Democrats Phil Bredesen and Karl ‘Marx’ Dean Have Close Ties to Soros-Funded Group Whose Leadership Is Working to Block Kavanaugh Confirmation

Audio captured from a July conference call shows the Soros-funded American Constitution Society for Law & Policy (ACS) Board member Ricki Seidman telling Democrat leaders in reference to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, that a “strategy that will emerge and I think it’s possible that that strategy might ultimately defeat the nominee.”

 

 

The ACS, which receives millions in direct funding from the George Soros Open Societies Foundation (more than $2 million in 2016 alone), is active in Nashville, Knoxville and at law schools in the state.

The Nashville chapter of  the ACS , which Seidman helps lead at the national level, is loaded with members, including its leadership, who hold close ties to Democrats U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean.

For example, Dean’s wife, Anne Davis sits on the Nashville chapter’s advisory board having just left her position as the managing attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. Anne Passino, her comrade in arms at the Law Center, serves as the ACS Event co-chair.

Shanna Singh Hughey, a Board member of the Nashville ACS chapter served as a senior advisor to Karl Dean when he was mayor of Nashville and also served as the director of Dean’s Office of New Americans. Co-board member Hunter Branstetter is a donor to Dean’s gubernatorial campaign as is Advisory Board member Dewey Branstetter.  These two along with ACS Board member Callie Jennings are principals in the law firm that just lost their case trying to protect illegal aliens in Nashville.

Dean’s appointee to head the Metro Nashville Human Relations Commission, Melody Fowler-Green is also an ACS Advisory Board member and is the one who established the working partnership between the Metro Commission and the ACS.

Sam Felker, “a long-time GLBT community leader” and ACS Advisory Board member, was Dean’s pick for an appointment to the Metro Board of Health.

Bredesen also has his share of alliances with ACS members, some long-standing like Gregg Ramos, who Bredesen appointed in 2006, to serve on the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council. ACS member, Patricia Moskal was appointed by Bredesen when he was governor, to serve on the Tennessee Judicial Council.

William Harbison was appointed to the Metro Nashville Planning Commission by then-Mayor Bredesen.

Super Bredesen supporter and ACS member Charles Bone hosted an April Nashville fundraiser for the Senate candidate headlined by Joe Biden.

The Branstetter, Stranch and Jennings law firm whose members are spread across the ACS, only donate to Democrat candidates, including Bredesen.

Back in the 1980’s Ricki Seidman the ACS national board member whom Politico reported is now advising Kavanaugh’s accuser, represented People for the American Way opposing public school students and their parents in Tennessee. She was successful in securing a judgment permitting material to be taught in Tennessee public schools even if it violates a student’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion – a testament perhaps to her commitment for the progressive agenda for the country.  People for the American Way has been identified as a recipient of Soros funding,

Seidman’s political campaign work for the George Soros funded “Rock the Vote,” reflects the same ideological commitment that had her working on plenty of campaigns including those of Dukakis, Mondale, Clinton, and Biden.

All in all, Seidman’s work is consistent with the ACS mission to “articulate a progressive vision of our Constitution and laws” as well as:

debunking conservative buzzwords such as ‘originalism’ and ‘strict construction’ that use neutral-sounding language but all too often lead to conservative policy outcomes. Using both traditional and new media to communicate with policymakers, judges, lawyers and the public at large, ACS presents a compelling vision of core constitutional values such as genuine equality, liberty, justice and the rule of law.”

But it’s Seidman’s work involving nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court coupled with her leadership in the ACS that makes her “strategy” references highly relevant to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.

In the July audio, Seidman is introduced as the person “who is clearly the expert in thinking through the process and strategy for getting somebody confirmed and hopefully stopping that from happening” and is expected to share “the best tools that progressives have to challenge the nomination.”

Listening to Seidman’s remarks, it strains the imagination that as early as July, progressive operatives had not already planned to conjure up either a Bork or Thomas strategy to damage Kavanaugh’s nomination process. And it should come as no surprise that Seidman was leading that charge given reports of her involvement with progressive groups during Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation process, her role in helping to run the attack ads on Robert Bork during his confirmation proceedings and later trying to derail Clarence Thomas’ nomination.

Seidman’s complicity in plotting to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation is consistent with her commitment to the ACS whose mission includes building a national network of local lawyers and student chapters with the goal of “nurturing the next generation of progressive lawyers, judges, policy experts, legislators and academics.”

Seidman was integrally involved in steering Obama’s nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation, in part “as liaison to the progressive groups”:

efforts to reach out and work with the groups on behalf of the White House are being orchestrated in part by Ricki Seidman, a veteran of the 2008 campaign and the Clinton presidency who has remained outside the administration. As liaison to the progressive groups and a strategic adviser, Seidman has organized conference calls and several White House meetings since Sotomayor was nominated on May 26.

As reported by The Daily Caller, after Bork’s nomination was successfully tanked, Seidman moved to Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office “where she was instrumental in convincing Anita Hill to go public with her claim that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her, The Weekly Standard reports. Seidman was also instrumental in leaking the Hill story to the press, according to “The Real Anita Hill” by David Brock.”

Given her success in political subterfuge particularly as it relates to Supreme Court nominees, her statement in the July audio suggests that she already knew what “strategy” was in the works to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination process:

I do think over the coming days and weeks I do think there will be a strategy that will emerge and I think it’s possible that that strategy might ultimately defeat the nominee.

Seidman’s engagement in the fight to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court should open more questions about the ACS which is calling to stop the confirmation process, given the spread of Soros money finding its way into the organization’s direct funding and through programmatic funding from other progressive groups like the Soros-funded Moveon.org.

And given the intense focus on all things Russia these days, wouldn’t everyone want to know what the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy was doing holding 2015 and 2016 meetings in … Moscow?

For Tennesseans going to the polls in November, the close ties of openly progressive Nashville ACS  members to Democrat candidates Phil Bredesen and Karl Dean is one more indicator of how either candidate will operate politically, if elected.

 

Chris Alto is an investigative reporter for The Tennessee Star