Sleepers

The New York Times published a disturbing article this week (link here) about how the ultraconservative anti-LGBT Heritage Foundation was conducting secretive training of recent law school graduates who secured prestigious clerkships with federal judges.

While the title "law clerk" might sound like some kind of lowly office assistant, they are anything but. Law clerks do the bulk of legal research and opinion drafting for federal judges, who then rewrite -- sometimes very lightly -- those drafts into the final opinion.

Given that the United States has a common law legal system, the specific language of a judicial opinion will shape future lawsuits on similar topics. Hence, restrictive phrasing by a judicial clerk limiting rights may become bedrock law for decades.

In that the Heritage Foundation has long attempted to undermine LGBT rights, their trained judicial clerks would likely be pushing that point of view.

While the Heritage Foundation has now suspended the program because of the Times article, nothing is stopping them from quietly starting it again in a few weeks.

The only way this kind of thing can be stopped is to make sure a Republican is never again elected President in our lifetimes. Because a President is the only one who nominates all federal judges and Supreme Court nominees, that power must be kept out of conservative hands.