Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is receiving an extensive promotional campaign run by the conservative Judicial Crisis Network. But the donors behind the campaign remain cloaked in secrecy.
During Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing this week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked him why JCN had spent $7 million on a campaign to oppose President Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, and why the group is now spending $10 million in advertising to support him. Gorsuch told Whitehouse to ask them himself. Whitehouse pointedly replied:
“I can’t, because I don’t know who they are.”
Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, corporations and individuals have been free to donate unlimited amounts of money toward super PACs – large political organizations that are only nominally independent of official campaigns – without disclosing their identities. The ruling also enabled 501(c)(4) organizations like JCN to donate up to half of their annual funds to electioneering activities without disclosing their donors.
Whitehouse went on to explain his concerns about the funding behind the pro-Gorsuch lobby.
“Tellingly, big special interests and their front groups are spending millions of dollars in a dark money campaign to push your confirmation. … They obviously think you will be worth their money. These special interests also supported the Republican majority keeping this seat open.”
In another exchange, Whitehouse pointed out that if Gorsuch were nominated, there would be no way to determine whether recusal was appropriate because nobody would know who had donated to the campaign that supported his nomination.
“These will be facts that would be noteworthy and that we’d be entitled to have an answer to. So it’s kind of odd to be sitting here in a United States Supreme Court nomination hearing with a $10 million spend taking place for you out there in the political world and absolutely no idea who’s behind it.”
Gorsuch dismissed such concerns as a “politics question.” When interviewed by Republicans on the panel, Gorsuch affirmed his independence.
“Nobody speaks for me. Nobody. I speak for me. I am a judge. I don’t have spokesmen. I speak for myself.”
Featured image via YouTube video.
