A conservative group has declared its intention to prevent allies of Barack Obama from gaining influence over state Supreme Courts.
The Republican State Leadership Committee PAC is aiming to support conservative judges in six states this autumn and is prepared to invest significant funds in this effort.
This initiative is crucial, as Eric Holder, the former Attorney General under Obama, has been utilizing state high courts to redraw congressional districts in predominantly conservative states, with the goal of increasing Democratic representation.
“With state elections heating up across the country, the RSLC’s Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI) today released its target races in 2024. The JFI’s planned seven-figure investment will ensure that conservative judges continue to have a voice on the courts and prevent liberals from using majorities to legislate their radical agendas from the bench, including gerrymandering maps for state legislature and U.S. Congress in their favor,” it said in a press release.
The group will support conservative candidates in the states of Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.
“We know that redistricting is no longer a ten-year battle; it is a yearly fight. That is why we must elect more constitutional conservatives in races across the country this year to prevent liberals backed by millions in dark money from overturning conservative-led benches,” RSLC President Dee Duncan said. “JFI remains committed to electing conservative judges who will fight to keep justice blind and prevent Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s handpicked cronies from tipping the balance of power in these critical battleground judicial states in 2024.”
The State Supreme Courts, particularly in states like Wisconsin, play a crucial role in decisions that could impact the 2024 election and beyond. In a 4 – 3 ruling in June, the court’s decision to permit ballot drop boxes for the 2024 election was seen by some as a stretch of legal interpretation.
The shift in the court’s stance from conservative to liberal came after significant financial support from Democratic groups led to the election of a liberal justice.
This change influenced the court’s decision-making process. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley acknowledged that while the state Constitution does not explicitly mention drop boxes, it does allow voters to submit their ballots to the County Clerk, thus giving leeway for the use of drop boxes according to Just The News reporting.
“By mandating that an absentee ballot be returned not to the ‘municipal clerk’s office,’ but ‘to the municipal clerk,’ the Legislature disclaimed the idea that the ballot must be delivered to a specific location and instead embraced delivery of an absentee ballot to a person,” Justice Bradley, who penned the decision, said. “Given this, the question then becomes whether delivery to a drop box constitutes delivery ‘to the municipal clerk.”
“A drop box is set up, maintained, secured, and emptied by the municipal clerk. This is the case even if the drop box is in a location other than the municipal clerk’s office. As analyzed, the statute does not specify a location to which a ballot must be returned and requires only that the ballot be delivered to a location the municipal clerk, within his or her discretion, designates,” the Justice said.
Justice Rebecca Bradley authored her dissenting opinion in response to the majority ruling.
“The majority again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda,” the Justice said. “The majority began this term by tossing the legislative maps adopted by this court … for the sole purpose of facilitating ‘the redistribution of political power in the Wisconsin Legislature.’ The majority ends the term by loosening the Legislature’s regulations governing the privilege of absentee voting in the hopes of tipping the scales in future elections.”
“To reach this conclusion, the majority misrepresents the court’s decision in Teigen, replaces the only reasonable interpretation of the law with a highly implausible one, and tramples the doctrine of stare decisis,” she said.
However, the prevailing view differs, asserting that clerks are not obligated to use drop boxes, but rather have the option to do so.
“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes,” she said. “It merely acknowledges what has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily conferred discretion.”
