The last year has been dominated by historic lawfare against President Trump, with the legal onslaught by liberal activists serving as one of the defining aspects of the start of President Trump’s second term in the Oval Office.
Nearly every liberal activist, left-wing dark-money group, and blue-state officeholder has gotten in on the campaign to thwart the President’s agenda in court. Executive Orders, Presidential actions, and even Congress passing legislation to defund Planned Parenthood, have been met with injunctions and other court orders hindering their implementation.
And the Left has learned one lesson above all others from this legal onslaught: Lawfare is the best ticket available to accomplish their overarching policy goals in the wake of the stinging electoral defeat across the country that President Trump delivered to their candidates and causes.
Having lost at the ballot box in 2024 and the power of the lawsuit during the last year, the Left has settled on the courtroom as a crucial avenue to win their ideological battles in the Trump Era. And activists, dark-money groups, and trial lawyers have built quite a system to do just that. Together, they have assembled a web of cases that push their ideology, not just thwarting President Trump and conservative priorities, but also helping cement the Left’s long wish list, from corporate DEI mandates to insidious ESG climate policies and radical social agendas.
I’ve watched these tactics evolve over the years, from Cincinnati’s City Hall, where I battled urban ideologues, to the Secretary of State’s Office in Ohio, where the election lawsuits were never far from view. I can tell you from firsthand experience and a front row seat: What starts as a discrimination claim or suit about a local and isolated problem quickly morphs into a battering ram for broader policy outcomes and a judicial decree reshaping hiring, energy policy, our electoral process, and even taxpayer-funded health benefits.
This woke lawfare hands unelected judges the reins of social engineering, bypassing voters and legislators and providing a ticket to the fast lane to implement policies that would never otherwise be possible for the Left to accomplish through our normal policy-making processes in statehouses and at ballot boxes.
What is perhaps most important to understand is that heartland states get it worse than you might expect in this regard.
Whatever else we can say about places like California, New York, and Vermont, they are eager to pass the Left’s fever dream of an agenda, regardless of the consequences for their residents. Just ask Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But that is not true of places like Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and the like. In these states, with growing conservative majorities (and supermajorities) in state legislatures, ever-more-conservative policies coming from state-wide elected officials, and a general trajectory away from lefty loony behavior, the Left has no path to relevance except through the courtroom.
That is why conservatives in our heartland states and beyond need to sit up and pay attention to the woke lawfare threat—the more conservative your state, the more likely you are to be on the lawfare menu for the Left and see their money flow toward law firms and activist legal groups instead of into political committees and candidates.
And it is why we need to take action in our red states right now, with President Trump in office locking down the federal side of things, to take away the Left’s legal avenues in our state courts, strip their lawfare tools from state code books, cut off their trial lawyer money machines, and make sure that the path of woke lawfare is littered with closed doors and empty hands by the time the next Presidential election comes around.
Some states are already ahead of the curve. Kansas and Missouri have bills in their legislatures that would dramatically downgrade the threat from public nuisance lawsuits (one of the Left’s favorite courtroom playthings) and stop the Left from profiting off criminal activity to feed their trial lawyer political machine and help secure their Defund The Police agenda. There is a lot to like in those bills. They set a model for others to follow, and they help meet the moment to set the Left back on its heels by tossing out its favorite lawfare tools.
Put simply, we cannot be left watching the scoreboard and counting our electoral and legislative votes while the left lines up to shoot the moon in our state courts. Time is of the essence. And we have examples of what to do in our states. It is time to get to work!
Ken Blackwell is the President of the Council for National Policy and the Chairman of the Conservative Action Project in Washington, D.C.