General Discussion

Skidmore

(37,364 posts) Sun Aug 19, 2018, 09:05 AM Aug 2018

An important and ignored front that really needs attention

Judicial appointments and AGs affect a myriad of issues and peoples. Have you heard of Judicial Cross Network? It also goes by Judicial Crisis Network. If not, you need to learn about them and pay attention to the issues and candidates they front, starting with Kavanaugh. They are the ones behind the glitzy Kavanaugh ads. Check your judicial and AG candidate hole and are playing for keeps. They had their fingerprints all over getting Gorsuch on the SC.

This is an article about them from 2015.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/03/the-jcn-story-building-a-secretive-gop-judicial-machine/

The JCN Story: Building a Secretive GOP Judicial Machine
By Viveca Novak and Peter Stone
March 23, 2015

It was a cold winter night in Washington, D.C., not long after President George W. Bush won a second term, and the mood at the upscale Italian restaurant was downright celebratory.

The most prominent guest was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but his table also boasted a mix of high-powered conservatives, including some deep-pocketed donors. Among the elite were Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, fundraiser and lawyer Ann Corkery, and California real estate magnate Robin Arkley II. “The big prize was to sit next to Scalia,” quipped one attendee at the soiree, adding that Arkley was one such lucky winner.

As it happened, the bash coincided with the birth of a new judicial advocacy outfit that Corkery was instrumental in launching, and Arkley in funding, according to conservative sources familiar with the events. The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN), set up as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” group that doesn’t disclose its donors, would prove to be a crucial player in drumming up support for Bush Supreme Court nominees John Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito Jr. — eventual allies for Scalia on the Court’s right flank.

In the years since, JCN’s modus operandi and battlegrounds have shifted — particularly since Barack Obama won the White House, which prompted the group to sound the alarm and change its name to the Judicial Crisis Network. In the ensuing years, not only has it fought to block Obama’s nominees to the high court, but it has spent millions to sway state judicial elections and attorneys general races, helping to uphold state laws backed by conservatives, nurture like-minded talent in the states, and advance pro-business, limited-government legal agendas aligned with its donors’ leanings....more

From 2017:

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/11/web-of-secret-money-hides-one-mega-donor-funding-conservative-court/

When a small nonprofit called the Judicial Crisis Network poured millions into a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick last year, and then spent millions more supporting President Donald Trump’s choice for the same seat, political observers assumed conservatives from around the country were showering the group with donations.

Not so.

Newly obtained tax documents show that JCN’s money came almost entirely from yet another secretive nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee, which flooded JCN with nearly $23.5 million in 2016.

Most of Wellspring’s funds, in turn, came from a single mysterious donor who gave the organization almost $28.5 million — nearly 90 percent of its $32.2 million in revenues. ...more

https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaires-try-to-buy-the-supreme-court
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/04/10/gorsuch_dark_money_benefactor_carrie_severino_shows_up_at_swearing_in.html