Seven conservative nonprofits that filed Supreme Court briefs to weaken the Voting Rights Act absorbed $105 million in anonymous donations between 2021 and 2024, a sevenfold increase from the prior period.

"The courts wasn't the end game. The courts are one powerful, powerful means to get their agenda done in other ways."

— Alyssa Bowen, deputy executive director at True North Research

The Supreme Court's April decision in Louisiana v. Callais was widely described as a gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Scholars called it an "indefensible evisceration." Legislators warned that a cornerstone of civil rights legislation had been reduced to a suggestion. But behind the legal maneuvering was a financial apparatus of staggering scale: seven conservative nonprofits connected to Trump-aligned figures took in nearly $105 million through donor-advised funds between 2021 and 2024, according to new analysis from the progressive watchdog True North Research.

That is seven times the dark money those same organizations received in the previous three-year period. The timing was no accident. These groups filed amicus briefs urging the Court to weaken racial protections in voting, and their funding surged precisely as they built that case.

America First Legal Foundation, co-founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller (now White House deputy chief of staff), Mark Meadows (former White House chief of staff), and Gene Hamilton (former deputy White House counsel), took the lion's share: more than $58 million from donor-advised funds alone. That is almost six figures per day, funneled through anonymous channels into an organization whose mission includes challenging voting rights protections.

Donor-advised funds are the dark money vehicle of choice for wealth preservation with policy impact. Donors contribute to these funds and receive immediate tax deductions, even though the money may not be distributed for years. The donors' identities remain private. As Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, put it: "Donor-advised funds provide a shield for donors who want to evade the spotlight."

Translation: wealthy individuals can bankroll arguments before the highest court in the land without ever having their names appear on a filing.

The network extends well beyond America First Legal. True North's analysis identified six other conservative groups that filed briefs questioning Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Callais: California Policy Center, Judicial Watch, Landmark Legal Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, Project on Fair Representation, and Public Interest Legal Foundation. All seven saw their donor-advised fund receipts spike.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation is chaired by Cleta Mitchell, who famously participated in Trump's call to Georgia's secretary of state urging her to "find" votes after the 2020 election. The Brennan Center condemned PILF for "deceptive tactics promoting voter suppression." The organization received at least $2.4 million from DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund with ties to Leonard Leo's network, plus funding from the Bradley Foundation, which has awarded over $1 billion in grants since its founding.

The 85 Fund, another Leo-connected organization, gave $400,000 directly to PILF. Judicial Watch, frequently cited by Trump for election fraud claims, filed a new amicus brief after Callais asking the Court to "ban the use of racial preferences in drawing up majority-minority congressional districts."

The Callais case itself was a direct assault on Black voting power in Louisiana. A federal court had determined in 2022 that Louisiana's congressional map, based on the 2020 census, failed to reflect the state's one-third Black population and potentially violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The original map had only one in six districts reflecting a Black majority. In response, Louisiana redrew its map to create a second Black-majority district.

The Supreme Court struck it down as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion relied on briefs from groups that were themselves funded by the anonymous donors True North identified. Bowen noted that far-right justices "are drawing information and citations from these groups that are, if not incorrect, then factually misleading."

The Court's ruling was applauded by the organizations it enabled. J. Christian Adams, president of PILF, called the decision a moment of courage alongside Brown v. Board and Loving v. Virginia. Christopher Kieser of Pacific Legal Foundation said it "reinforces the fundamental principle that the Constitution defends individuals, not racial groups."

Translation: the people who funded the briefs got exactly what they paid for.

The broader pattern is unmistakable. The same dark money architecture that built the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court through decades of judicial appointments is now being deployed to reshape elections themselves. Bowen pointed out that landmark cases like Dobbs v. Jackson (abortion) and United States v. Skrmetti (gender-affirming care for transgender minors) all saw "a flood of amicus curiae filings" funded by the same network.

"When there's big money involved, we do generally tend to see a huge influx of filings from the far-right," Bowen said.

The mechanism is elegant in its simplicity. Anonymous donors contribute to tax-advantaged funds. Those funds distribute millions to conservative nonprofits. The nonprofits staff legal teams, file briefs, and present arguments before federal courts. The justices who hear those arguments were themselves selected through a process bankrolled by the same donor network. And when the rulings come down, the donors can claim they merely supported "constitutional principles" rather than partisan outcomes.

Beckel called it "a very, very clear example of groups who are making arguments before the highest court in the land, and the public not really being able to connect the dots about who is making those arguments or why they are making those arguments."

The question is whether anyone ever intended for the dots to be connected.