Jonathan Garthwaite
Why are courts so important for conservatives to fight for?

Courts decide cases involving all aspects of American life. In many respects, they are more important than the President or Congress because in reality the power to “interpret” the law is the power to make the law. We have gay marriage and gay civil unions in America today; your local politicians can take your home thanks to the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision; many Americans have no right to own a gun for self-defense, and you can abort an unborn child but can’t destroy spotted owl eggs. All this wackiness thanks to our left-leaning courts.

What can conservatives do to prevent these sorts of damaging decisions like the ones you talk about on gay marriage and eminent domain?

In Disrobed I lay out a brand-new battle plan to bring the Reagan Revolution to America’s courts—the last, and most important, area of government remaining to be conquered. Unless we adopt Ronald Reagan’s Cold War strategy (“We win. They lose.”) in the courts, brace for more liberal lunacies from our friends in black robes.

The battle plan you lay out in Disrobed calls for strategies and weapons that conservatives have typically avoided. Are you departing from the conservative movement on the courts when you argue that conservatives must engage in principled conservative judicial activism, learn to the love the living constitution, and sue liberals more?

I proudly support the goals and agenda of the modern conservative movement—in fact, I’m a card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy! But in Disrobed I part ways with our long-held but self-defeating strategies and tactics concerning the courts. We need America’s courts to be an ally of conservatives and the American way of life, not our enemy—which is what they are right now.

What made you change your mind about the conservative approach to the courts?

In my day job, I am a New York litigator who battles in America’s courts for real clients, so I understand how courts, judges, and lawsuits work in the real world. I also hate losing. So when I see liberal lawyers and judges foisting their political agenda upon the nation, I get quite angry and realize something must be done. Unfortunately, the current conservative “conventional wisdom” about the courts (such as embracing judicial restraint and strict constructionism) can’t work in the real world. That’s why I wrote Disrobed.

Why can’t “strict constructionism” and “judicial restraint” work in today’s world?

Jonathan Garthwaite

Jonathan Garthwaite is General Manager of