agency fees. The courts said that Rauner didn’t have standing in the case, but they allowed Janus to take his place.

Janus is not alone in his "struggle"; he is represented by lawyers from the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund (NRTWLDF) and the Liberty Justice Center. These are just two of the many well-funded right-wing groups working to destroy decent living standards for working people.

The NRTWLDF is a non-profit which is associated with the 501(c)4 lobbying group, the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC), as well as the National Institute for Labor Relations Research. In 2012, the three groups, which are dedicated to destroying unions, pulled in $25 million. The founder of the NRTWC,Reed Larson, was a leader in the far right John Birch Society. They traffic in a variety of far right conspiracy theories, many of them derived from antisemitism, opposed to the Civil Rights movement, and have an extreme pro-market approach. The John Birch Society cleaned up these ideas by making them origins seem less obvious, and wrapped them up in an ultra-patriotic images and slogans. Larson was in the same John Birch Society chapter with Fred Koch (the father of the infamous Koch brothers Charles and David), and the NRTWC has received significantly amounts of money from the Koch family.

The NRTWC is also connected to a variety of rightwing groups such as ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), which is notorious for authoring a wide variety of right-wing legislation. NRTWLDF is a member of the State Policy Network, a Koch-backed network of state-based right-wing think tanks and foundations. NRTWC spent $7 million in the 2012 elections. In 1984, they were accused of spending $100,000 on private detectives who infiltrated the AFL-CIO and other progressive groups.

The Liberty Justice Center’s Director of Litigation, Jacob Huebert, is one of Janus’s lawyers. The center is a public interest law firm, so its funding isn’t visible, but it is connected to the Illinois Policy Institute. This institute is part of the State Policy Network, and receives money from Koch-linked groups such as Donors Trust. The Illinois Policy Institute also received money from the Mercer Family Foundation. The Mercers have funded Far Right propaganda outfits with connections to White Nationalists such as Breitbart and alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

In addition to these two groups, dozens of organizations have submitted amici curiae briefs in Janus, showing a cross-section of the right-wing groups who are supporting this attack. They include the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan. Mackinac specifically targets public sector unions; one email from a staffer said, “Our goal is to outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan.” Mackinac supported a 2011 Michigan law that gave the governor the power to abolish unions and local governments. It is also part of the State Policy Network and receives Koch-linked funding.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whose 2011 assault on his state’s public sector unions inaugurated this recent wave of attacks, also receives support from similar networks of right-wing institutions. And Walker, in turn, is tied to Trump’s Education Secretary Betty DeVos, who is intent on destroying public schools as we know them—along with the teachers unions based at them.

Walker received support from the Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-linked vehicle. Their president estimated that the group spent $10 million in Wisconsin in 2011 and 2012 to support changes made by both Walker and the legislature. Walker also received significant backing from the Bradley Foundation. Its founder was alsocloseto the conspiratorial John Bitch Society. After 2010, Bradley gave a half million dollars to Americans for Prosperity, which in turn supported Walker. Bradley also provides financial support to the State Policy Network and ALEC. This non-profit which funded several groups that ran interference for Walker as he battled a 2012 recall campaign. The foundation also gave over $1 million to media which have attacked an investigation into potential illegal funding which involves Walker. Bradley’s head, Michael Grebe, was also Walker’s campaign manager three times, and was later tapped to lead Walker’s 2015 presidential effort.

While many of these think tanks and foundations that fixate on public sector unions tend towards an economic libertarianism and are separate from the network of organizations fighting abortion access and LGBTQI rights, there is some crossover. One particular area is the area of charter schools, whose explanation simultaneously allows public dollars to support religious schools, dismantles public education, puts pressure on school budgets, and undermine unions for both teachers and other educational sector workers. Walker expanded his state’s school voucher program starting in 2011. The Center for American Progress says that Devos’s family gave Walker $342,000 between 2010 and 2017. The pro-voucher group she formerly lead, the American Federation for Children, spent over $5 million in Wisconsin since 2010 to support Republican officials. And Walker in turn publicly supported Devos’s appointment as Education Secretary. It’s a relatively small circle of wealthy Republicans give each other money and appoint each other to high-ranking positions.

Progressive groups used to have a more robust group of think tanks and foundations, but these have been systemically defunded for decades. The Republicans have been able to coalesce around four sets demands: religious fundamentalists seek limits gender and sexual freedom; market fundamentalists want to destroy the social safety net and unions; and xenophobes demonize Muslims and immigrants, as well as US-born people of color, including Indigenous and African American communities. The Janus case, with its disproportionate harm for Black women in particular and possible kneecapping of the union movement in general for its support of immigrants’ rights, anti-discrimination measures and the social safety net, manages to neatly combine nearly their whole agenda in one Supreme Court package.

Spencer Sunshine is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer. His work has appeared in Truthout, Colorlines and The Forward. His Twitter handle is @transform6789

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions

don weiner

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The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.

This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to “defund and defang” public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.

Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC)and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.

Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected “fair share” fees, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in the *Janus* case and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.

A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”

“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall told the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”

In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.

With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.

In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF have appealed the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor

Richard Uihlein, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.

The LJC, part of the right-wing Illinois Policy Institute at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a series of articles in 2017.

Uihlein has given over $8.6 million to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another $800,000 since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.

Uihlein has also given $300,000 since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.

LJC’s most recent IRS 990 filing shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.

LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.

Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents tallied by CMD.

A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN notes that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.

The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.

David Armiak contributed research to this report.

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