{"id":625,"date":"2026-06-17T18:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=625"},"modified":"2026-06-17T18:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:10:16","slug":"billionaires-know-just-how-they-want-supreme-court-justices-to-rule-and-are-spending-big-to-tell-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=625","title":{"rendered":"Billionaires Know Just How They Want Supreme Court Justices to Rule\u2014and Are Spending Big to Tell Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div><ul><li><span>Share on Facebook<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Share on Twitter<\/span><\/li><li><i><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n<svg>\n<\/svg><\/i><span>Share on Bluesky<\/span><\/li><li><span>Email<\/span><\/li><li><span>Comments<\/span><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>Last June, <\/span>the Supreme Court gave a gift to the fossil fuel industry, whose proceeds have not only lined the pockets of some of the United States\u2019 wealthiest men, but which those men have in turn invested in the creation of a right-wing Supreme Court. In <em>Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA<\/em>, seven justices made it easier for the industry to sue the government over regulations it dislikes, granting polluters access to the courts that the justices have routinely denied to ordinary Americans.\u00a0<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=622\">The Iran War Isn\u2019t Ending Any Time Soon<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn\u2019t let the apparent bias go unnoted. \u201cThe Constitution does not distinguish between plaintiffs whose claims are backed by the Chamber of Commerce and those who seek to vindicate their rights,\u201d Jackson . \u201cBut if someone reviewing our case law harbored doubts about that proposition, today\u2019s decision will do little to dissuade them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The case was a sleepy one, obscured in the maelstrom of consequential end-of-term rulings. But the fossil fuel industry, the Chamber of Commerce, and dozens of ideological allies were well aware of the opportunity it presented. They had petitioned the court to take the case in an unusually high 13 amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs. Once the court accepted the case, the same slew of groups returned, filing new amicus briefs pushing the justices to bestow what amounted to a special privilege to a favored industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Jackson warned, it\u2019s hard to view it as a coincidence that a Supreme Court majority built on fossil fuel money went out of its way to help the industry. Indeed, the case is emblematic of a broader distortion of American law. Billionaires and the industries they run have a well-monied thumb on the scales of justice, an oligarchic influence operation that, among other tactics, funds a flood of amici to push the justices toward a preferred outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The number of these briefs has  dramatically in recent years and now routinely tops 800 per term\u2014an eightfold increase since the 1950s and about double the number from 1995. This uptick has also coincided with the court reducing its docket by about 35 percent since 1995. While the briefs, which present arguments from interested parties other than the litigants, are inherently something of a sideshow, academic researchers have found that the justices have been citing them more frequently and, according to plagiarism detection software, sometimes lift significant sentences, phrases, and ideas from amicus briefs without citation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The amount spent on the briefs is likewise reaching new heights. To get a sense of that figure, True North Research, a progressive court watchdog, assembled IRS and FEC data on amicus filers in 25 major cases since 2022, including two consolidated cases. After vetting and supplementing their data, our analysis shows that a small number of conservative billionaires and funding networks have funneled $1.3 billion to 111 groups that filed 626 amicus briefs in just these cases. Not all that money funds legal budgets or those briefs, and some groups file many more than others. In that sense, our research captures the larger outflow of money from this small, ultra-wealthy cadre to the conservative legal ecosystem. However, the volume of amicus briefs filed by these groups demonstrates the Supreme Court\u2019s central role in this movement. Our survey\u2014which covers just a set of cases, counts only donations visible through public filings, and excludes the large and growing quantities filtered through certain dark money vehicles\u2014is intrinsically a low-range estimate of the money that right-wing billionaires have spent to reshape the law to serve their ideological agenda and bottom lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is about really, really wealthy people who have very strong preferences for the direction of American law, and they don\u2019t want to be out in the sunshine. They want to avoid any type of transparency,\u201d says Paul Collins, a University of Massachusetts Amherst political scientist who studies the conservative legal movement. \u201cIt\u2019s a multifaceted strategy,\u201d he explains, with \u201cthe amicus curiae part of it as just a cog in a much larger machine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span>The amicus influence <\/span>apparatus can be seen as a later phase of a decades-long,\u00a0 billionaire-funded operation to take control of the Supreme Court. It dates back to the George W. Bush administration, when, in late 2004, Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo convened a dinner in Washington, DC, whose guests included mortgage mogul Robin Arkley II and Supreme\u00a0Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Bush had just won his second term, and the goal of the meeting was to ensure he would be able to fill high court vacancies. At the restaurant, Leo seated Arkley next to Scalia\u2014a taste of the access and influence the tycoon could have if he helped fund an effort to put more conservatives on the court.<\/p>\n<p>Leo is a singular figure in American legal history; a friend to judges, billionaires, and corporations, with power and influence to pick Supreme Court justices and change the law through his extensive and well-financed right-wing network. The dinner sparked the creation of two groups that would spend millions to boost Bush\u2019s nominees and later oppose President Barack Obama\u2019s: the Judicial Confirmation Network and Judicial Education Project. They remain part of Leo\u2019s now-expansive operation to install hardcore conservatives at every level of the state and federal courts, all funded by the deep pockets of America\u2019s wealthiest tycoons. At the Supreme Court, Leo fought for justices who would shift the law in favor of business and the wealthy, overturn <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>, and push conservative Christian values on all Americans. He was instrumental in orchestrating the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito in 2005 and 2006, using JCN, which he had just helped establish with Arkley\u2019s money.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During his first term, President Donald Trump brought Leo out from behind the curtain, entrusting him with drafting a list from which he would pick Supreme Court justices. And so we got Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Since Leo had also helped secure Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019 1991 confirmation, it\u2019s safe to say that Leo has played a key role in creating the court\u2019s Republican-appointed majority\u2014the six justices who ended the right to abortion, gave Trump criminal immunity, destroyed the Voting Rights Act, and allowed nearly two dozen illegal policies to move forward in Trump\u2019s first year back in office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The relationship among Leo, wealthy funders, and their favorite justices remained cozy, as reporting by ProPublica and others began to detail in 2023. Arkley hosted Alito at his luxury Alaskan lodge in 2008, and the justice flew there on a private jet provided by hedge fund billionaire and Republican megadonor Paul Singer. Three years earlier, Arkley had spirited Scalia to Alaska for a fishing retreat. Thomas used his connections to billionaires, including Harlan Crow, to pay for fancy vacations, his mother\u2019s home, his great-nephew\u2019s tuition, and films and monuments depicting his greatness. To memorialize the crew, Crow commissioned an oil painting that showed him sharing cigars with Leo and Thomas. Leo has also funneled money to Thomas\u2019 wife. And he\u2019s worked closely with the billionaire Koch brothers, even arranging for Scalia and Thomas to attend Koch donor network retreats. At a 2018 Federalist Society event, Thomas cracked himself up when he referred to Leo, who was also on stage, as the \u201cNo. 3 most powerful person in the world.\u201d He probably wasn\u2019t joking.<\/p>\n<p>Leo\u2019s campaign to shape the law didn\u2019t stop at picking justices or showering them with luxury perks. Back in the 1990s, Leo had learned that even Republican appointees could fail to follow through on long-term conservative goals after joining the bench, including ending the right to abortion\u2014Justice David Souter proved a particular disappointment\u2014and decided it was pivotal to maintain a full court press. Leo was not the only conservative to reach that conclusion: The Rev. Rob Schenck, a former evangelical activist, has described crafting what he called a \u201cMinistry of Emboldenment,\u201d which included surrounding the justices with wealthy donors who wanted the court to overturn <em>Roe<\/em>, so that, suffused with encouragement, they would not balk<em>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne wonders to some extent if those luxury vacations that Justices Alito and Thomas have been at the receiving end of would be as frequent if they weren\u2019t such consistent conservatives,\u201d Collins says. \u201cWhen justices go to the Federalist Society galas, they\u2019re treated like movie stars\u2026It does perform that reinforcing factor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The flood of amicus briefs to the court can serve a similar purpose: They buoy the justices\u2019 proclivities in an overwhelming sea of agreement\u2014thanks, in large part, to Leo\u2019s funding of an army of groups that file them. In 2020, Leo renamed the two organizations he had begun after that 2004 dinner. One became the Concord Fund, under the direction of his close ally Carrie Severino, a former Thomas clerk. The other became the 85 Fund. And whilethe news wouldn\u2019t become public for another two years, at the same time, Leo was in the process of receiving possibly the largest political donation in American history: $1.6 billion from Barre Seid, a Chicago electronics manufacturer. The money went into a mysterious Leo entity called the Marble Freedom Trust, whose payments to the Concord Fund and 85 Fund were routinely first filtered through other dark money accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Between 2017 and 2024, these and other Leo-tied funding vehicles dispersed $69 million to 36 groups filing amicus briefs in the cases examined by True North Research. Billionaire Charles Koch\u2019s network, which Leo has long tapped, sent more than $1 billion to at least 61 amicus filers in those cases over the same period. (These numbers include donations that are visible on the funders\u2019 IRS 990 filings; they do not account for the untold amount sent in dark money, but more on that later.) The briefs help manufacture the appearance of an outpouring of support for transforming the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All but one of the funders declined to comment on their financial backing of groups that file amicus briefs. \u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s decisions address critical questions,\u201d wrote a spokesperson for Stand Together, a Koch-affiliated group. \u201cIt is a routine and well-established part of our federal legal system for organizations concerned with these issues to participate as amici before the Court. These briefs are publicly filed and their arguments available for review by anyone. Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Stand Together partners often join organizations across the ideological spectrum in advocating for free speech, separation of powers, protections for the criminally accused, and other issues. Any suggestion that participation in the amicus process is unique to a particular set of organizations or limited only to advancing the views of a specific political party is simply false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span>Critics say the <\/span>conservative legal movement wields its well-funded amicus machine as part of a broader strategy that\u2019s winning right-wing policy goals. \u201cYou had this concerted effort to get these judges confirmed to reverse the law, to change the law,\u201d says Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research. \u201cAnd then you have these groups come in as the chorus, saying, \u2018Yeah, change the law.\u2019\u201d (Graves is on the board of the Park Foundation, which has supported <em>Mother Jones.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an echo chamber within the court process where they\u2019re throwing their voice through multiple groups. They are having a disproportionate impact,\u201d Graves says. \u201cGiven the vast expansion of wealth disparity in recent years, it\u2019s pennies on the dollar for them to have that kind of influence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Leo and Koch aren\u2019t the only power brokers spending money to influence the justices. Billionaires Richard Uihlein and Jeffrey Yass, both major Republican donors, spent nearly $82 million and $26 million, respectively, through their own funding networks on groups filing amicus briefs in the 25 surveyed cases. (Again, these totals do not account for the millions flowing through dark money vehicles.) The Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation, a major funder of far-right and anti-union activity, has poured $75.6 million into 62 groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe aria-label=\"Stacked column chart\" data-external=\"1\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"547\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-PEIrW\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/PEIrW\/1\/\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" title=\"Paying the Piper\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Leo, Koch, Uihlein, Yass, and Bradley Foundation funding networks combined to give $1.3 billion to the 111 groups filing amicus briefs on the conservative side in the sampled cases. That eye-popping number includes approximately $818 million in donations to Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF), the centerpiece of Koch\u2019s right-wing funding network, with the money coming largely from other Koch-affiliated groups. AFPF filed 10 briefs in the 25 sampled cases. That left half a billion dollars divided among the other 110 groups. Thirty-five groups filed six or more briefs and received a total of $136 million. A few of the largest recipients are conservative Catholic colleges and universities, including the Catholic University of America and the University of Notre Dame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, the Roberts court has handed major victories to this well-heeled coalition. For the religious right\u2014a major source of money for these amicus filers\u2014the court has ended the right to abortion, allowed prayer and religious influence in public schools, permitted businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people, brought back conversion therapy, and let states ban medical care for transgender minors. For corporations and the rich, the court has transformed the judiciary into an escape hatch from government oversight, empowering businesses to sue federal agencies and authorizing judges to strike down more regulations. At the same time, the court has repeatedly chipped away at the power of labor unions. It has also done the Republican Party many favors, inventing legal doctrines to knock down Democratic priorities, attacking the electoral power of Democratic voters, blessing extreme partisan and racial gerrymandering, and bailing Trump out of a criminal trial for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p><span>The Supreme Court <\/span>is not an innocent target of the billionaires\u2019 influence operation; it loaded the gun. In 2010, the justices lifted spending limits on corporations seeking to influence elections, as long as they weren\u2019t donating directly to a political party or candidate. Thus began our modern era of billion-dollar elections paid for by super PACs and shady nonprofits, bankrolled by billionaires like Koch and now-trillionaire Elon Musk. The court\u2019s infamous <em>Citizens United v. FEC<\/em> decision led to unlimited donations to groups that purport to act independently of a candidate or party.The shift has been dramatic: According to the <em>New York Times<\/em>, in 2008, political donations from billionaires made up just 0.3 percent of all election contributions. In 2024, the figure was 19 percent, surpassing $3 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The five justices who signed onto <em>Citizens United <\/em>rested this new era of massive political spending on two thin reeds of logic. First, they insisted it would not lead to quid pro quo corruption because the money would go to outside groups, not campaigns. Second, they argued any corrupting influence would be kept at bay because all the new spending would be subject to disclosure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both promises proved fanciful. Politicians are happy to reward super PACs\u2019 donations with policies their patrons want, even if the money didn\u2019t directly go into the lawmaker\u2019s own campaign account. Musk\u2019s $290 million contribution to Trump\u2019s reelection by way of a super PAC was rewarded with a four-month White House perch from which he destroyed multiple federal agencies. (This term, the court is considering whether to allow more coordination between candidates and political parties, which would signal that the court itself no longer cares about the arms-length construct key to its <em>Citizens United <\/em>logic.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Transparency was likewise fleeting. Political donors quickly began funneling cash through nonprofits that hid their identities, leaving American governance to be increasingly shaped by unknown spending. \u201cSince <em>Citizens United<\/em>, we\u2019ve seen so much money flow into politics,\u201d says Michael Beckel, who researches political spending for Issue One, a nonpartisan group pushing pro-democracy reforms. \u201cPeople figured out that you could put money into ostensibly charitable giving vehicles\u2026and your name is never going to be attached to that contribution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=619\">Elon Musk: The World\u2019s Worst Trillionaire<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The justices themselves have made an about-face on transparency. Whereas in <em>Citizens United<\/em>, they found that the First Amendment demanded limitless, but not anonymous, spending, in 2021\u2019s <em>Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta<\/em>, the justices  a plea for donor privacy from the behemoth Koch group\u2014propped up by dozens of amicus briefs submitted by other Koch-funded groups. In ruling that the First Amendment may actually protect anonymous giving, Chief Justice John Robertsturned donor and membership privacy from a long-held exception to the new default.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn deciding nonprofit donors\u2019 alleged right to anonymity, the Court would directly impact the ability of dark-money donors to continue shaping judicial outcomes,\u201d Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)\u2014the most prominent critic of what he\u2019s called the right\u2019s \u201cflotillas of amicus briefs\u201d\u2014wrote in a <em>Yale Law Journal<\/em> essay in 2021. \u201cThe size of the <em>AFPF<\/em> flotilla also functioned as a signaling device: it told the ideologically aligned members of the Court that a \u2018correct\u2019 outcome in this case was more urgent than it might otherwise have seemed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When Roberts ruled for the foundation\u2019s donors\u2019 right to anonymity, he was protecting influence operations targeted at his own court. The same charity vehicles that allowed wealthy donors to scrub their fingerprints from political spending, including donor-advised funds (DAFs), now sustain the right\u2019s amicus machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<h3><span>How the Money Moves<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><em>Explore the opaque right-wing funding networks that backed amicus briefs submitted in 25 Supreme Court cases.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Melissa Lewis\" class=\"wp-image-624\" height=\"460\" src=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2c8e0d745c6993f905bda8e75cdd6cce.webp\" width=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2c8e0d745c6993f905bda8e75cdd6cce.webp 460w, https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2c8e0d745c6993f905bda8e75cdd6cce-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2c8e0d745c6993f905bda8e75cdd6cce-150x150.webp 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n      Melissa Lewis\n    \n\n      Billionaire Friends of the Court\n    \n<\/div>\n<svg>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><!-- .p-like to keep at content width-->\n<!-- taken from original iframe source-->\n<\/div>\n<p>Political funders on both the left and right place money in DAFs, which then dispense it, hiding the donor\u2019s identity. \u201cDonor-advised funds are absolutely black holes of money,\u201d Beckel says. Leo and other conservative billionaires move money through explicitly conservative DAFs, including DonorsTrust, the National Christian Charitable Foundation, and the Bradley Impact Fund, as well as those administered by major financial institutions, including Charles Schwab and Fidelity. Their grants to groups filing amicus briefs have skyrocketed over the last five years. When we calculated the amount of money flowing from these DAFs to the amicus filers urging the conservative position in these 25 cases, the number we got was almost too high to take seriously; at nearly $3 billion, the figure certainly captured the larger spending on the conservative movement flowing from this small number of billionaires. It also likely captured some money that would be cycled back into DAFs before reaching its final destination, possibly leading to some double counting. To get a sense of the money flowing from DAFs to the groups frequently petitioning the court, we narrowed the donations to groups that had filed at least eight briefs in the 25 cases. Between 2017 and 2024, these 23 groups received $180 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The biggest receiver of DAF money, with $601 million, was the 85 Fund and the Honest Elections Project, Leo-controlled groups that filed just two briefs, but likely cycles some of that money to other conservative groups, possibly through more DAFs, including several groups that are frequent filers. A half a billion in DAF money went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. While that almost certainly captures a swath of donations beyond legal activities, the Mormon Church\u00a0did file amicus briefs in five cases we sampled. Some of the most frequent filers receive significant donations from DAFs and little or no traceable donations from major conservative funding networks. America First Legal Foundation, the Stephen Miller\u2013created group, has taken in $57 million in dark money, routed through the Bradley Impact Fund and DonorsTrust, but no traceable donations from any of these funders. The Family Policy Alliance, which filed 10 briefs in the examined cases, and affiliates have taken in $14 million from DAFs. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Thomas More Society, Christian Legal Society, Liberty Counsel, and American Center for Law &amp; Justice\u2014all conservative Christian groups\u2014contributed 45 briefs in the cases and took in nearly all their donations from these networks, $30 million that we tracked, through DAFs.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, the Supreme Court decided a major case for the tycoons who sit atop American industry. In <em>Loper Bright<\/em> <em>Enterprises v. Raimondo<\/em>, the justices reversed a long-standing legal doctrine known as Chevron deference, whereby courts deferred to federal agency decisions in disputes in which the statutory text is ambiguous. The court\u2019s 6\u20133 majority ditched the doctrine, declaring open season on federal regulations that businesses don\u2019t like, a gift of incalculable savings to the billionaires who supported the bloc\u2019s rise and embellished the lifestyles of a core of its members. The court received 59 amicus briefs urging the court to end deference to agencies in <em>Loper Bright<\/em> and a consolidated case decided alongside it. More than half\u201434\u2014were signed by groups that have benefited from Leo, Koch, Yass, Uihlein, and the Bradley Foundation. The 34 briefs were double the number\u201417\u2014filed by groups that don\u2019t appear to be directly funded by these networks. The effect is an overwhelming show of support for a significant change in the law that is quietly funded, at least in part, by a small number of the superrich who will benefit from their newfound ability to roll back regulation. They will certainly benefit more than the amount they have given the groups behind these briefs since 2017: $196 million. This does not include hundreds of millions more to these and other groups from DAFs with connections to these funders.<\/p>\n<p>Just three days later, the justices gave industry another big gift: Having made it easier for judges to knock down regulations, the court then shredded the statute of limitations for suing to overturn a regulation. Suddenly, regulations on the books for decades could be challenged. The groups that filed seven amicus briefs in this case, <em>Corner Post<\/em> <em>v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System<\/em>, received $939 million from the conservative court megafunders, a towering number related to\u00a0Koch\u2019s Americans for Prosperity Foundation\u2019s presence on the docket. The next year, the court took cases that again made it easier for corporations to get through the courthouse door to challenge regulations, which it did in both the <em>Diamond Alternative Energy <\/em>fossil fuel case and another in which the justices came to the aid of a tobacco industry challenge to the FDA.<\/p>\n<p>Big business isn\u2019t the only big winner at the court. These billionaire amicus funders are dedicated to taking away rights from women and disfavored minorities. In 2023, for example, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right Christian legal group, represented a web designer who didn\u2019t want to make wedding sites for same-sex couples. ADF, which received $105 million from the DAFs we tracked between 2017 and 2024 and another $1.7 million in Koch funding, spent years looking for a case to weaken public accommodation laws and allow businesses to discriminate. It finally hit the jackpot with the 6\u20133 majority Trump helped engineer in his first term with the case <em>303 Creative v. Elenis<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A whopping 58 amicus briefs were filed at the Supreme Court in support of ADF. According to True North Research\u2019s data, more than a third of the briefs from groups in support of ADF came from groups that had received funding from the constellation of Leo, Koch, Yass, Uihlein, and the Bradley Foundation. The total amount those funders gave to the groups behind those briefs in the six years leading up to the case was nearly half a billion dollars. Just one year later, that number would reach nearly $714 million. This number, again, reflects the Koch network\u2019s massive funding of Americans for Prosperity Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The year before, ADF had orchestrated the litigation that would finally overturn <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>. Sixty-one briefs from groups urged the court to end the constitutional right to abortion<em>; <\/em>a third were signed by groups that had taken in $23 million in the preceding five years from the conservative funding networks. When the court ended affirmative action in higher education in 2023, the groups pushing that result through amici had received more than $44 million through 2022. The groups that won the fight to end medical care for transgender minors in 2025 got over $47.5 million. The groups pushing to end the Voting Rights Act this term took in $17.8 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, law professors Allison Orr Larsen and Neal Devins published \u201cThe Amicus Machine,\u201d a paper detailing how the briefs are coordinated by elite lawyers who regularly practice at the high court. Counsel in Supreme Court cases, they found, often employ an amicus \u201cwrangler\u201d to find and coordinate groups and individuals to file, and an amicus \u201cwhisperer\u201d to help shape the briefs\u2019 arguments. Even at the time of the now-decade-old study, they found that amicus briefs were growing in number and influence. This wasn\u2019t necessarily bad, the authors concluded; if the court was going to rely on amicus briefs, perhaps lawyers whose careers relied on good relations with the justices would responsibly shepherd the process.<\/p>\n<p>But top litigators weren\u2019t the only ones coordinating amicus briefs. In late 2014, a staffer at the Bradley Foundation reached out to Leo, according to emails that were later hacked and leaked, to ask whether there were any tax-exempt groups Bradley could route funds to in \u201csupport of two Supreme Court amicusprojects.\u201d Leo responded that an amicus brief written by a top lawyer would cost $250,000 and that the money could be sent to one of his groups. Bradley ended up sending $150,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When Collins, the UMass political scientist, first heard about an amicus machine, \u201cI thought we were sort of in conspiracy theory land,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t really envision a world where hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent on these lobbying efforts. It just didn\u2019t seem like it would be worth it to me. But then I started to see the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people who are critics of my own work say these briefs don\u2019t matter,\u201d says Larsen, a professor at William &amp; Mary Law School. \u201cBut the justices are using them, and the money is paying for them.\u201d That\u2019s all the proof you need.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<footer>\n<section><h3>Don\u2019t just click away.<\/h3>\n<p>We need your help. We\u2019re halfway through our Summer Membership Drive, and only $35,000 toward our $200,000 goal. But there\u2019s good news: <strong><span>This week only, every donation will be doubled, up to $50,000, thanks to a generous reader<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s <strong>twice the impact<\/strong> for intrepid reporting that peels back the layers to publish the truth\u2014and the context you need to break it all down. It\u2019s <strong>twice the fuel<\/strong> for investigations on voting rights and justice, critical in this midterm election year. And it\u2019s <strong>twice the power<\/strong> for exposing the chaos and corruption of a White House trying to control the narrative.<\/p>\n<p><span>This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. And every donation will be doubled<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We cannot do this work without you. Join the fight. 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We\u2019re halfway through our Summer Membership Drive, and only $35,000 toward our $200,000 goal. But there\u2019s good news: <strong><span>This week only, every donation will be doubled, up to $50,000, thanks to a generous reader<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s <strong>twice the impact<\/strong> for intrepid reporting that peels back the layers to publish the truth\u2014and the context you need to break it all down. It\u2019s <strong>twice the fuel<\/strong> for investigations on voting rights and justice, critical in this midterm election year. And it\u2019s <strong>twice the power<\/strong> for exposing the chaos and corruption of a White House trying to control the narrative.<\/p>\n<p><span>This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. And every donation will be doubled<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We cannot do this work without you. Join the fight. Double your donation to defend democracy<\/strong>.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=616\">Judge Says EPA Illegally Cancelled a $2.8 Billion Environmental Justice Program<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<button>One-Time<\/button>\n<button>Monthly<\/button>\n<\/div><!--.row-->\n<div>\n<button>$35<\/button>\n<button>$50<\/button>\n<button>$100<\/button>\n<\/div><!--.row-->\n<div>\n<button>Other Amount<\/button>\n<\/div><!--.row-->\n<div>\n<button>Continue<\/button>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Available payment methods include Visa, Master Card, Discover, and Paypal.\" class=\"wp-image-90\" height=\"60\" src=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b47c6c719a6fe58d605cda1de8991918.png\" width=\"471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b47c6c719a6fe58d605cda1de8991918.png 471w, https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b47c6c719a6fe58d605cda1de8991918-300x38.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 471px) 100vw, 471px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<\/div><!--.row-->\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/footer><!-- .entry-footer -->\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How \u201cfriend of the court\u201d filings became a cog in the right\u2019s push to control the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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