In an exclusive interview with Maine Wire Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson, conservative legal activist Leonard Leo gave his opinion on how conservatives ought to address corruption in the administrative state, and revelations regarding the politicization of the United States’ intelligence agencies.
[LISTEN: Maine Wire Podcast: Conservative Legal Activist Leonard Leo – Part 1]
Leo also addressed overreach by federal regulatory agencies that have affected Maine’s lobstermen, social media censorship, and the importance of education on the constitution and the proper role of government.
“What do you do to reign in an administrative state, or an intelligence community, that is becoming political in ways that violate the law — and certainly violate how the American people would expect elections to be conducted, freely and fairly?” Robinson asked. “How should conservatives be thinking about the revelations that have been uncovered about the 2016 election?”
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“Well, first of all, there are a lot of people who might not like this answer, but at the end of the day, we’re a democracy or a republic, and what we face politically is really of our own making,” Leo said.
Leo emphasized the importance of having an engaged and educated electorate for advancing political change, rather than counting on the courts to solve your “political woes.”
“So if the American people want to see greater integrity, either in the electoral system, or in the courts, or in the administrative state, they need to be thinking very carefully about who they’re electing,” he said. “They need to become engaged citizens, they need to understand our system of government better, and they need to be active, active participants in the political process.”
“That’s our biggest problem as a country — You can’t have government imbued with integrity and a commitment to our values unless you have an electorate and a citizenry that understands what it is that’s worth protecting in our country,” Leo added.
[RELATED: Maine Education Chief: “Academic Learning” Takes Backseat to Social-Emotional, Gender, and Race]
You can’t have government imbued with integrity and a commitment to our values unless you have an electorate and a citizenry that understands what it is that’s worth protecting in our country.
Leo believes that courts are a poor vehicle for solving political problems that are not “pure legal issues.”
“[Courts] don’t have the powers that political bodies have, they can only hear what comes before them, they’re bound by the four corners of the law,” Leo said. “They are not moral arbiters.”
“They don’t have the capacity, the tools, to solve the big political or electoral problems that you’re talking about,” he said. “You can’t count on the courts, and you really have to count on the electorate.”
In discussing the overreach of federal regulatory agencies, Leo brought up the case of Maine’s lobstermen and ground fishermen fighting against overreach by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
[RELATED: Federal Court of Appeals Decision a Victory for Maine Lobstermen’s Association]
“In our own state here, Steve, all you gotta do is talk to the lobstermen, and the ground fishermen. They’ll tell you how much overreach occurs, with NOAA, the Commerce Department, the fishery regulators,” Leo said.
“And, you know, they’re starting now to rise up, right? You’ve seen it,” he added.
“Oh, they’re an absolute — I mean, they’re a political force in the state. They certainly punch above their weight,” Robinson answered.
“Yeah, and now political leadership is starting to listen, right?” Leo said. “So ultimately, you need to have political leaders who are prepared to reign in the administrative state, you need to have political leaders who are prepared to appoint the right jurists.”
“You only get those kinds of political leaders if you have an electorate that is really attuned to what the problems are and how to solve them,” he added.
Leo explained that because elected officials appoint personnel in the administrative state, it all boils down to voters being educated in the Constitution and the role of government.
Robinson pressed Leo on this point, saying that the electorate does not get to vote on the Silicon Valley CEOs of Facebook or Twitter, but that these were the people that were responsible for censorship in conjunction with the intelligence agencies.
According to Leo, there have always been forces in society that affect political outcomes in an outsized way, such as the media’s role in shaping political discourse, but he as a conservative is hesitant to support imposing government regulations on social media companies and “Big Tech.”
“My hope is that we can persuade the American people that there is a problem with some of these institutions, and that as a consuming public, they will begin to put appropriate free market pressure on those institutions,” Leo said.
To get corporations to stop putting their thumbs on the political scale, “the first line of offense ought to be consumers of these goods and services from these different enterprises letting them know that they don’t like what’s going on and this is going to affect their bottom line,” he said.
After the Maine Wire reported in June on top Maine businesses that were listed as sponsors to the far left advocacy group Equality Maine, Hannaford, LL Bean, Central Maine Power, and General Dynamics (parent company of Bath Iron Works) were de-listed from the organization’s website as sponsors.
Conservatives have seen success recently in boycotts of Target for stocking pride merchandise and “tuck-friendly” swimwear, as well as against Anheuser-Busch over a collaboration between Bud Light and transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“I think the first way to get at a lot of the rot that you’ve been talking about, is to put it on the shoulders of the people,” Leo said.
“If you really believe in a democracy — or a republic, which I think is a more apt way to talk about the United States — if you really believe in that, then it’s really incumbent on the people themselves to rise up and say ‘we’re not interested in this, and we’re going to do everything we can to push in the other direction’,” he said.
Whether or not this type of action will be enough to “crush excessive liberal dominance in various areas,” Leo said, “it remains to be seen.”
Listen to the full interview with Leonard Leo and Editor-in-Chief Steve Robinson below:
