EXCLUSIVE: How Dem Super Lawyer’s Organization Shaped California, Illinois Anti-Trump Lawfare

A litigation group run by veteran Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias helped coordinate legal challenges from California and Illinois to stop President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

Democracy Forward, where Elias is chairman, coordinated an online conference with lawyers working for the California and Illinois state attorneys general offices to challenge executive orders from Trump, according to records obtained by The Daily Signal. 

The emails and schedules, obtained through a public records request to the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, shine further light on how private left-leaning organizations steered state government entities to oppose Trump. It also illustrates how anti-Trump “lawfare” has evolved from Trump’s candidacy into his second term as president. 

Elias was a lead figure in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory while working as Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer during her 2016 presidential run. 

Democracy Forward has hired several former Obama and Biden administration-era Justice Department lawyers and, this week, announced the creation of an appellate division. 

The organization’s first target after Trump’s second inauguration in January was defending diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the federal government. Among his slew of Day One executive orders, Trump cut federal support and contracts for DEI programs in the government. 

“We would like to connect, in very short order, on this [Trump executive order] (Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing),” said a Jan. 21 email from Megan Uzzell, director of impact and external affairs for Democracy Forward, to Illinois Deputy Attorney General Alex Hammer. “Would you have time to connect in short order on this?” 

Hammer replied by connecting Uzzell with two of his colleagues, Karyn Bass-Ehler and Liz Jordan. 

By the next month, lawyers working for California Attorney General Robert Bonta were part of the conversation. 

On Feb. 11, Democracy Forward organized an online meeting with lawyers from both attorneys general offices to develop strategies to challenge Trump’s executive orders. 

The day before the meeting, California Deputy Attorney General Kenneth Sugarman wrote, “Tomorrow 3-4 is good, and I’d love to have it that soon.”

After the meeting occurred, Jordan from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office wrote Democracy Forward and Illinois attorney general staff to say, “IL & CA would like to get another meeting on DF’s calendar soon.” 

While multiple Democrat attorneys general have frequently joined together to bring multistate lawsuits against the Trump administration, the states have not disclosed receiving direction from liberal interest groups such as Democracy Forward. 

Based on the available information, it’s not clear if California, Illinois, or other states had additional strategy sessions with Democracy Forward. 

This week, Bonta’s office asserted that California has filed 37 lawsuits against the Trump administration and filed more than 40 amicus briefs (briefs where the state is not a party to a lawsuit but offers additional information and legal arguments to a court to try to get it to rule one way or another). The issues covered in the lawsuits include defending birthright citizenship, federal funding for the state, education funding, and electric vehicle policy. 

Bonta noted that after Trump’s 2024 election victory, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special session of the state Legislature to boost funding for the Attorney General’s Office to litigate against Trump. Bonta said that litigation has protected federal funding for the state. 

“For every dollar we’ve been given by the governor and the Legislature in Special Session funding, we’ve returned more than $33,600 for the state,” Bonta said in a public statement. “I’m proud of my incredible team who has been working around the clock to protect California’s people, values, and resources in the face of relentless attacks. We know that this work is just the beginning, but we are not backing down.” 

Illinois Attorney General Raoul’s office has been less active than California but has joined a multi-state Democrat attorneys general lawsuit against a Trump administration ban preventing federally funded hospitals from performing “transgender” surgeries on minors. It is also suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement over health data access and is suing over the Trump administration halting wind energy project approvals. 

Spokespersons for the California and Illinois Attorneys General Offices did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. 

A Democracy Forward spokesperson also did not respond to numerous inquiries. 

Much of the legacy media refers to Democracy Forward as a “watchdog group” and rarely notes the ties to partisan Democrats, noted Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank.

If an Elias-run group is coordinating state litigation to stop the Trump administration, it “shows the nonprofit tail is wagging the Democratic Party dog,” Walter told The Daily Signal. 

“Marc Elias has had some black eyes. He’s lost cases and clients. But he is still a legal power house on the Left, partly because of his money,” Walter told The Daily Signal. “The Left has an endless supply of cash for litigation.”

Left-leaning nonprofits pushing state action against Trump isn’t unique to the Elias-run organization. 

As The Daily Signal previously reported, a Democrat group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy issued a 126-page “resistance playbook” to Democrat governors to help them oppose Trump through litigation and state executive orders. The same organization met with Biden White House officials about strategy in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration. 

Beyond DEI policies, it’s not clear what lawsuits were brought because of the online conference with Democracy Forward and California and Illinois or even how many meetings were organized by Democracy Forward. 

By May, both Illinois and California were part of a coalition of 18 Democrat attorneys general that filed an amicus brief in the case National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education v. Trump. The brief contends that Trump’s executive orders targeting “equity-related grants or contracts” and DEI frameworks within government are unlawful and harm state residents.

“Diversity initiatives are lawful, and studies show that they lead to more successful businesses and learning environments,” Raoul said in a statement after joining amicus brief. “I will stand with those who are challenging this administration’s illegal attempts to eliminate these programs and turn back the clock on the important progress that has been made toward equity.”

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