The Supreme Court, dominated for decades by Republican nominees, is systematically undermining democracy, most notably in cases like Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 decision that hamstrung key parts of the Voting Rights Act. A new case now under review, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, suggests that the Supreme Court’s war on democracy is about to escalate. As Vox reports, the court’s majority “spent Wednesday morning seemingly hunting for a reason to uphold a South Carolina congressional map that everyone agrees was gerrymandered to benefit the Republican Party.”

Under law, the courts have a mandate to overturn racial gerrymandering—but not partisan gerrymandering. The case in South Carolina involves a clear case of racial gerrymandering done for partisan reasons. Based on the questions asked by the conservative judges for the majority, it seems likely that once again laws protecting the voting rights of Black citizens will be restricted.

Beyond voting rights, the courts have been a bastion of reactionary policymaking, much more effective in advancing the domestic agenda of the right than the often gridlocked Congress or even the presidency (under the erratic leadership of figures like George W. Bush and Donald Trump).

On crucial issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, gun control, union rights, student loan relief, healthcare, and the functioning of the administrative state, the court consistently leans toward the hard right. The one person who bears the most responsibility for this is Leonard Leo, a long-time majordomo of the Federalist Society who is also in charge of a $1.6 billion nonprofit called the Marble Freedom Trust, tasked with promoting conservative and libertarian values. The news organization ProPublica has in recent months specialized in keeping track of the legal network Leo has created over the last few decades, with special attention to his services as a matchmaker helping Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito forge social ties with billionaires like Harlan Crow, Paul Singer, and Charles Koch.

Revelations about a tight social network between Supreme Court justices and billionaires has, of course, raised issues about conflicts of interest. While the potential corruption of these relationships is an important concern, these social networks are about more than just individual self-enrichment. They are about the creation of a coherent right-wing ideological network in the courts, not just at the highest level but also including the lower courts and district attorneys as well as Republican lawmakers.

Now, ProPublica—in a report written by Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz—shows how this ideological network actually came together, by surveying the career of Leonard Leo. Born in 1965, Leo rose through the ranks of movement conservatism, imbibing the peculiar legal doctrine of originalism in the service of religious traditionalism and capitalism. As an intern in Washington in 1985, he was particularly inspired by a speech on behalf of originalism by Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Ed Meese. According to Meese and Robert Bork, Reagan’s failed Supreme Court justice, originalism claimed to be a pro-democracy theory, one that would wrest power away from overweening activist judges and return it to lawmakers. In the speech that Leo credits with having an “enormous impact on my thinking,” Meese said, “There is danger in seeing the Constitution as an empty vessel into which each generation may pour its passion and prejudice.”

Another crucial turning point was the decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which limited parts of Roe v. Wade (1973) but affirmed the core constitutional right to abortion. A remarkable fact of this decision is that all five justices who upheld the right to abortion were Republican nominees (Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, and John P. Stevens). In fact, three authors of the decision (O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter) were all nominated by either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush, presidents who had courted the religious right far more than had previous Republican presidents.

Casey was seen by Leo and other movement conservatives as a great betrayal—proof that establishment Republicans could not be trusted with the great mission of overturning Roe. The danger was that mainstream Republican jurists, once elevated to high positions, tended to go soft on social liberalism (even as they remained committed to a pro–big business agenda). By this analysis, typical GOP nominees were too much influenced by the ambient liberal culture of law school and the Washington elite.

Based on this assessment, the goal became to nominate not just Republican judges but the right sort of Republican judges, indoctrinated at an early age in conservative principles and who, in later life, would have every incentive—in terms of both financial advancement and the comforts of belonging to a tightly knit and financially secure community—to stay loyal to the cause.

As ProPublica notes, the right

needed to cultivate nominees who would not only start out loyal to the cause but remain stalwart through all countervailing mainstream pressures. Leo and his allies concluded that they needed to identify candidates while they were young and nurture them throughout their careers. What they needed was a pipeline.

Independent journalism relies on your support

With a hostile incoming administration, a massive infrastructure of courts and judges waiting to turn “freedom of speech” into a nostalgic memory, and legacy newsrooms rapidly abandoning their responsibility to produce accurate, fact-based reporting, independent media has its work cut out for itself.

At The Nation, we’re steeling ourselves for an uphill battle as we fight to uphold truth, transparency, and intellectual freedom—and we can’t do it alone. 

This month, every gift The Nation receives through December 31 will be doubled, up to $75,000. If we hit the full match, we start 2025 with $150,000 in the bank to fund political commentary and analysis, deep-diving reporting, incisive media criticism, and the team that makes it all possible. 

As other news organizations muffle their dissent or soften their approach, The Nation remains dedicated to speaking truth to power, engaging in patriotic dissent, and empowering our readers to fight for justice and equality. As an independent publication, we’re not beholden to stakeholders, corporate investors, or government influence. Our allegiance is to facts and transparency, to honoring our abolitionist roots, to the principles of justice and equality—and to you, our readers. 

In the weeks and months ahead, the work of free and independent journalists will matter more than ever before. People will need access to accurate reporting, critical analysis, and deepened understanding of the issues they care about, from climate change and immigration to reproductive justice and political authoritarianism. 

By standing with The Nation now, you’re investing not just in independent journalism grounded in truth, but also in the possibilities that truth will create.

The possibility of a galvanized public. Of a more just society. Of meaningful change, and a more radical, liberated tomorrow.

In solidarity and in action,

The Editors, The Nation

Donate

That meant finding young, talented minds when they were still in law school, advancing their careers, supporting them after setbacks and insulating them from ideological drift.