For nearly 20 years, a complicated web of leftist non-profit groups has quietly, but effectively influenced presidential elections, federal judicial nominations, and issues ranging from environmental extremism, to abortion and criminal justice reform. The dark-money network’s “mothership,” as The Atlantic called it, is Arabella Advisors. In 2021, The Atlantic called Arabella’s network “the massive progressive dark-money group you’ve never heard of,” adding, “Democrats have quietly pulled ahead of Republicans in untraceable political spending. One group helped make it happen.” 

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on whether to move the nominations of a long list of Biden judicial appointees to the Senate floor. Among them are some of the most radical nominees brought during the Biden Administration. The nominees highlighted below were renominated by the Administration after they were unable to secure their confirmation prior to the end of the 117th Congress.

On Friday, the Biden Administration announced its 24th round of judicial nominees, bringing President Biden's total number of judicial nominees to 132. Each new slate of nominees illustrates the Administration's goal of placing radicals in the judiciary. This time, it's abortion activist Julie Rikelman, nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit:

Conservative opposition is expected in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats are facing pressure from progressive activists to speed up judicial confirmations before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when they risk losing control of the chamber to Republicans.

While they still have the chance, Senate Democrats are ramping up efforts to trample the First Amendment rights of nonprofits and their donors through the DISCLOSE Act. As RNLA highlighted last week, the DISCLOSE Act would cause many more problems than it solves. A letter submitted to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on Monday by People United for Privacy (PUFP) serves to debunk many of the misleading arguments made by proponents of the legislation during a hearing held by the Committee last week. PUFP's main points are as follows:

In typical fashion during yesterday's Senate Rules Committee hearing on "dark money" and the DISCLOSE Act (S.B. 443), Democrats tried to tie Republicans to dark money while turning a blind eye to the millions of dollars annually given to Democrats by liberal dark money groups.  

But unfortunately for Senator Whitehouse (who brings this bill up each session), one of the Democrat witnesses, Director of the Brennan Center for Justice Elections and Government Program Daniel Weiner, admitted that "Democratic and other left-leaning groups had swamp[ed] Republican and conservative spenders by a more than 2-1 ratio" in 2020.  

Following the 2020 U.S. Census, Democrats immediately began raising tens of millions of dollars to fuel a redistricting effort they hoped would push the needle in their favor for the next 10 years and help them gain seats in Congress.  But despite the best efforts of Democrat elected officials, PACs, and liberal dark money groups, Republicans are projected to gain anywhere between three to five Congressional seats. 

Leftist "dark money" lawyer Marc Elias' problems are piling up. As The Washington Free Beacon reported, a federal judge reprimanded Elias last week for bringing a frivolous suit defending New York's redistricting maps:

It's not every day that a federal judge calls a lawsuit from one of the country's top lawyers a nasty and partisan "Hail Mary pass" intended to undermine free and fair elections. But that's what happened on Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, tossed out a lawsuit brought by Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias.

As soon as POLITICO published a leaked draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade and its progeny, the hot takes from the Left rolled in. Demand Justice Executive Director Brian Fallon's reaction exemplified where a lot of the Left is at. They are praising the leaker as a hero, rather than acknowledging the disastrous implications the leak has for the Court.

Is a brave clerk taking this unpredecented step of leaking a draft opinion to warn the country what's coming in a last-ditch Hail Mary attempt to see if the public response might cause the Court to reconsider?

— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) May 3, 2022

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights held a hearing titled "An Ethical Judiciary: Transparency and Accountability for 21st Century Courts" to promote anything but ethics and transparency in the judiciary. The hearing was another effort to promote legislation that would impose unworkable recusal standards on the Supreme Court Justices and chill the speech of amici who want to make their voice heard on the most important legal issues of the day.

Witness Thomas Dupree explains how the Democrats' proposed legislation would chill the speech of amici who file briefs with the Court. pic.twitter.com/yqx320SEmR

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) May 3, 2022

On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up the first day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. From the start of the hearing, it became clear that the atmosphere of the hearings would be night and day from the hearings for former President Trump's nominees to the Court (Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch). Ranking Member Chuck Grassley explained during his opening statement:

We will conduct a thorough, exhaustive examination of Judge Jackson’s record and views. We won’t try to turn this into a spectacle based on alleged process fouls. On that front, we’re off to a good start. Unlike the start to the Kavanaugh hearings, we didn’t have repeated, choreographed interruptions of Chairman Durbin during his opening statement like Democrats interrupted me for more than an hour during my opening statement at the Kavanaugh hearing.