Before serving as a White House official helping Joe Biden pick his first Supreme Court nominee, Paige Herwig was a founding member of a legal group that drafted a list of possible options.
Herwig’s service on the White House legal team is just one example of the role Arabella Advisors, a for-profit company, plays in Biden’s pending nomination.
While it may not come as a shock to many, Arabella-financed organizations are often called “dark money” groups.
Here are four things to know about Arabella Advisors ties to Biden’s pending nomination, as reported by the Daily Signal.
1. Before becoming White House senior counsel and part of the group helping Biden select his nominee, Herwig was part of the founding team at Demand Justice, and served as the deputy chief counsel in 2018.
Last week, the White House announced that Biden formed a team to assist in his search for a Supreme Court nominee. Other than Herwig, the team includes Kamala Harris, Ron Klain, White House counsel Dana Remus, White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond, and Louisa Terrell.
2. Demand Justice, the same organization partly founded by Herwig, ran an ad campaign trying to push Breyer to retire.
The group hired a billboard truck to drive around the Supreme Court boasting a message: “Breyer, retire. It’s time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice. There’s no time to waste.”
3. Demand Justice’s list for Biden’s nominees includes 43 names, 14 of which appear to be black women.
The Demand Justice list includes Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Biden appointed last year to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger is also on the Demand Justice list, and the White House reportedly is considering her for the spot as well.
Biden beefed up his administration with names from the list, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, and Assistant Education Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon.
The Demand Justice list also includes activists and law professors like Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center; Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and Christina Swarns, executive director of the Innocence Project.
4. In 2018, Demand Justice began as a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is a nonprofit public policy group established by Arabella Advisors.
In May of 2021, however, Demand Justice registered in D.C. as its own nonprofit.
“Demand Justice has been a front group for Arabella Advisors, the center of dark money groups,” the Judicial Crisis Network’s Severino said.
Arabella Advisors entities, she said, “spent over $1 billion advancing Democratic candidates, more money than the Democratic National Committee.”
Demand Justice spent $5 million to oppose Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 and another $10 million to oppose his 2020 nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Both were confirmed by the Senate despite strong partisan campaigns against them.
“Demand Justice’s judicial agenda “will promote the hardest-left-possible candidates off of the Demand Justice list,” Severino said.
Based on the most recent reported information, the Sixteen Thirty Fund had more than $389 million in revenue; New Venture Fund had over $975 million; Hopewell Fund had over $152 million; Windward Fund had over $158 million; and North Fund had over $66 million.
