At a moment when Democrats in Congress are under pressure to oppose President Trump at every turn, a liberal advocacy group that fought his first-term efforts to remake the federal judiciary is back, with the intent to pile on.
The organization, Demand Justice, went dormant at the tail end of the Biden administration. It was revived recently by Josh Orton, whose career in Democratic politics has included working with Senators Russ Feingold and Harry Reid and serving as policy director to the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign and as a senior aide to Kamala Harris during her vice presidency.
Mr. Orton, 44, intends to use the Demand Justice megaphone to push Democrats to not just oppose Mr. Trump’s judicial nominees, but “demonstrate steadfast opposition to the dismantling and corruption of our legal system, courts and the rule of law,” according to a memo from Mr. Orton to the group’s board of directors.
The task for Mr. Orton may be steep. The legal system that Democrats had hoped would serve as guardrails against some elements of the Trump agenda is now stocked with his appointees. A conservative majority on the Supreme Court, cemented by his picks, has frequently given his agenda the green light as he asserts broad presidential authority.
And now, Mr. Trump is using the legal system to attack those he considers political enemies, directing the prosecutions of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, among others.
“Certainly there are some Democrats meeting the moment, but I don’t know anyone who would count congressional leadership among them,” Mr. Orton said. “One of the most common phrases in D.C. these days is, ‘I miss Harry Reid.’”
Demand Justice was formed in 2018 as an attempt to rebalance the political terrain over courts that had tilted following decades of Republican organizing without much response from Democrats. The group led protests against two of Mr. Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
After President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was elected, Demand Justice spurred calls for Justice Stephen Breyer to retire so he could be replaced by a Biden nominee. But when the Demand Justice executive director, Brian Fallon, left to work for Ms. Harris, the group’s activities slowed to a crawl.
Mr. Orton intends to make his first examples out of Senators Angus King of Maine and Peter Welch of Vermont, who in recent months voted to confirm federal judges nominated by Mr. Trump.
Mr. King in July broke with the rest of the Senate Democratic caucus to confirm Josh Divine, a 35-year-old abortion rights opponent who had been an aide to Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, for a lifetime appointment to a District Court seat in Missouri.
Mr. King later explained in the comments of an Instagram post he made remembering Representative John Lewis, the voting rights advocate and icon of the civil rights movement who died in 2020, that his vote for Judge Divine was a mistake.
“I was not aware of his anti-choice positions,” Mr. King wrote. He said he was “influenced by a conversation with Senator Hawley (who knows him personally) immediately before the vote.”
This month, Mr. Welch cast the lone Democratic vote for Kyle Dudek, who was confirmed for a federal judgeship in Florida.
Mr. Dudek, in his answer to a question from senators, declined to say whether the Capitol was “attacked by a violent mob” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The question draws a legal conclusion about the events of January 6, 2021,” Judge Dudek wrote. “The legal import of pardons issued to those prosecuted for involvement in events at the Capitol is a matter of ongoing litigation. Thus, as a current judicial officer, it would be improper to offer any further comment beyond that I condemn violence of any kind.”
Mr. Welch defended his vote for Judge Dudek.
“I had a chance to vote for a qualified nominee, so I did,” he told Bloomberg Law.
Aides to Mr. King and Mr. Welch declined to provide additional comment.
In the memo to the Demand Justice board of directors outlining the group’s strategy, Mr. Orton described a three-pronged approach to holding Democrats accountable for how strongly they resist Mr. Trump’s efforts to transform the legal system. Voting no on judges, Mr. Orton said, is not enough on its own.
“With targeted paid media and grass-roots organizing, we will hold everyone, including Senate Democrats, accountable if they fail to meet this moment and demonstrate steadfast opposition to the dismantling and corruption of our legal system, courts and the rule of law,” Mr. Orton wrote. “Our credibility depends on showing that Democrats who shrink from this fight will face consequences.”
Demand Justice will also aim to make an economic case against Mr. Trump’s judges, tying them to a broader judicial trend of what Mr. Orton called “oligarchy in the courts” — siding with America’s corporations on issues like workers’ rights and the economy. And Mr. Orton said he would seek to build a grass-roots organizing vehicle able to enact public pressure on senators.
“Josh was the architect of both finding interesting, compelling ideas and merging them with compelling communications that would actually reach real people,” said Faiz Shakir, who was the campaign manager for the 2020 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign when Mr. Orton was its policy director.
And as Democrats begin their campaigns for the 2028 presidential nomination, Mr. Orton said that Demand Justice would push them to seek to expand the Supreme Court beyond its current nine members as a means to mitigate the 6-to-3 conservative supermajority that exists now.
“What seemed like a marginal idea at the time it was proposed, now is mainstream and has been proven reasonable by the Supreme Court actions ever since,” Mr. Orton said. “The question facing all of us Democrats, given where the court is and the power it is handing over to Trump unilaterally, is what does reform look like now.”
Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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