Charles Pierce: The Supreme Court Has Deformed Our Politics at Every Level [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a45080137/ginni-thomas-leonard-leo-citizens-united/

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https://archive.ph/gURty

Over the weekend, Heidi Przybyla of Politico blew a very loud whistle on the cozy relationship between Federalist Society puppetmaster Leonard Leo, crackpot political activist Ginni Thomas, and the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States in the person of Ginni's husband, Justice Clarence Thomas. The initial revelation lies right there in the very first anecdote in the story. It all comes back to Citizens United v. FEC, the egregious 2010 decision that legalized political influence-peddling and protected the free speech rights of bagmen and their customers. Turns out that Leo and Thomas knew enough about what was coming down from the bench to get a well-financed operation up and running in advance of the eventual decision.

In the months before the ruling dropped in January of that year, a group of conservative activists came together to create just such an organization. Its mission would be to, at the time, block then-President Barack Obama’s pet initiatives. The activists included Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo and his ideological soulmate, a hard-edged activist named Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“Ginni really wanted to build an organization and be a movement leader,” said a person familiar with her thinking at that time. “Leonard [Leo] was going to be the conduit of that.” She also had a rich backer: Harlan Crow, the manufacturing billionaire who had helped Thomas and her husband in many ways, from funding luxury vacations to picking up tuition payments for their great-nephew.

Oh, him again. What a marvelous mechanism for coincidence this is.

At the time, the Citizens United ruling was widely expected, as the court had already signaled its intentions. When it came, it upended nearly 100 years of campaign spending restrictions. The conservative legal movement seized the moment with greater success than any other group, and the consequences have shaped American jurisprudence and politics in dramatic ways.

*snip*