There’s more dark money being poured into state Supreme Court races. Last week, we found out that the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is spending $2 million on these races, with dark money funding. That started a trend, because a new ultra-conservative PAC is jumping in with a plan to spend $22.5 million on judicial races in seven states.
One of those states is Kentucky where it plans to spend $1.6 million through Fair Courts American-Kentucky, a PAC under the umbrella of another arm money group, Restoration of America. It’s got an arm called Fair Courts America, that will be running the campaign to install rightwing state supreme courts. The Courier Journal accessed the group's 12-page plan for its story Friday. (That file appears to have been removed as of this writing. Maybe they didn’t like the sunlight suddenly exposing them.)
“We are the only national conservative organization battling the Left in state court fights,” the plan said, according to the Courier-Journal. The PAC's targets include “Democrat-controlled courts who invent law out of thin air and left-wing prosecutors who refuse to lift a finger to bring criminals to justice—or simply let them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” it says. “America will soon cease to be a nation of laws if this is allowed to continue.”
Help in the fight against that. If you’ve got $10 or $100 to spare, you can help keep democracy alive in the state supreme courts.
Campaign Action
That’s what they say, but of course, that’s not what this group—and the guy they put in charge of the task, Doug Truax—is really behind. Truax is a failed Senate candidate in Illinois—he vied for Dick Durbin’s seat in 2014. He has also headed up a group called the Voter Reference Foundation with a pack financed by Chicago-based conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein, founder of the huge Wisconsin-based packaging supply company Uline. The main aim of that group has been pushing voter fraud claims in the 2020 election and pushing the Big Lie.
Because of course it comes back to a right-wing welfare recipient who’s been out there pushing the Big LIe.
That’s not the only group Truax has headed up, though. He’s also in charge of the Voter Reference Foundation, another project of Restoration Action, the subject of a ProPublica investigation earlier this year. It too is funded by billionaire Uihlein.
That group is “analyzing state voter rolls in search of discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters credited by the rolls as having participated in the Nov. 3, 2020 election.” It is also releasing “names, birthdates, addresses and voting histories,” of voters. “Visitors to the VoteRef site are able to scroll through data on more than 106 million people in a free, easy-to-use format,” ProPublica found. “The VoteRef data includes personal identifying information of every voter and the years they voted, but not how they voted.”
Back to the judges' project, the group is going to spend more of what is probably Uihlein’s money—$21 million worth—in six other states: Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. It is appealing for donors to give “at least $1,000” to the cause, to give it the gloss of having at least some other “grassroots” donors. The money there is going to be virtually unlimited, though. Fair Courts America’s plan brags that it’s part of Restoration PAC, “the third-largest conservative super PAC in the country,” surpassed only by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, and the old-school Club for Growth.
It just so happens that Daily Kos is also working in three of those states—Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio—to protect progressive majorities. You know, courts that will hand down fair decisions on issues like abortion, workers’ rights, environmental protection, police brutality, and critically voting access. You can bet the right-wing dark money is pouring into these races to make sure decisions on all those issues go their way.
Note as well that these are battleground states in national elections and that in his other Uihlein-funded enterprises, Truax is committed to making sure the vote goes Trump’s way. That’s a project that will be a lot easier if his team owns the state courts making elections decisions.
It doesn’t take millions to win these races—it can be done with the kind of money Daily Kos can raise, so don’t be discouraged to see these millions in the most-shadowy dark money there is being poured in.
Please contribute what you can to these fantastic candidates, and help keep our democracy functioning and out of the clutches of the right.
Good judges are more important now than ever. In some states, judges are on the ballot this November. In this episode of The Downballot, we shine a spotlight on elections for state supreme courts: actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Together, Daily Kos and Julia are proud to announce their endorsement of seven Democratic candidates running for closely divided courts in Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio. You can support this slate by going to JusticewithJulia.com and donating today.
Embedded Content
One of those states is Kentucky where it plans to spend $1.6 million through Fair Courts American-Kentucky, a PAC under the umbrella of another arm money group, Restoration of America. It’s got an arm called Fair Courts America, that will be running the campaign to install rightwing state supreme courts. The Courier Journal accessed the group's 12-page plan for its story Friday. (That file appears to have been removed as of this writing. Maybe they didn’t like the sunlight suddenly exposing them.)
“We are the only national conservative organization battling the Left in state court fights,” the plan said, according to the Courier-Journal. The PAC's targets include “Democrat-controlled courts who invent law out of thin air and left-wing prosecutors who refuse to lift a finger to bring criminals to justice—or simply let them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” it says. “America will soon cease to be a nation of laws if this is allowed to continue.”
Help in the fight against that. If you’ve got $10 or $100 to spare, you can help keep democracy alive in the state supreme courts.
Campaign Action
That’s what they say, but of course, that’s not what this group—and the guy they put in charge of the task, Doug Truax—is really behind. Truax is a failed Senate candidate in Illinois—he vied for Dick Durbin’s seat in 2014. He has also headed up a group called the Voter Reference Foundation with a pack financed by Chicago-based conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein, founder of the huge Wisconsin-based packaging supply company Uline. The main aim of that group has been pushing voter fraud claims in the 2020 election and pushing the Big Lie.
Because of course it comes back to a right-wing welfare recipient who’s been out there pushing the Big LIe.
That’s not the only group Truax has headed up, though. He’s also in charge of the Voter Reference Foundation, another project of Restoration Action, the subject of a ProPublica investigation earlier this year. It too is funded by billionaire Uihlein.
That group is “analyzing state voter rolls in search of discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters credited by the rolls as having participated in the Nov. 3, 2020 election.” It is also releasing “names, birthdates, addresses and voting histories,” of voters. “Visitors to the VoteRef site are able to scroll through data on more than 106 million people in a free, easy-to-use format,” ProPublica found. “The VoteRef data includes personal identifying information of every voter and the years they voted, but not how they voted.”
Back to the judges' project, the group is going to spend more of what is probably Uihlein’s money—$21 million worth—in six other states: Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. It is appealing for donors to give “at least $1,000” to the cause, to give it the gloss of having at least some other “grassroots” donors. The money there is going to be virtually unlimited, though. Fair Courts America’s plan brags that it’s part of Restoration PAC, “the third-largest conservative super PAC in the country,” surpassed only by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, and the old-school Club for Growth.
It just so happens that Daily Kos is also working in three of those states—Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio—to protect progressive majorities. You know, courts that will hand down fair decisions on issues like abortion, workers’ rights, environmental protection, police brutality, and critically voting access. You can bet the right-wing dark money is pouring into these races to make sure decisions on all those issues go their way.
Note as well that these are battleground states in national elections and that in his other Uihlein-funded enterprises, Truax is committed to making sure the vote goes Trump’s way. That’s a project that will be a lot easier if his team owns the state courts making elections decisions.
It doesn’t take millions to win these races—it can be done with the kind of money Daily Kos can raise, so don’t be discouraged to see these millions in the most-shadowy dark money there is being poured in.
Please contribute what you can to these fantastic candidates, and help keep our democracy functioning and out of the clutches of the right.
Good judges are more important now than ever. In some states, judges are on the ballot this November. In this episode of The Downballot, we shine a spotlight on elections for state supreme courts: actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Together, Daily Kos and Julia are proud to announce their endorsement of seven Democratic candidates running for closely divided courts in Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio. You can support this slate by going to JusticewithJulia.com and donating today.
Embedded Content