ICYMI: New Demand Justice Report In The American Prospect Exposes 10 Judges Enabling Oligarchy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new Demand Justice report featured today in The American Prospect exposes a quasi-secret network of billionaires and corporate interests that has captured the federal courts for their own greed. The report calls out 10 federal judges who helped rewrite the law to benefit giant corporations and powerful billionaires while stripping away legal protections for working people.
Produced in partnership with Groundwork Collaborative, “The Oligarchy’s Bench” exposes a decades-long, calculated shift of America’s judicial branch from an institution bound by law to a shameless protector of the Oligarchy. In ruling after ruling, judges who were largely selected, trained, and advanced by dark-money judicial networks have blocked actions meant to raise workers’ wages, keep corporations from getting too powerful, expand access to affordable healthcare, and ensure Americans can join together with their fellow employees to form a union. Taken together, the report uncovers a federal judiciary not only failing to prevent a rigged and unequal American economy, but actively engineering it.
“America does not have an oligarchy problem because a few bad judges or litigants got lucky. It has an oligarchy problem because a few very rich people built a machine to put committed judges exactly where they are,” the report states.
The report identifies 10 judges whose decisions have arguably done the most to empower the already powerful and enrich the already wealthy:
- Judge Andrew Oldham, U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
- Chief Judge Reed O’Connor, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth)
- Chief Judge Amos Mazzant, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Sherman)
- Judge James C. Ho, U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
- Judge Don R. Willett, U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
- Judge Edith H. Jones, U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
- Judge Victor Marrero, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)
- Judge J. Campbell Barker, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Tyler)
- Judge Ada E. Brown, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas)
- Judge Sean D. Jordan, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Plano)
Across rulings from all 10 judges, a pattern emerges: corporate interests — which have stacked the bench — challenge laws and rules they don’t like, judges reliably deliver pro-oligarchy rulings, and working people bear all the costs. But the report makes clear: Congress has the ability and responsibility to address the corruption of the courts.
“Billionaires and giant corporations have rigged the courts to serve their own greed, all at the expense of working people. Judges across the country, groomed by corporate interests, are operating to concentrate even more power with the ultra-rich,” said Demand Justice President Josh Orton. “It’s time to wake up: we must rid our entire system of government, including the courts, of the corrupt influence of corporate power.”
“It’s not surprising that the vast majority of voters believe that the system is rigged when the federal judiciary has abdicated its responsibility to working families to tilt the law in favor of the wealthy and large corporations time and time again,” said Groundwork Collaborative Senior Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research Alex Jacquez. “Only by taking on the hold that corporate power has over the courts will we be able to create an economic and political system that works for everyone, not just those that can buy it.”
Key Excerpts
- “Without personal or political consequence, a handful of ideologically-aligned judges in a single corner of the country have vetoed and dismantled worker protections, consumer safeguards, and environmental rules for more than 340 million Americans.”
- “Working people blocked from organizing unions. Overtime protections struck down. Consumer watchdogs defanged. Monopolies left intact. Student debt relief denied . . . We the People built the regulatory state over more than a century to protect ourselves from the abuses wrought by concentrated wealth and power. It’s now being dismantled judge by judge, ruling by ruling. Not by accident. Not by Congress. By judicial fiat.”
- “Billionaires fund the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society recommends the judges. Corporations fund ‘judicial education’ projects that advance their view of the economy. Judges dismantle rules, laws, and agencies that protect working people. Corporate power grows. Wealth concentrates. Democracy erodes. This is not justice. This is Oligarchy in judicial robes.”
- “The judicial branch is not coming to ‘save democracy’ or protect us from abuses by massive corporations or wannabe autocrats. Just as we work to elect presidents, senators, and representatives who we believe will do the right thing, we must work to reform the courts so they stop privileging the oligarchs.”
Read the full report HERE.
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