Washington, D.C. – A new report from Democracy Forward, The Second Front: The Escalating Right-Wing Legal Threats Beyond the White House, reveals the perilous threats to American democracy represented by the far-right legal movement. The report, part of Democracy Forward’s work to track the far-right legal movement, focuses attention on ways that extremists continue to deprive Americans of their rights in an attempt to concentrate power in the hands of a privileged few people and corporations.
“The pro-democracy community is fighting extreme, authoritarian forces on at least two fronts,” reads the report. “The first front consists of the president’s often unlawful use of executive power, which continues to throw communities across America into crisis and garner significant national attention. On a second, less visible front, a coordinated right-wing legal movement, operating both alongside and independent of the administration, is advancing an ideological agenda while dismantling pro-democracy protections at the federal, state, and local levels.”
“A calculated and coordinated effort by the far-right legal movement is not only working to abuse and misuse power, it is seeking to fundamentally shift the rules of the game to its advantage and the detriment of our democracy and people everywhere. Now more than ever, lawyers need to engage in federal and state litigation to ensure transparency and swift opposition to these efforts,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This new report shines a light on how decades of work by a well-funded and extremist-led legal movement helped lay the groundwork for the Trump-Vance administration, and how the movement is now emboldened to take its aggressive and harmful legal agenda even further.”
The Second Front breaks down the far-right legal movement’s key lines of attack into four categories: eliminating access to reproductive rights, misusing freedom of speech and religion to restrict healthcare and bodily autonomy, targeting protections for transgender students, and gutting government protections for workers and consumers. The report explains each line of attack, describes illustrative cases, and analyzes the impact each case could have if the right-wing legal movement wins in the courts.
The report was developed using data from Democracy Forward’s Legal Action Warning (LAW) Project, which monitors the development of legal doctrines across key, rapidly evolving areas of law–civil rights; education equity, discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and federal funding. The password-protected resource includes a new Right-Wing Organization Tracker that allows users to see which right-wing organizations are most active on specific policy issues, as well as the particular tactics they use. To learn more about the LAW Project and request access, visit data.democracyforward.org.
Read the full report here.
