The Left Recycles Protests and Tactics Against Latest Supreme Court Nominee

What’s old is new again.

For the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett beginning today, the activist Left is recycling the protests, arguments, and tactics it has used against previous Supreme Court nominees nominated by Republican presidents, dating back at least to the 1987 successful borking of Judge Robert Bork.

Whatever else they are, the Left’s judicial nomination attacks are definitely “green”—to the point that protest signs prepared for the Kavanaugh hearings could be used today.

In honor of the Left going green on the Supreme Court confirmation process, CRC recaps some its best research on recent confirmations and the leftist organizations that have tried to influence them. The research covers the same parade of usual suspects, tired tactics, and cliched slogans that have already made appearances for the Barret confirmation process. These include the “spontaneous” protests orchestrated by any number of left-wing pop-up groups and more persistent organizations (e.g., Demand Justice), largely financed by the “Big Left.” Antifa has also got in on the fun.

Even threats to pack the Supreme Court are not new to this decade. Looking back to the 1930s at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Court-packing plan” and the “switch in time saves nine” for a precedent is unnecessary, organizations on the left have recently and frequently called on Democrats to pack the Court with reliable (i.e., staunchly partisan) justices to cement “Progressive” control over the government—regardless of which party wins elections.

Read about this and much else in the articles linked below, organized loosely in broad categories with the most recent articles first, with a list of some of the more prominent usual suspects at the end.

Kavanaugh Nomination

• “Kavanaugh Accuser Max Stier’s Big-Government Advocacy Group,” October 11, 2019.
• “Marionettes and Mazes: Pop Up Activists Strike,” July 23, 2019.
• “Leftists Astroturfing the Supreme Court,” July 10, 2018.
• “The Battle for the Bench,” July 28, 2018.
• “These Are the Groups Opposing Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee,” June 29, 2018.

Rao Nomination (to Fill Circuit Court Seat Vacated by Kavanaugh)

• “The Left’s ‘Dark Money’ Coordinator: Funding ’Civic Engagement,’” July 10, 2019.
• “The Moral Majority of the Left?,” May 28, 2019.
• “Out of Darkness, Cash: Sixteen Thirty in Action,” April 17, 2019.
• “The Left-Wing Groups Protesting Neomi Rao’s Confirmation,” March 13, 2019.
• “Leftist Youth Activists Attempt to Block SCOTUS Nominee,” October 30, 2018.
• “The New Rallying Cry for Women on the Left,” October 22, 2018.
• “D.C. Antifa Group Ambushes Ted Cruz,” September 28, 2018.

Gorsuch Nomination

• “The Battle for the Bench,” June 28, 2018.

“Big Left”

• “Arabella Advisors’ $600 Million Shadow over the Election,” September 10, 2020.
• “Mapping the Open Society Network on Soros’s 90th Birthday,” August 12, 2020.
• “Tides Center Takes Control of Black Lives Matter Global Network,” July 28, 2020.
• “Arabella Advisors’ “Dark Money” Backs Biden—Expect Even More,” July 21, 2020.

Judicial Tactics

• “So Now the Left Cares About Constitutional Government?,” February 25, 2020.
• “A New Policy Agenda for the “Regressive Resistance”: If You Can’t Beat ’em, Pack ’em,” May 21, 2019.
• “Demand Justice, How?” June 27, 2018.
• “Seizing the Supreme court,” July 1, 2016.

 Usual Suspects (InfluenceWatch Links)

• Arabella Advisors
• Open Society Network
• Tides Center
• Brian Fallon
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
• Alliance for Justice
• American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
• Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund
• Demand Justice
• Generation Progress
• Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• National Women’s Law Center
• NEO Philanthropy
• People for the American Way
• Planned Parenthood
• Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
• Reproaction
• Sixteen Thirty Fund

CRC intern John Byrne conducted much of the research for this post.