Judicial Crisis Network’s Push for a Conservative Judiciary
Brennan Center
Judicial Crisis Network’s Push for a Conservative Judiciary
A recent article in The Sacramento Bee http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=82131&qid=5037999 by Peter Stone and Viveca Novak profiled the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a special interest group that has spent heavily over the last few years in an effort to shape state courts. Since its creation in 2008, the group has honed in “on state judicial branch races … pouring millions of dollars into helping to elect conservative supreme court justices in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and like-minded attorneys general in several states.” The JCN has also been involved in the federal judicial selection process, pushing for the confirmations of Justices Roberts and Alito and opposing the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. “The organization’s focus on the judicial branch of government is part of an effort by the GOP and business groups to spend big to create a friendlier legal environment, one that often is couched as ‘judicial restraint,’ is sympathetic to small government and limits tort liability for business.”
