The revelation came on the heels of a slew of news stories on conservative donors buying influence on the U.S. Supreme Court \u2014 where Leo, again, was among the conservative legal activists who helped to install a conservative majority. The top federal court has since made landmark rulings against abortion rights and in favor of business interests<\/a>. And Leo isn\u2019t done yet: He funnels money to a network of right-wing organizations <\/a>orchestrating key Supreme Court cases on red-meat conservative issues.<\/p>\n In Florida, Leo was working to overturn a 40-year status quo of judiciary balance and restraint. The state Supreme Court had fostered an image of independence after corruption scandals that forced two justices to resign in the early 1970s. When DeSantis took office, concerns about improprieties disappeared. The governor has a long history with the Federalist Society \u2014 he was a member at Harvard Law School \u2014 and his judicial nominees are backed by the group.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ideological<\/a> project DeSantis is pushing Florida is no secret. He unabashedly appoints political allies to posts across the state<\/a>. Such picks have shown up in the judiciary, nonpartisan election offices<\/a>, and state boards that oversee public schools and colleges, medical practices<\/a>, business, and real estate.<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019s appointments, budget decisions<\/a>, and fundraising<\/a> tactics<\/a> have come under heightened scrutiny since he announced a presidential run last month. None of the appointments, however, eclipse the lasting change of his state Supreme Court takeover. DeSantis has named five of the court\u2019s seven members, all of whom are members of the Federalist Society.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s appointing chumps, but he\u2019s clearly put a more ideological litmus test on his justices than others have,\u201d said Neil Skene, who published an official history of the court. Vetting justices by patronage was common starting under President George Bush in the early 2000s, Skene said, but DeSantis is at the vanguard of making purely ideological appointments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leonard Leo speaks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2019.<\/p>\n \nPhoto: Michael Robinson Chavez\/The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n He is not the first to award contracts to donors<\/a> or administrative posts to political operatives, but DeSantis does it at an unprecedented<\/a> scale<\/a>. The thoroughness of his cronyism has had a chilling effect in Florida: There is a perception among politicians and residents alike that nothing can get done if you\u2019re seen a DeSantis foe, said Barbara Petersen, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like this,\u201d Petersen said. Public servants are dismayed at what\u2019s happening to their state, she said: \u201cPeople are afraid of him.\u201d<\/p>\n After the scandals in the 1970s, successive Florida governors sought to improve the diversity of viewpoints on the state Supreme Court.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea behind all of that, of course, is to make sure that all of Florida is represented on its highest court,\u201d said Craig Waters, who worked at the court for 35 years and was its communications director until he retired last year. \u201cIt makes sure that a state Supreme Court does not become an echo chamber, but a true debate society. If you have members of a state Supreme Court that are careful of each other and watching each other, it prevents anything happening that might lend itself to a lack of public trust and confidence. It\u2019s very important that the justices police each other.\u201d<\/p>\n That stopped under DeSantis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I see today is a court that lacks diversity and that lacks that internal policing mechanism that has served it so well in the past.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I see today,\u201d Waters said, \u201cis a court that lacks diversity and that lacks that internal policing mechanism that has served it so well in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after DeSantis made his first appointments, the court started chipping away at its diversity programs.<\/p>\n In 1949, the state Supreme Court founded the Florida Bar, an association that regulates attorneys. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the bar sought to diversify the judiciary along ideological, ethnic, and gender lines and to address judicial discrimination. The association convened a diversity symposium in 2004 and issued a <\/a>report<\/a> with recommendations to help improve diversity and strengthen its independence. In 2010, the Florida Bar created a committee to address diversity and inclusion.<\/p>\n When DeSantis\u2019s allies arrived on the court, threats began coming down: The bar would be dissolved if it didn\u2019t get rid of its diversity initiatives. Soon enough, the attacks proved effective. In 2021, the state Supreme Court ordered that the bar association amend<\/a> its continuing legal education, or CLE, policy and eliminate a requirement for diversity among speakers and panelists in its continuing educational programs. The fight even made its way to the American Bar Association<\/a>, which changed<\/a> its own policies in April 2022 to bring the group into compliance<\/a> with the rules imposed on the Florida Bar.<\/p>\n Florida Bar spokesperson Jennifer Krell Davis told The Intercept that the association had not changed its diversity programs, but that it adhered with the court\u2019s order to eliminate diversity requirements in CLE programs. She declined to comment on a question about the court\u2019s alleged threat to dissolve the association. \u201cOur Leadership Academy, Path to Unity and Diversity grant programs (and others) continue to thrive under our Diversity and Inclusion committee,\u201d Krell Davis said.<\/p>\n In February, the state Supreme Court went so far<\/a> to dissolve the court system’s Standing Committee on Fairness and Diversity and eliminate its fairness and diversity training for judges.<\/p>\n The court’s public information Director Paul Flemming said the court\u2019s opinion was self-explanatory. \u201cThe opinions of the Florida Supreme Court speak for themselves,\u201d Flemming said. \u201cI would refer you to what is written there: \u2018Quotas based on characteristics like the ones in this policy are antithetical to basic American principles of nondiscrimination.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n How the state Supreme Court arrived here is the story of DeSantis\u2019s picks. The court\u2019s current chief justice, Carlos Mu\u00f1iz, took an unusual path to the bench. He had previously been a Republican political operative and worked in the Trump administration as general counsel to former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Mu\u00f1iz was deputy attorney general and chief of staff to former Attorney General Pam Bondi, deputy chief of staff and general counsel to the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and deputy general counsel to former Gov. Jeb Bush.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n When DeSantis took office, Alan Lawson, a conservative and the most senior judge on the bench, was in line to be the next chief justice of the court. Court staff had been preparing for his ascension and budgeting for his administration when Lawson abruptly announced in April 2022 that he would retire. Lawson went to work as a partner at a <\/a>new law firm<\/a> in Tallahassee run by Republican political operatives who had broken off from one of the state\u2019s top GOP law firms, Shutts & Bowen. Lawson told the Washington Post<\/a> his decision to leave court was purely personal.<\/p>\n That July, less than four years after he was appointed to the state Supreme Court, Mu\u00f1iz became its chief. Lawson was the first justice to be passed over for chief despite his seniority since 1976, said Skene, the expert on Florida courts. \u201cHe was not of the solidly Federalist Society group and Mu\u00f1iz was,\u201d he said. \u201cMu\u00f1iz had a much more political job before that.\u201d<\/p>\n Another DeSantis pick, Renatha Francis, worked at Shutts & Bowen before she was appointed to the court in 2020. Her original nomination was nullified because she hadn\u2019t been a member of the bar for 10 years, as required by the state constitution. She was nominated again in 2022.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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