November 29th, 2023
Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief defending the rights of an Indiana couple whose son, who had recently begun identifying as transgender, was removed from their custody. The Indiana Department of Child Services (“DCS”) and the court initially based this separation on claims of parental abuse and neglect. Despite later agreeing to drop all claims of abuse and neglect against the parents, DCS nonetheless asked the court not to return the couple’s son to their custody. The court complied with this request on the grounds that their son’s eating disorder and other health concerns were related to his parent’s lack of support for his asserted gender identity.
“America’s youth are experiencing mental health problems like never before. It is the job of parents, not the state, to address this growing crisis,” said J. Marc Wheat, AAF General Counsel. “Indiana’s decision was based on an ideology that endangers both parents and children. Removing a child from the family home should be a last resort for the safety of the child, not a tool to coerce parental acquiescence to woke gender theory.”
Advancing American Freedom has been a leading advocate for parental rights in cases across the United States. Advancing American Freedom has filed amicus briefs supporting parental rights in ongoing litigation in Iowa, Massachusetts, Florida, and in multiple cases in federal courts.
You can read the brief here.
November 29th, 2023
Advancing American Freedom’s Founder Vice President Mike Pence issued a statement in support of Speaker Johnson’s hearing to consider the need for a Fiscal Commission to reduce the national debt, as well as address shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare.
“The national debt is unsustainable and will jeopardize our nation’s future prosperity and security if serious measures aren’t taken to rein it in,” said AAF Founder Vice President Mike Pence. “A commission alone won’t solve our fiscal problems, but it’s the first step toward taking the crisis seriously. By leading in the area of fiscal responsibility, Speaker Johnson is demonstrating his commitment to have the difficult but necessary conversations to confront the debt crisis. Advancing American Freedom stands firmly behind Speaker Mike Johnson’s steps toward creating a fiscally viable future for the nation.”
November 27th, 2023
Advancing American Freedom led an amicus brief with 29 other amici challenging the Biden Administration’s lawsuit against Idaho which seeks to invalidate the state’s pro-life law on the basis of a radical pro-abortion interpretation of a Reagan-era health law, EMTALA, designed to ensure emergency care for those unable to pay.
“The federal government has adopted a revisionist interpretation of EMTALA post-Dobbs, one that would force pro-life doctors to complete on-demand abortions and circumvent state laws that ban abortion,” said J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel for AAF. “The Supreme Court returned abortion regulation to the states in Dobbs, but the Biden administration is still seeking to weigh into the domain of state law to protected abortion.”
You can read the brief here.
November 27th, 2023
Advancing American Freedom led an amicus brief with 29 other amici challenging the Biden Administration’s lawsuit against Idaho which seeks to invalidate the state’s pro-life law on the basis of a radical pro-abortion interpretation of a Reagan-era health law, EMTALA, designed to ensure emergency care for those unable to pay.
“The federal government has adopted a revisionist interpretation of EMTALA post-Dobbs, one that would force pro-life doctors to complete on-demand abortions and circumvent state laws that ban abortion,” said J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel for AAF. “The Supreme Court returned abortion regulation to the states in Dobbs, but the Biden administration is still seeking to weigh into the domain of state law to protected abortion.”
You can read the brief here.
November 17th, 2023
The American people were told the effort to oust former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) was about setting the country on a more sustainable fiscal path and securing much-needed funding for our border. It was about oversight for funds sent to overseas conflicts and about prioritizing who America’s allies are and are not. And it was about defunding the “weaponized” government.
In reality, none of that has materialized.
In fact, the continuing resolution (CR) that passed the House this week, and now the Senate, spends $60 billion more than the one negotiated by McCarthy in September. It also fails to fund our greatest ally, Israel, or address China, Russia, and Iran’s unholy alliance supporting anti-American conflicts on multiple fronts.
This is not the fault of the new speaker, Mike Johnson (R., La.). Johnson is a consistent conservative who has the makings to be a great speaker. The problem is the job itself is nearly impossible because of the unhealthy underlying dynamics within the GOP and the broader conservative movement.
A social-media echo chamber that encourages monetization schemes online and in the mail and individual attention-seeking over the hard work of building coalitions has created a cadre of performance artists rather than legislators advancing conservative principles.
In January, it took Kevin McCarthy 15 votes to win the speakership. The vote series and internal dealmaking resulted in three seats being given to the conservative bloc on the powerful House Rules Committee and the creation of a motion to vacate the chair with just one person.
This new power-sharing arrangement was tested early on this year when the House had to deal with the debt limit in May. Conservative Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) broke with the broader House Freedom Caucus and backed the McCarthy plan to raise the debt limit. For this apostasy, he was written out of conservative good graces by many external actors who were itching to push the limits of their new power-sharing agreement. The debt-limit deal ultimately passed and included some conservative victories like the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. But even those wins were derided on the right because their passage had the backing of Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and GOP leadership.
“McCarthy has got to go. There’s just no doubt,” said Steve Bannon, who would likely be in jail for mail fraud against the elderly without a last-minute pardon from Trump, in reaction to the May debt-limit deal. But the skirmish foreshadowed the ominous future for the House GOP.
That future arrived as the summer months dwindled. Florida representative Matt Gaetz — who held a long-standing personal grudge against Kevin McCarthy for the latter’s supposed failure to intervene in the House Ethics Committee probe into the former’s sexual misconduct — had been biding his time and waiting for the opportunity to vacate the chair.
The debt-limit deal was the first chance to vacate, but most in Washington knew that the likelier moment for that would come when government funding ran out and Congress had to pass another CR. The terrain of this fight was more well suited for the confrontation, as it would entail the specter of a government shutdown rather than jeopardizing the full faith and credit of the United States.
The telling moment was when one conservative leader, Chip Roy (R., Texas), brokered a deal with House moderates that would have funded the government and won modest spending cuts while securing the border. This proposal was immediately trashed by Gaetz and outside groups who had little interest in helping McCarthy. They attacked the proposal as “malpractice” by making the fight about Donald Trump’s legal battles rather than spending cuts and border security. It was an impressive sleight of hand to shift the goalposts so quickly and in real time, but a sleight of hand nonetheless. The fight was not about winning policy but about laying a predicate for a motion to vacate at any cost. The damage was done and any effort to find a Republican solution that avoided a shutdown was dead.
The problem, of course, is that this strategy not only created chaos and embarrassment for the Republican Party but that it also resulted in no policy victories and only increased spending. If this is saving America, then we’re all in real trouble.
The last six weeks have shown that America needs a conservative movement which returns to its time-honored principles rather than “leaders” following the siren song of populist performance artists. It’s easier — and, for some in our politics, more lucrative — to destroy than to build. So until we get better leaders, we can expect more selfishness, more destruction — and more of the same.
Read more at NationalReview.com.
November 8th, 2023
Advancing American Freedom issued the following statement after Ohio passed a measure enshrining abortion in the state.
“This is a hard loss for all who stand for the pro-life cause, but it is still a greater tragedy for the lives that will be lost by this measure, which is why we must not back away from the cause of life,” said AAF Executive Director Paul Teller. “Now more than ever, conservatives must continue to fight for the right to life in Ohio and across our country. Part of the ongoing fight will be to convince more and more Americans to see through the jargon of pro-abortion groups and their confusing referendums; Democrats are advocating for late-term abortions until the moment of birth. Advancing American Freedom will not give up on the cause of life, and will continue to advocate compassion for the babies and the mothers.”
November 1st, 2023
Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief with over 30 organizations and individuals supporting Students for Life Action against South Dakota’s law requiring that any organization engaging in certain forms of political communication disclose, within that communication, the names of its top five donors. South Dakota’s donor disclosure law erodes the fundamental right of free association and fails to provide useful information that might justify that infringement under the Supreme Court’s exacting scrutiny test.
“South Dakota’s donor disclosure law undermines the freedom to associate which includes the freedom to do so anonymously,” said J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel for AAF. “This type of donor disclosure does not provide useful information to the electorate and opens donors to harassment for the views they support. Advancing American Freedom will continue to stand for the First Amendment and for the right to associate without forced disclosures by the government.”
You can read the amicus brief here.
