Democratic Lawmakers Demand Amy Coney Barrett Withdraw From Dark Money Case Involving Group That Backed Her Confirmation - Forbes

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Topline

Three Democratic lawmakers are urging U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from an upcoming case that will determine whether charities have to disclose their major donors, arguing she should not hear the case after the organization that brought it spent at least a million dollars supporting her Senate confirmation.

Key Facts

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez, which concerns so-called dark money groups and challenges a policy in California that requires charities to disclose their major donors.

Conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which is backed by the billionaire Charles Koch, lobbied senators to back Barrett’s confirmation to the high court, telling the Hill the amount spent on the campaign “would be in the seven figures.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) sent a letter to Barrett on April 16 calling for her to voluntarily recuse herself from the case, saying that “statute, constitutional case law, and common sense all would seem to require” it.

The lawmakers cited a past case in which a court required a justice in a similar situation to recuse themselves, ruling “there is a serious risk of actual bias...when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case.”

If Barrett does not recuse herself from the case, the lawmakers said she should at least give a “public explanation” for why she is not required to do so under federal law.

The Hill notes the Americans for Prosperity Foundation also spent seven figures supporting Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, though Whitehouse’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment on whether the lawmakers are also concerned about Kavanaugh’s participation in the case.

Crucial Quote

“The American people are alarmed about the seemingly dominant influence of special interests on our politics and government,” the lawmakers write in their letter, which was first reported Tuesday by USA Today. “And the AFP/AFPF operation’s ‘full scale campaign’ for your confirmation makes plain that our judiciary is a target of this massive influence apparatus.”

Chief Critic

Americans for Prosperity Foundation has not yet responded to a request for comment, nor has the Supreme Court responded to whether Barrett will recuse herself from the case. When Whitehouse asked Barrett about potentially recusing herself from the case during the Senate confirmation process, she said she “cannot commit to any particular conclusion on questions of recusal” hypothetically before being confirmed. “Such questions can only be answered through the judicial process,” she said. “I can, however, commit that I will faithfully apply the law of recusal.”

Key Background

Whitehouse and other lawmakers have long raised concerns about dark money and its influence on the judiciary and Supreme Court, with the Rhode Island senator drawing attention to the issue during Barrett’s confirmation hearing as a “pretty big deal.” “Something is not right around the court, and dark money has a lot to do with it,” Whitehouse said. Whitehouse and Johnson argued in an op-ed for Project Syndicate Monday that conservative groups such as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation donate money to install sympathetic judges, and then bring cases to the court and file coordinated amicus briefs as “the closing movement of a massive court-capture operation.” According to expert Senate testimony cited by the lawmakers, conservative activist Leonard Leo has spent more than $400 million on his campaign to influence the judiciary between 2014 and 2018 alone.