am juris link ajs

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pjt 2025</font></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;7 23 off bs</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Board of Directors</font></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Peter Bisbee</div><div style="">Executive Director of the Republican Attorney General Association</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Carrie Ann Donnell</div><div style="">Founder & President of American Juris Link</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Leslie Graves</div><div style="">Publisher of Ballotpedia.org</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">O.H. Skinner</div><div style="">Executive Director of Alliance for Consumers</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Tony Woodlief</div><div style="">Executive Vice President of the State Policy Network</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>american Juris Link</b>&nbsp;(AJL) is a right-wing, Arizona-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=501(c)(3)" title="501(c)(3)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">501(c)(3)</a><b>&nbsp;litigation center</b> that has been tax exempt since 2019.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;AJL’s founder and president Carrie Ann Donnell describes AJL as “basically like the SPN for litigators.</span>”<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AJL advertises on its site that it provides local counsel, organizes amici briefs, and offers personalized services.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;AJL tracks and supports right-wing legal challenges to upend COVID-19 health restrictions, fight workers’ rights to unionize, and coordinate legal strategies and amici.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">AJL was incubated by and is an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SPN_Members" title="SPN Members" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">associate member</a>&nbsp;of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">State Policy Network</a>&nbsp;(SPN</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">), a group of right-wing think tanks and other politically-active nonprofits.</span></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" style="background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#News_and_Controversies" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;"><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">News and Controversies</span></span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Fighting_COVID-19_Public_Health_Efforts" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Fighting COVID-19 Public Health Efforts</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Supporting_Union_Crushing_Efforts" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Supporting Union Crushing Efforts</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Ties_to_the_Bradley_Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ties to the Bradley Foundation</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Ties_to_the_Koch_Brothers" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ties to the Koch Brothers</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Ties_to_the_State_Policy_Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ties to the State Policy Network</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#AJL_Collaborators" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">AJL Collaborators</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Funding</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Core_Financials" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Core Financials</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Personnel" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Personnel</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Staff" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Staff</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Board_of_Directors" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Board of Directors</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Contact_Information" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Contact Information</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Articles_and_Resources" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Articles and Resources</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#Related_SourceWatch" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Related SourceWatch</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#IRS_Form_990_Filings" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">IRS Form 990 Filings</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">11</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="News_and_Controversies"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News and Controversies</font></span></h2><h3 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Fighting_COVID-19_Public_Health_Efforts" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Fighting COVID-19 Public Health Efforts</font></span></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Since the beginning of the pandemic, AJL has assisted numerous organizations in filing lawsuits to upend public health restrictions put in place in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. It holds a “regularly scheduled COVID Litigation Roundtable” for strategizing and collaborating against COVID orders, and has </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">partnered with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Ballotpedia</a>&nbsp;to create a&nbsp;<b style="">COVID-19 lawsuit tracker of every court case challenging public health orders due to the pandemic, funded by a $41,000 grant from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DonorsTrust" title="DonorsTrust" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">DonorsTrust</a></b>, the Koch political network’s preferred donor conduit.</span><sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-1" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AJL also touts that it helped find local counsel for “COVID-related lawsuits.”<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Supporting_Union_Crushing_Efforts" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Supporting </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Union Crushing Efforts</span></font></span></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">In 2020, AJL worked to support SPN’s Ohio affiliate, the&nbsp;<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; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); 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>, in its unsuccessful attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal in Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine. The case had attempted to overturn the longstanding practice of allowing democratically elected public-sector unions to exclusively represent employees in negotiations over pay and working conditions</span>.&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group “recruited” the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maine_Policy_Institute" title="Maine Policy Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Maine Policy Institute</a>&nbsp;(formerly the Maine Heritage Policy Center) to file a supporting brief and “secured” 12 additional amicus groups, many of which are SPN members, to sign on, according to a March 2020 newsletter.&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AJL also helps match groups working to convince union members to drop out of their unions with lawyers aligned with their mission.<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Ties_to_the_Bradley_Foundation"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ties to the Bradley Foundation</font></span></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>&nbsp;provided American Juris Link with $100,000 "for start-up support" in 2020.<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;Bradley has long emphasized the funding of litigation efforts as part of its larger strategy to weaponize philanthropy to build up a right-wing infrastructure.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><table style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(244, 210, 0); border-collapse: collapse; vertical-align: top;"><tbody><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><th style="padding: 0.2em 0.4em; margin: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(244, 210, 0); background: rgb(244, 210, 0); text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley Files</font></th></tr><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><td style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><div style="padding: 2px 5px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of SourceWatch, launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>, exposing the inner-workings of one of America's largest right-wing foundations. 56,000 previously undisclosed documents laid bare the Bradley Foundation's highly politicized agenda. CMD detailed Bradley's efforts to&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/documents-detail-bradley-foundation-efforts-build-right-wing-infrastructure-nationwide/" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide</a>, including by&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-attacks-unions/" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections</a>;&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/09/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-front-groups-richard-berman/" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">bankrolling discredited spin doctor Richard Berman and his many front groups</a>; and more.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Find the series here at ExposedbyCMD.org</a>.</font></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Ties_to_the_Koch_Brothers"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ties to the Koch Brothers</font></span></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_G.Koch_Foundation" class="mw-redirect" title="Charles G. Koch Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Charles G. Koch Foundation</a>&nbsp;contributed $20,000 to AJL "for future payment" in 2019.</b></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Ties_to_the_State_Policy_Network" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Ties to the State Policy Network</font></span></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Juris Link was incubated by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">State Policy Network</a>&nbsp;and is an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SPN_Members" title="SPN Members" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">associate member</a>&nbsp;of SPN. SPN's Executive Vice President, Tony Woodlief is on AJL's board. The organization has also worked together with other&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SPN_Members" title="SPN Members" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">SPN Members</a>&nbsp;to oppose COVID-19 public health measures and oppose unions.<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>SPN President and CEO Tracie Sharp praised the new partnership with AJL as “a durable freedom infrastructure…where you have think tanks…locking arms with litigators to really press forward to be strategic, to be agile</b>.”<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is how we are going to have state solutions, national impact in both the short term and the long term,” Sharp said.<sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At SPN's 27th Annual Meeting, AJL sponsored a litigation network reception. The description read, "Celebrate your victories and deliberate over your hardest legal questions while you share a drink with attorneys from some of the 50+ nonprofits litigating for freedom and the rule of law. Catch up with old colleagues, meet new allies, and learn how a new nonprofit network for litigators can offer free services and connect you with other professionals to maximize your impact and efficiency."<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup>&nbsp;</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">SPN</a>&nbsp;is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of January 2021, SPN's membership totals 163. Today's SPN is the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party. SPN Executive Director&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Tracie Sharp</a>&nbsp;told the&nbsp;<i>Wall Street Journal</i>&nbsp;in 2017 that the revenue of the combined groups was some $80 million, but a 2019 analysis of SPN's main members IRS filings by the Center for Media and Democracy shows that the combined revenue is over $120 million.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup>&nbsp;Although SPN's member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, the Center for Media and Democracy's in-depth investigation, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf" https="https" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: url(">EXPOSED: The State Policy Network -- The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government</a>," reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing,<b>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SPN_Ties_to_ALEC" title="SPN Ties to ALEC" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>&nbsp;(ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_brothers" class="mw-redirect" title="Koch brothers" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Koch brothers</a>&nbsp;and the national right-wing network of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SPN_Funding" title="SPN Funding" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">funders</a></b>.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to CMD's report, SPN Executive Director&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Tracie Sharp</a>&nbsp;told national and statehouse reporters that SPN affiliates are "fiercely independent." Later the same week, however,&nbsp;<i>The New Yorker'</i>s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jane_Mayer" title="Jane Mayer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Jane Mayer</a>&nbsp;caught Sharp in a contradiction. In her article, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?</a>," the Pulitzer-nominated reporter revealed that, in a recent meeting behind closed doors with the heads of SPN affiliates around the country, Sharp "compared the organization’s model to that of the giant global chain IKEA." She reportedly said that SPN "would provide 'the raw materials,' along with the 'services' needed to assemble the products. Rather than acting like passive customers who buy finished products, she wanted each state group to show the enterprise and creativity needed to assemble the parts in their home states. 'Pick what you need,' she said, 'and customize it for what works best for you.'" Not only that, but Sharp "also acknowledged privately to the members that the organization's often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. 'The grants are driven by donor intent,' she told the gathered think-tank heads. She added that, often, 'the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.'"<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A set of&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/842271-spn-budget-proposals-state-by-state.html" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">coordinated fundraising proposals</a>&nbsp;obtained and released by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Guardian" title="The Guardian" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">The Guardian</a>&nbsp;in early December 2013 confirm many of these SPN members' intent to change state laws and policies, referring to "advancing model legislation" and "candidate briefings." These activities "arguably cross the line into lobbying,"&nbsp;<i>The Guardian</i>&nbsp;notes.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="AJL_Collaborators"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AJL Collaborators</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Center for Media and Democracy identified the following organizations that have received assistance from AJL through February 2021:</span><sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-10" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alaska_Policy_Forum" title="Alaska Policy Forum" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Alaska Policy Forum</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Fair_Treatment" title="Americans for Fair Treatment" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Americans for Fair Treatment</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity" title="Americans for Prosperity" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Americans for Prosperity</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Tax_Reform" title="Americans for Tax Reform" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Americans for Tax Reform</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Beacon_Center_of_Tennessee" title="Beacon Center of Tennessee" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Beacon Center of Tennessee</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><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; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Buckeye Institute</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=California_Policy_Center" title="California Policy Center" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">California Policy Center</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_American_Liberty&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Center for American Liberty (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Center for American Liberty</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Worker_Freedom&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Center for Worker Freedom (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Center for Worker Freedom</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Empire_Center_for_Public_Policy" title="Empire Center for Public Policy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Empire Center for Public Policy</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Government_Justice_Center&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Government Justice Center (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Government Justice Center</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grassroot_Institute_of_Hawaii" title="Grassroot Institute of Hawaii" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Grassroot Institute of Hawaii</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hamilton_Lincoln_Law_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute</a>&nbsp;(formerly the Center for Class Action Fairness)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Heritage Foundation</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Independent_Women%E2%80%99s_Law_Center&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Independent Women’s Law Center (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Independent Women’s Law Center</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Free_Speech" title="Institute for Free Speech" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Institute for Free Speech</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Madison_Center_for_Free_Speech" title="James Madison Center for Free Speech" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">James Madison Center for Free Speech</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Madison_Institute" title="James Madison Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">James Madison Institute</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Locke_Foundation" title="John Locke Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">John Locke Foundation</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kansas_Justice_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Kansas Justice Institute (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Kansas Justice Institute</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy" title="Mackinac Center for Public Policy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Mackinac Center for Public Policy</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maine_Policy_Institute" title="Maine Policy Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Maine Policy Institute</a>&nbsp;(formerly the Maine Heritage Policy Center)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mississippi_Justice_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mississippi Justice Institute (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Mississippi Justice Institute</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Taxpayers_Union" title="National Taxpayers Union" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">National Taxpayers Union</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Civil_Liberties_Alliance" title="New Civil Liberties Alliance" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">New Civil Liberties Alliance</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nevada_Policy_Research_Institute" title="Nevada Policy Research Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Nevada Policy Research Institute</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oklahoma_Council_for_Public_Affairs&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Legal_Foundation" title="Pacific Legal Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Pacific Legal Foundation</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pelican_Center_for_Justice&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Pelican Center for Justice (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Pelican Center for Justice</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pelican_Institute" title="Pelican Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Pelican Institute</a>&nbsp;(formerly Pelican Institute for Public Policy)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Philanthropy_Roundtable" title="Philanthropy Roundtable" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Philanthropy Roundtable</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Public_Interest_Legal_Foundation" title="Public Interest Legal Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Public Interest Legal Foundation</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Upper_Midwest_Law_Center&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Upper Midwest Law Center (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Upper Midwest Law Center</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Washington_Policy_Center" title="Washington Policy Center" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Washington Policy Center</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wisconsin_Institute_for_Law%26_Liberty" title="Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty</font></a></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wisconsin_Transparency_Project&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Wisconsin Transparency Project (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Wisconsin Transparency Project</font></a></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Funding"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Funding</font></span></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Juris Link is not required to disclose its funders but major foundation supporters can be found through their IRS filings. Here are some known contributors:</font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_G.Koch_Foundation" class="mw-redirect" title="Charles G. Koch Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Charles G. Koch Foundation</a>:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> $20,000 "for future payment" (2019)</span></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DonorsTrust" title="DonorsTrust" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">DonorsTrust</a>: $45,000 (2019); $41,000 funded through the "Growth and Resilience" project for a "COVID-19 Lawsuit Tracker – This project expands&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>’s COVID lawsuit tracker.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>&nbsp;has proven their ability to assemble large amounts of data and they have collected a large selection of COVID lawsuits. Cases are displayed on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>’s webpage in a table showing case name, case number, jurisdiction, and relevant links. Because American Juris Link has been hosting recurring COVID Litigation Roundtables for lawyers, they are able to share new information with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>&nbsp;in real time, and can direct lawyers to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>’s page for legal research. This project will expand&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ballotpedia" title="Ballotpedia" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Ballotpedia</a>’s tracker by supplementing the current selection to include a comprehensive list of COVID cases, it will classify cases by legal claims and outcomes, and identify and promote interactive search features useful to lawyers."<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup>&nbsp;(2020)</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Lynde and Harry </a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bradley </a><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Foundation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: $100,000 for "start-up support" (2020).</span><sup id="cite_ref-ajlda_2-11" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlda-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Core_Financials"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Core Financials</font></span></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><big><b>2019</b></big><sup id="cite_ref-ajl19_11-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajl19-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup></font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Revenue: $145,840</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total Expenses: $30,722</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Assets: $115,118</font></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Personnel"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Personnel</font></span></h2><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Staff"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Staff</font></span></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of February 2021:</font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url("");" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carrie Ann Donnell, Founder & President</font></span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Elliot Engstrom, Legal Director; formerly public interest lawyer at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Civitas_Institute" title="Civitas Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Civitas Institute</a>&nbsp;and law clerk at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Goldwater Institute</a></span><sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amanda Patterson, Operations Manager</font></li></ul><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Board_of_Directors"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Board of Directors</font></span></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of February 2021:<sup id="cite_ref-ajlabt_13-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Juris_Link#cite_note-ajlabt-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup></font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; 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</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">....docs 990</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/07/29/the-organized-takeover-of-wisconsin-courts/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The organized takeover of Wisconsin courts</b></div><div><b>How big money has eroded a core democratic institution</b></div><div>Ruth Conniff</div><div>RUTH CONNIFF</div><div><b>JULY 29, 2021&nbsp;</b></div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>It barely rated a mention in the news when, on June 28, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an order relieving Court of Appeals Chief Judge Lisa Neubauer of her leadership duties.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Neubauer ran for the Supreme Court in 2019 with the support of Democrats and progressives, in an election won by a razor-thin margin by conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">The bland-sounding order ending her tenure as chief judge made it seem as though, since Neubauer’s second term had expired, after six years of service, replacing her was a routine matter. The new chief judge, William Brash, will start on August 1, the Court announced.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">But, in an email objecting to Neubauer’s removal, Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Frank Dallet and Jill Karofsky pointed out that “never before has this court limited the number of terms that can be served as Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Nuebauer’s predecessor served eight years as chief, and each of the two chief judges before him served nine years, the justices added in their email. They also objected to “the timing and lack of process employed by a majority of this court in the appointment process” and said they had not had an opportunity to weigh in.</div><div>
</div><div>“It sort of smells like retribution, doesn’t it?” says a source close to the Court.</div><div>
</div><div>For the general public, it wasn’t a very big story. Most people didn’t even know there is such a thing as an appeals court chief judge. It’s not a particularly powerful position; the chief mainly deals with handling the court’s budget and other administrative matters.</div><div>
</div><div>It's not how we want democratic institutions to work. It’s a little Banana Republic-y.</div><div>
</div><div>– Attorney Jeffrey Mandell</div><div>
</div><div><b>But from the point of view of some legal experts, Neubauer’s removal was a bad sign — part of an insidious pattern of politicization of Wisconsin’s courts.&nbsp;</b></div><div>
</div><div>Lawyers and other judges describe Neubauer as hardworking, courteous and an effective and efficient chief judge. Her removal raises questions about the way the courts are run, says Jeffrey Mandell, a Wisconsin attorney and founder of the progressive firm Law Forward. Mandell has never appeared before Neubauer or her appointed successor, Brash, and says he has no reason to doubt that Brash will do a good job as chief judge. Still, he says, “It does start to look less like a policy decision and more like some sort of personal issue, which is not how we want democratic institutions to work. It’s a little Banana Republic-y.”</div><div>
</div><div>Mandell sees Neubauer’s demotion as part of a pattern of lack of transparency that includes the court’s failure to set clear rules of recusal when justices have conflicts of interest, and its move to stop holding public meetings on administrative matters, including ethics and recusal, shrouding the court’s business in secrecy.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Banana Republic-y is also a good description of Justice Rebecca Bradley, who compared Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order during the pandemic to the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. She also recently diagnosed her colleagues with “‘hoplophobia’ — i.e. an irrational fear of guns,” after they sanctioned a Winnebago Co. judge who pulled a loaded Glock pistol out from under his robes during a court hearing.</span>&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>How did we get here?</div><div>
</div><div><b>The court has never resolved — or recovered from — the embarrassing 2011 incident in which then-Justice David Prosser was accused of trying to choke his colleague Ann Walsh Bradley in her office during a dispute about Wisconsin’s epic battle over collective bargaining rights. That sordid affair came to symbolize the decline of our state’s democratic institutions.&nbsp;</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>But the erosion of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s reputation goes back at least to 2008, when Michael Gableman defeated Wisconsin’s first African American supreme court justice, Luis Butler, in a campaign that made national news for its sheer ugliness&nbsp;</b>— Gableman ran misleading&nbsp;<b>Willie Horton-style ads against Butler —</b>&nbsp;and for the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">&nbsp;flood of out-of-state money that poured into the race. Outside groups spent $4.8 million — a record that was not broken until this year.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">The ideological makeup of the court flipped to a 4-3 conservative majority when Gableman, who had the backing of<b>&nbsp;rightwing and pro-corporate groups</b>, replaced Butler.&nbsp;</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 0);">Gableman refused to recuse himself from cases involving his campaign contributors and helped usher in an era of ethical laxness on the court. He and his colleagues worked to undermine the late, distinguished Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who was pushed out as chief, her tenure ended prematurely by a referendum put forward by Republicans that allowed the justices to elect their own chief instead of appointing the chief based on seniority. Conservatives on the court chose Patience Roggensack as their new chief.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Nobody is seeing the urgency because it’s a lot of small potatoes stuff. But it still adds up to a larger, disturbing picture.</div><div>
</div><div>– Retired Dane County Judge Richard Niess</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">A few years later, the same justices chose to<b>&nbsp;name the state law library after Prosser&nbsp;</b>(who once made the news when he called Abrahamson a “bitch” and said he would “destroy” her) — not the late Abrahamson, who, unlike Prosser, was considered for the U.S. Supreme Court and widely regarded as one of the country’s great legal minds.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“A lot of it is inside baseball,” retired Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess says of the way the current court conducts its business. “Nobody is seeing the urgency because it’s a lot of small potatoes stuff. But it still adds up to a larger, disturbing picture.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>That larger picture is a push to remake Wisconsin courts by moneyed interests. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker helped that effort along when he appointed three Supreme Court justices who were members of the Federalist Society — Daniel Kelly, Rebecca Bradley and Brian Hagedorn</b>. The Federalist Society is arguably the most powerful legal organization in the country, made up of conservative and libertarian lawyers and formed in the early 1980s to fight “liberal orthodoxy,” and, according to its homepage, dedicated to “reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law.” The group has chapters of law school students, faculty and practicing lawyers around the country and deep ties to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is also part of a nationwide network aiming to create more conservative, pro-corporate courts that has poured money into Wisconsin. “All of this is the national scene writ on a smaller stage,” says Niess.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In 2016, Craig Mastantuono, president of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy’s Milwaukee chapter, told the Wisconsin State Journal that the Federalist Society is engaged in “an organized takeover” of state and federal judiciaries. The effect, he said, is that big business and the wealthy will benefit from decision making in the courts.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Controversy around the Federalist Society’s influence in Wisconsin erupted in 2018, when Brian Hagedorn, then still an the appeals court judge, sent an email to judges around the state encouraging them to attend a Federalist Society conference and indicating that mileage and meals would be reimbursed by the state as well as offering continuing legal education credits to lawyers who attended.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Fifteen Wisconsin judges wrote to Hagedorn and the state’s judicial education committee in protest. Niess was among them.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Niess also sees Chief Justice Patience Roggesack’s pilot program in Dane County to create a separate, business court as part of a dangerous rightward drift.&nbsp;</b>“<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Special business interests now collaborate with our Chief Justice to hand pick those judges they want to decide their cases,”&nbsp;</span>he wrote in an email to local lawyers. “The Dane County Circuit Court will now be required to implement a two-tiered system of justice; one for the privileged few and one for the rest of us.”</div><div>
</div><div>Mandell takes a more sympathetic view of the concept of the business court, saying he understands the logic for his business clients of separating forums for different types of lawsuits. Still, he agrees with Niess about a general erosion of democracy in Wisconsin courts.</div><div>
</div><div>The power of a shadowy network of rightwing groups working against the public interest is evident in the coordinated effort to undermine public health orders during the pandemic by taking cases against them to the Supreme Court.</div><div>
</div><div><b>AJL is actively working to track and support right-wing legal challenges to upend COVID-19 health restrictions, fight workers’ rights to unionize, and coordinate legal strategies</b></div><div>
</div><div>– Center for Media and Democracy</div><div>
</div><div>Earlier this year, the Center for Media and Democracy reported on a new rightwing legal center called&nbsp;<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">American Juris Link&nbsp;</b>t<b>hat is “actively working to track and support right-wing legal challenges to upend COVID-19 health restrictions, fight workers’ rights to unionize, and coordinate legal strategies”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">The group was “incubated by the State Policy Network” — a network of rightwing think tanks in all 50 states — CMD reported. Its founder and president, Carrie Ann Donnell, is the director of the Federalist Society’s pro-bono center.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation provided American Juris Link with $100,000 in start-up funds in 2020,</b> and CMD identified the&nbsp;<b>Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL</b>) among the recipients of the group’s assistance.</div><div>
</div><div>Not only does the Bradley-financed Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty continually file lawsuits seeking to champion rightwing interests in the courts, a parallel effort, funded by the same group of allies that supports WILL, is transforming those courts into a friendlier forum for such lawsuits.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The tool for transforming the courts is money. As the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign’s former director Mike McCabe pointed out back in 2008, after the Gableman race opened the floodgates to cash in state court races, buying state supreme court seats is a relative bargain, compared with congressional races. And much of the business that concerns corporations, including environmental regulations and labor protections, happens at the state level.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Thus, the Republican State Leadership Committee poured more than $1.2 million into last-minute ads to help Hagedorn beat Neubauer by less than 1% of the vote in 2019.</b>&nbsp;The Republican State Leadership Committee also spent heavily to help elect Rebecca Bradley.</div><div>
</div><div>“Wisconsin is not the only state where RSLC is flexing its multi-million-dollar muscle to place corporate-friendly or right-wing judges on state courts in order to advance its funders’ interest,” CMD’s Lisa Graves writes, reeling off spending on court races in Arkansas, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.</div><div>
</div><div>Predictably, in recent years the influx of outside money has been making Wisconsin judicial races more and more expensive, according to data collected by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Candidates and outside special interest groups spent a record-shattering $10 million in the last Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April 2020, the Democracy Campaign reported.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>And it has become an arms race, with money pouring in on both sides.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Top outside spenders in the latest Supreme Court race were A Better Wisconsin Together Political fund, which spent $1.87 million, mostly on ads supporting Karofsky, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which spent $1.1 million to help Walker appointee Daniel Kelly (mostly with anti-Karofsky ads), the Republican State Leadership Committee, which spent $897,499 on Kelly, and Americans for Prosperity, which spent $479,463 on Kelly.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Karofsky, who won, set an all-time record for spending by an individual candidate at $2.7 million. And there is no end in sight.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“The 2023 election is absolutely critical,” says Neiss. “A lot of outstate money will come in on both sides.”</div><div>
</div><div>As a judge, I was not at liberty to freely comment on these disturbing trends without the potential for retribution from the Court</div><div>
</div><div>– Retired Dane County Judge Richard Niess</div><div>
</div><div><b>Niess says he became frustrated and decided to retire, in part, due to the “increasing threats to the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court by overt and covert right wing influence over its legal decisions and operating procedures.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>“The mounting secrecy surrounding the Court’s operating procedures, the sneaky imposition of the unnecessary business court on Dane County by the chief justice, and the clandestine manner in which the&nbsp;<b>highly respected Judge Neubauer was summarily sacked as chief judge</b>, are just three examples,” he says.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Outside group spending in Wisconsin Supreme Court races</b></div><div>2003: Ed Brunner vs. Pat Roggensack $27,200</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">2007: Linda Clifford vs. Annette Ziegler $3.1 million</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">2008: Louis Butler vs. Michael Gableman $4.8 million</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">2009: Shirley Abrahamson vs. Randy Kschnick $577,000</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">2011 David Prosser vs. JoAnne Kloppenburg&nbsp; $4.5 million</span></div><div>
</div><div>2013 Pat Roggensack vs. Ed Fallone $1.2 million</div><div>
</div><div>2015: Ann Walsh Bradley vs. James P. Daley $171,000</div><div>
</div><div>2016: Rebecca Bradley vs. Janne Kloppenburg $3.43 million</div><div>
</div><div>2018 Rebecca Dallet vs. Michael Screnock $2.8 million</div><div>
</div><div><b>2019: Brian Hagedorn vs. Lisa Neubauer $4.5 million</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">2020: Jill Karofsky vs. Daniel Kelly $5 million</span></div><div>
</div><div>source: Wisconsin Democracy Campaign</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>Niess also had a run-in with the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2014 when the Court ordered him to dismiss a challenge to the voter ID law by the League of Women Voters. He refused,</b>&nbsp;instead recusing himself, writing that he believed following the court’s order would violate his oath to uphold the state constitution. He then was threatened with sanction in an unsuccessful complaint before the state Judicial Commission.</div><div>“As a judge, I was not at liberty to freely comment on these disturbing trends without the potential for retribution from the Court,” he says.</div><div>
</div><div>To Wisconsin attorney Dean Strang, the biggest loss to Wisconsin courts as they become increasingly politicized is not so much ideological as it is a more general decline of integrity.</div><div>
</div><div>“The consistent media fallacy in discussing the Wisconsin Supreme Court is that there is a liberal minority on it. There is not,” he says. “There is a conservative, often retrenching, majority. And then there is a moderate, pragmatic minority.”</div><div>
</div><div>Conservatives and reactionary populists have shifted the ideological spectrum so far to the right that mere moderation now is mistaken as a leftist threat</div><div>
</div><div>– Attorney Dean Strang</div><div>
</div><div><b>After Abrahamson, “the court no longer has any liberal voice at all,” he says.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">He sees the media shorthand, citing “liberal” and “conservative” justices, as part of a broader, dispiriting trend. “Conservatives and reactionary populists have shifted the ideological spectrum so far to the right that mere moderation now is mistaken as a leftist threat,” he says.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The proxy partisan warfare in court races has also endangered intellectual honesty and the unbiased assessment of the facts — hallmarks of a good appellate judges, Strang adds.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>That’s not to say that he agrees with<b>&nbsp;doctrine of “originalism” promoted by the Federalist Society</b>, which he describes as “the claim that judging is like archaeology: that judges simply dig carefully through books until they ‘find’ the law, as if it were some buried shard of ancient pottery.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Instead, a good judge is like an architect, he says, constrained by the text of the law and by precedent the same way an architect is constrained by the laws of physics and engineering, and using the facts of a case&nbsp;</b>“as the site for a construction of law that features the highest ideals that our constitution and legal culture profess.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Instead, our current judicial system seems to be moving in the opposite direction, digging for money, eyes on the ground.</b></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>