Report: ‘Lawfare’ used to enforce ‘woke’ policies outside legislative process

By Tate Miller
The Center Square

A new report released by Alliance for Consumers shows how the American Left has been pushing its agenda through what it calls “lawfare,” enforcing “woke” mandates and policies via courtrooms, outside of the established legislative process.

Executive Director of consumer protection group Alliance for Consumers O.H. Skinner told The Center Square that “the ‘Lawfare in America’ report highlights the new frontier in the fight to impose a woke agenda.”

“The Left has aggressively targeted our classrooms, boardrooms, and even our operating rooms, but this report shows how activists and trial lawyers are now using strategic litigation to capture the judicial system itself, imposing sweeping ideological policies that voters and lawmakers never approved,” Skinner said.

“It is time to end the lawfare and restore the balance of power within the three branches of government,” Skinner said.

Skinner told The Center Square that “strategic litigation campaigns are the driving force behind the Left’s overall plan to reshape American society.”

“The pattern is clear: litigation is being weaponized to achieve outcomes that advocates have been unable to secure through traditional legislative processes,” Skinner said. “And if successful, the consequences would mean the woke agenda winning and sinking in across the country despite repeated ballot box and legislative losses.”

According to Alliance for Consumers’ report, “woke lawfare” going on in American courtrooms often is focused on implementing diversity, equity and inclusion mandates or advancing Environmental, Social, and Governance policy choices in the nation – all through “judicial decree” or “activist- and trial-lawyer-driven lawsuits,” instead of the legislative process.

“The evidence compiled in this report demonstrates that the American legal system is being weaponized for political purposes,” the report said.

The Center Square has covered previous so-called “woke lawfare” cases, such as the suit in which the City and County of Honolulu sued a number of leading energy companies in an attempt to make them financially liable for contributing to climate change.

When asked how lawfare affects the American people, Skinner told The Center Square that “left-wing activists’ goal through woke lawfare is to impose Progressive Lifestyle Choices onto consumers outside the legislative process.”

“If successful, woke lawfare will raise prices for consumers and limit choices for consumers,” Skinner said.

“Consumers deserve goods and services that fit the needs of their families, and to be able to purchase what they want at the stores at reasonable prices, not to live with court-room generated mandatory Progressive Lifestyle Choices,” Skinner said.

CEO of American Energy Institute Jason Isaac said in a statement to The Center Square that “courts were designed to resolve disputes, not to serve as engines for ideological policymaking.”

“This report shows how woke lawfare uses litigation pressure to extract policy concessions that activists could not achieve through elections or legislation,” Isaac said.

“The result is governance by lawsuit, regulation without representation, and lasting policy changes imposed without public consent,” Isaac said.

“That trend poses a serious threat to the rule of law,” Isaac said.

Executive director of consumer advocacy organization Consumers’ Research Will Hild said in a statement to The Center Square that “the Leftist woke machine doesn’t care about consumers, only about power.”

“Woke activists will stop at nothing to force their political agenda onto the American people,” Hild said.