Conservative Groups Are Planning Millions in Supreme Court Ad Buys
The spending plans were issued just hours after Wednesday’s retirement announcement from Justice Anthony Kennedy.
(Bloomberg) -- The political network founded by billionaires Charles and David Koch and another conservative group said they’ll spend millions trying to secure another U.S. Supreme Court justice in the mold of President Donald Trump’s first appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The spending plans were issued just hours after Wednesday’s retirement announcement from Justice Anthony Kennedy, an 81-year-old Ronald Reagan appointee who’s been a pivotal vote on the court for the last decade. Trump will nominate a successor who could create the most conservative court in generations.
The Koch network is prepared to spend at least $1 million on advertising and other activities to support a nominee like Gorsuch, said Bill Riggs, a spokesman for the network’s flagship political operation, Americans for Prosperity. The organization wants someone who will "interpret the law as written and not legislate from the bench," Riggs added.
The conservative Judicial Crisis Network said it would start a "seven-figure ad buy" on the court vacancy that would run on national cable and on the Internet to target vulnerable Democrat incumbents up for election in November. The ad praises Gorsuch and "looks forward to the president nominating another great justice to the bench," the group said in a statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, Justin Blum
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.