James Bopp

Early life and education

Bopp is a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, and holds a bachelor's degree from Indiana University and a law degree from the University of Florida College of Law.

Legal career

He has served as the general counsel for National Right to Life since 1978, the James Madison Center for Free Speech since 1997, and as the special counsel for Focus on the Family since 2004. Bopp was the editor of Restoring the Right to Life: The Human Life Amendment.

With regards to Human Life Amendment, based on his analysis of the Supreme Court composition, Bopp stated in 2007,

"...now is not the time to pass state constitutional amendments or bills banning abortion because (1) such provisions will be quickly struck down by a federal district court, (2) that decision will be affirmed by an appellate court, (3) the Supreme Court will not grant review of the decision, and (4) the pro-abortion attorneys who brought the legal challenge will collect statutory attorneys fees from the state that enacted the provision in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

According to the Campaign Legal Center, Bopp filed 21 of the 31 lawsuits it associated with challenging campaign finance regulations. All told, Bopp has spent 30 years fighting limits on campaign spending and is credited with changing the political landscape of the 2012 election. According to the Center for Responsive Politics. “It's safe to say that groups on the left and right have Jim Bopp to thank for their new-found freedom.”

In an interview with PBS' Frontline in 2012, Bopp said he was defending a "basically absolute" interpretation of the right to political free speech under the First Amendment. He said he is working to eliminate or loosen campaign spending limits, and to eliminate donor-name-reporting requirements.

A study conducted in 2014 showed that Bopp was one of a comparatively small number of lawyers most likely to have their cases heard by the Supreme Court.

Bopp represents a group of plaintiffs—Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and a group of "several current and former U.S. citizens living abroad"—in a legal challenge to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. The lawsuit, Crawford v. U.S. Department of Treasury, was commenced on July 14, 2015; the plaintiffs alleges that a number of provisions of the act unconstitutionally violate privacy rights of U.S. citizens while burdening both private individuals and the financial institutions they patronize. Plaintiffs argue that the act transforms foreign banks into proxy agents for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as it requires all foreign banks to submit regular reports on U.S. account holders to the IRS. In April 2016, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio dismissed the suit for lack of standing; Bopp says that an appeal is likely.

Republican Party membership and activism

Bopp is known for his staunch social conservatism, and his past and present clients are "a who's who of social conservatism," including the Traditional Values Coalition, the Home School Legal Defense Association, Concerned Women for America, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Bopp is particularly known for his opposition to all forms of limits on money in politics and his role as counsel for groups seeking, often successfully, to strike down campaign-finance limitations.

He became Indiana's Republican National Committeeman on the Republican National Committee in 2006, and became the RNC's Vice Chairman in 2008. His tenure on the RNC ended in 2012 when he was defeated for another term by John Hammond at the state Republican convention. Bopp said after the convention that he was defeated because he supported Richard Mourdock over incumbent Richard Lugar for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2012.

In 2009, Bopp was the lead sponsor of an RNC resolution that initially called on the Democratic Party to change its name to Democratic Socialist Party. A compromise resolution was passed instead, condemning President Barack Obama and the then-Democratic congressional majority for "pushing America toward socialism and more government control."

During a 2010 RNC meeting, he was the chief sponsor of a resolution covering financial support of candidates. The "purity test" resolution (titled "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates") names ten public policy positions that are important to the RNC and stipulated that public officials and candidates who disagree on three or more of the ten positions would be ineligible for financial support or endorsement from the RNC. The resolution was defeated.

Bopp clashed with Michael Steele during Steele's term as chairman of the Republican National Committee; after Bopp criticized Steele, Steele called Bopp an "idiot."

During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Bopp initially stayed neutral in the race because he was part of a committee charged with setting the number of Republican primary debates. However, three attorneys in Bopp's office left to work for Herman Cain. In February 2012, Bopp endorsed Mitt Romney.

Bopp has repeatedly represented Indiana on the Republican Party's platform committee, including in 2016. On the committee, Bopp pushed for a socially conservative platform, advocating platform language stating that children "deserve a married mom and dad" and referring to "natural marriage" as between a man and a woman. Bopp opposed efforts by billionaire Republican Paul E. Singer to add a statement to the party platform committing the party "to respect for all families," a signal of openness to LGBT Americans; Bopp called the proposed language "redundant and superfluous." Bopp also opposed efforts by delegate Rachel Hoff (the first openly gay member of a Republican platform committee) to include a reference in the platform to the 2016 attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando; Bopp stated that including such language (which was ultimately voted down) would be "identity politics."

Bopp opposed an effort by some delegates to replace the 60-page platform that the committee had adopted with a simplified two-page "statement of principles" that excluded any mention of contentious issues, such as same-sex marriage. Bopp write in opposition to the alternative proposal that: "Obviously, the adoption of this statement of principles would be a major defeat for those of us that want the Republican Party to promote traditional marriage since the minority report wipes out our current platform language that supports traditional marriage."

Notable cases

In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, Bopp successfully represented McCutcheon. The Supreme Court struck down section 441 of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which imposed a limit on contributions an individual could make over a two-year period to national party and federal candidate committees, is unconstitutional.

In 2011 in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, Bopp successfully defended the Susan B. Anthony List against a defamation lawsuit by Steve Driehaus, a former Democratic congressman who claimed that the SBA List had made false statements regarding taxpayer funding of abortion in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The court ruled "We do not want the government deciding what is political truth — for fear that the government might persecute those who criticize it. Instead, in a democracy, the voters should decide."

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Bopp represented Citizens United, drafting the complaint and handling the early stages of the litigation. Bopp did not argue the case in the Supreme Court, having been replaced by Ted Olson.

In Wisconsin Judicial Commission v. Gableman (2010), Bopp successfully represented Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in a case alleging he broke the Wisconsin Judicial Code of Conduct during his successful run for the state supreme court. The case was presented before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and resulted in a 3-3 deadlock decision.

In ProtectMarriage.com v. Bowen, Bopp represented ProtectMarriage.com in a lawsuit challenging the finance limit required for reporting campaign donations and the open way in which information on such donations is shared in California. This lawsuit was filed after the identities of people supporting California Proposition 8 were revealed as a result of disclosure laws.

In Kurita v. Tennessee Democratic Party (2008), Bopp represented former State Senator Rosalind Kurita, a Democrat, in her suit against the Tennessee Democratic Party for removing her as the Democratic nominee in her State Senate district after she had won the primary.

Other cases in which Bopp was counsel for a party or parties are:

Clients

Per Bopp's online profile.

Controversy

Bopp's advocacy for certain causes incited one blog to call him "Public enemy No. 1 for fair elections". Another blog called him the "constitutional terror of Terre Haute".

Bopp said, in response to criticism over his plans to establish a "Republican Super PAC", "The Supreme Court doesn't care, and I don't care, and the Federal Election Commission doesn't care.... No one that matters cares."