LANSING — “Dark money” helped Democratic nominees grow their ideological advantage on the Michigan Supreme Court last week, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of campaign finance records.
Groups that do not disclose donors had spent more than $5 million on the races through late October, topping the combined $4 million raised by the four candidates in the election, which proved a bright spot for Democrats, who lost control of the state House and the White House.
The party’s two nominated candidates, incumbent Justice Kyra Harris Bolden and law professor Kimberly Ann Thomas, both easily won election. They beat Republican nominees Patrick O’Grady, a Branch County circuit court judge, and state Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, respectively.
They had help: In addition to outraising their opponents, the Democratic nominees had far more assistance from outside groups, including a dark money nonprofit registered in Massachusetts that was the largest Michigan Supreme Court donor this year.
The nonprofit, called The Justice Project Action, had given nearly $4.4 million to a pro-Bolden and Thomas super PAC called Justice For All as of mid-October, according to state disclosure reports. The nonprofit was incorporated late last year and has no readily available information about its origins or aims.
The super PAC, Justice For All, is linked to the Michigan Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers. Since 2020, the PAC has spent nearly $10.7 million supporting Democratic nominees running for the state’s highest court.
“My understanding is that the PAC exists really to support progressive candidates for the Supreme Court,” said consultant Lonnie Scott, who highlighted the right to an abortion as an example of how the PAC focused on “safeguarding rights.”
Bolden and Harris were the only candidates the PAC spent independently to support in 2024. Representatives for both campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.
Two other dark money groups, Michigan Civic Action Fund and Strategic Victory Fund, also contributed a combined $850,000 to Justice For All this year.
All told, groups that do not disclose donors contributed $5.25 million of the $7.9 million that Justice For All raised in 2024. Super PACs like Justice For All can receive funding from any source, including law firms that will have cases before the court.
While dark money spending has proliferated in political races across the country, experts have called it a particularly worrisome trend in judicial races, where candidates may later be tasked with deciding cases involving persons or companies that secretly funded their election.
“This flood of secret money leaves voters without important information about the interests trying to shape state courts, and it can obscure potential conflicts of interest for judges and litigants alike,” Alicia Bannon of the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice wrote in a 2018 report.
“The courtroom is supposed to be a place where everyone is equal before the law,” Bannon concluded. “Recent trends in judicial elections put that basic value at risk.”
State and national bar associations have also raised concerns with the rise of dark money spending in judicial races.
Outside money
Bolden and Thomas had already outraised their Republican counterparts significantly, with their campaigns reporting a combined $3.4 million in donations, compared to roughly $560,000 for the GOP nominees, as of late October.
But outside groups spent more than twice as much as the candidates, spending a combined $7.6 million to support the Democratic nominees, including at least $5.25 million from dark money sources, compared to less than $800,000 total for Fink and O’Grady.
Financial disclosure reports showed Harris and Bolden had a nearly nine-to-one financial advantage in the race, including both campaign and outside sources. Those totals will likely rise with post-election disclosures.
Justice for All, the Michigan PAC, reported a $1 million contribution from Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor. State Victory Action, a super PAC funded by George Soros and other billionaires, gave $560,000.
Justice Project Action, the Massachusetts-based nonprofit that does not disclose donors, certainly spent more than $4.4 million on the Michigan race, as voters throughout the state received political mail from the group ahead of the election.
The mailers compared the nominees’ endorsements from abortion rights and gun safety groups, casting Bolden and Thomas in a more positive light.
While the mailing disclosed it was paid for by The Justice Project Action — as required under state law — the return address listed on the mailing was for the Lansing office of the Michigan Association for Justice, formerly known as the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association.
“I don’t know why (The Justice Project Action) did that,” Stephen Pontoni, Michigan Association for Justice’s executive director, told Bridge. He declined to be interviewed about the Justice for All PAC’s approach or activities.
Fink, one of the Republican nominees who lost last week, told Bridge he does not have strong feelings about the source of the money that flowed into the Michigan Supreme Court races.
But he had noticed the address on the mailer from the dark money group, which he called “strange.” He added: “It does start to kind of raise questions like, What’s the point of these disclosures?”
Because the mailings didn’t explicitly ask recipients to vote for the candidates, Justice Project Action has no requirements to disclose how much it spent, leaving the true extent of their support hidden.
The State Bar of Michigan, which represents attorneys and judges, in 2013 backed an effort to require donor disclosure for groups that run so-called issue ads. But Republican legislators swiftly moved to block additional disclosure, passing a new law signed by then-Gov. Rick Snyder.
This year, the Michigan Republican Party filed a state bar complaint against Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, alleging her PAC’s $82,500 donation to Bolden’s campaign constituted an ethical violation because her department had pending election law cases before the Supreme Court.
Nothing in the bar’s ethics rules prevents lawyers from donating to judicial campaigns, however, and judicial candidates’ finance filings are regularly full of checks written by attorneys.
Article republished with the permission of Bridge Michigan
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