Amicus Spotlight: Moyle v. U.S.

Right-wing court-whisperers are pushing SCOTUS to allow states to ban abortions even in cases of severe medical emergencies.

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Moyle v. U.S., a case that could nullify a federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency abortion care.

The case stems from an incredibly restrictive anti-abortion law in Idaho, which the Biden administration argues is preempted by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that requires hospitals that receive Medicare funds to provide abortions in the case of medical emergencies. As Vox’s Ian Millhiser explains, Idaho’s law only requires that doctors perform abortions when the life of the pregnant patient is in danger, whereas EMTALA requires them in a range of medical emergencies.

Taylor Meehan, counsel of record for Moyle (who is the Speaker for Idaho’s state house), clerked for Clarence Thomas. In December, the New York Times unearthed the close ties that Clarence and Ginni Thomas maintain with the Justice’s network of former clerks. The couple holds “monthly lunches” in DC and has “hosted clerks and their families at ski resorts and summer retreats, complete with inside jokes stenciled on T-shirts and swag bags with Thomas-themed challenge coins, stress balls and playing cards.” 

In the wake of ProPublica’s revelations of Thomas’s nondisclosure of extravagant gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow, Meehan sent around a letter of support for the Justice and requested that her fellow former clerks sign it. Now, after heaping praise on the Justice and being thanked for doing so by his wife, Meehan — as a member of the Justice’s “extended family” — is hoping that her old boss will side with her clients and allow states to even more severely restrict abortion.

But the conflicts of interest in this case do not end with the petitioners’ lawyers. Ever since some justices decided that they ought to maintain close ties to conservative billionaires and other right-wing powerbrokers, they have created a never-ending pile of conflicts for themselves. 

The very people with whom justices have close ties fund and operate organizations that file numerous amicus briefs urging SCOTUS to rule in a particular manner. We have documented many of these ties between justices and amicus brief filers in a new website, Supreme Transparency — a collaborative project with Take Back The Court and True North Research. 

In Moyle v. U.S., a review of amicus brief filings finds at least 6 right-wing amicus filers in the case have significant ties to Leonard Leo, the Koch network, and other “court-whisperers” who themselves have significant ties to the justices. 

Other notable right-wing amicus filers in this case include: 

• FOUNDATION FOR MORAL LAW: This conservative Christian legal organization was founded by the disgraced judge Roy Moore, who lost the 2017 Alabama Senate race after he was accused by multiple women of sexually abusing them when they were underage. Moore’s name appears on his organization’s brief.
• AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE (ACLJ): ACLJ is a conservative legal organization founded by the late televangelist Pat Robertson, who once claimed that gay people and abortion caused 9/11. ACLJ’s brief in FDA v. AHM is co-authored by Jay and Jordan Sekulow, a father-son duo who served on Trump’s first impeachment defense team. According to Accountable.US, Jay Sekulow operates two nonprofits that have paid him, his family, and their companies at least $145 million over the past two decades. 
• AMERICA’S FUTURE: America’s Future is headed by Michael Flynn, Trump’s short lived National Security Advisor who is now best known for embracing and promoting QAnon conspiracy theories.
• THE INSTITUTE FOR FAITH AND FAMILY: The Institute for Faith and Family is an offshoot of the North Carolina Values Coalition, a conservative group based in North Carolina that has fought hard to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people.
• 26 “FAMILY POLICY ORGANIZATIONS”: These organizations are largely affiliated with the Family Research Council (FRC), with many being listed as “partners in advancing faith, family, and freedom at the state level” by the FRC in 2018. The FRC, for its part, has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and it has spent its time and resources on such causes as lobbying members of Congress to oppose a resolution that denounced Uganda’s adoption of the death penalty for homosexuality.
• 121 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: Even with abortion clearly being a losing issue for them, more than half of House Republicans — including the one and only Marjorie Taylor Greene — decided to sign onto this brief arguing for the legality of incredibly restrictive state-level abortion laws.
• INDIANA AND 21 OTHER STATES: 22 Republican Attorneys General have banded together to support Idaho’s efforts to disallow abortion even in medical emergencies. Notable signees include the scandal-ridden Texas AG Ken Paxton; Montana AG Austin Knudsen, who has spent ample time defending his oil and gas industry donors; and Alabama AG Steve Marshall, who was president of the Rule of Law Defense Fund when the organization robocalled people and encouraged them to “stop the steal” on January 6, 2021.

There are simply too many good pro-choice amicus briefs to mention here. They have been filed by organizations of doctors, advocacy groups, legal scholars, Democratic congress members, disability rights advocates, and more. 

Learn more about the right-wing moneyed interests influencing the Supreme Court through amicus briefs at SupremeTransparency.org.