James Ho
James Ho currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Throughout his career, and even before his tenure on the bench, he has been a staunch advocate for far-right causes. From wielding his power to defend Texas’s same-sex marriage ban, to penning judicial opinions that read like auditions to join the right-wing of the Supreme Court, Ho has never been shy about his guiding principle: gaining power by attacking marginalized communities. Ho’s extreme viewpoints veer even further to the right than the current MAGA supermajority. His politically charged writings have continued even as he sits on the bench. These biases and his work continue to demonstrate that Ho is unfit and unqualified for any federal seat, and especially a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
- Undermines reproductive freedom. Ho has very little respect for the rights of pregnant people. When faced with the question of whether pregnant people should be able to take mifepristone, a well-studied abortion drug, he took such an extreme position to restrict access to care that even the MAGA Supreme Court rejected his legal theories unanimously. His agenda-ridden opinion revealed a lack of fairness and instead demonstrated rantings of a right-wing ideologue who wants to prove to his conservative allies that he will take up the mantle on hot-button, extreme, causes.
- Stands against immigrants when it’s politically convenient. Ho regularly dehumanizes undocumented immigrants, consistently referring to them as “aliens,” characterizing their entry into the country as an “invasion,” and even siding with Trump’s inflammatory and unsupported views on birthright citizenship. Though Ho previously expressed that undocumented individuals were as entitled to birthright citizenship as “the descendants of Mayflower passengers,” he had no trouble completely reversing his opinions to match the latest conversative talking points. If Ho refuses to stand by even his own previously held beliefs, how can he be trusted to uphold the law and constitution in the face of difficult and complicated challenges he’d certainly encounter on the highest court in the United States?
- Opposes reforms that would get money out of politics. Ho wants dark money, interest groups, and ideological groups to control politics. Even in law school, Ho argued that any reforms to money in politics would act as restrictions on free speech, an absurd and convoluted argument. He later served as lead counsel for plaintiffs who opposed laws that would allow everyday people to participate fully in the political process without corporate interference. No surprise, Ho parroted these same beliefs as a judge, refusing to uphold a restriction on campaign finance, instead blaming “big government,” an amorphous concept that serves as an easy way to distract everyday people from the true cause of big money in politics.
