The independent presidential campaign of Cornel West, a self-described socialist who was a surrogate for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and has fought for progressive causes like Occupy Wall Street, has ties to well-known conservative figures in Michigan and beyond.
“He’s just lost his way,” election lawyer Melvin “Butch” Hollowell told the Michigan Advance.
Hollowell, a former co-chair of the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) also served as corporation counsel of the city of Detroit under Mayor Mike Duggan.
“It’s sad to see him fall so far from where he was to the caricature that we see today,” he said.
Michigan panel OKs Cornel West for November ballot, while legal maneuvering continues
West most recently won a preliminary victory to appear on Michigan’s ballot this November when the Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted 3-1 Monday to certify his petitions, although litigation alleging forgery and petition fraud remains outstanding.
In addition to claiming that West’s petition sheets showed no evidence of the normal wear that accompanies circulation, and that there were sets of sheets in which two or three distinct handwriting styles appeared on multiple sheets, the complaint claimed nearly “50 of the West campaign’s circulators forged or permitted the forgery of at least 18,775 signatures through ‘round-robining’ and other means.”
“It’s to try to steal votes from the [Vice President Kamala] Harris campaign,” said Hollowell.
West also has been represented by a slew of attorneys with connections to Republican politics. In Michigan, West has received representation from John Bursch, a former state solicitor general under GOP former Attorney General Bill Schuette.
Bursch, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), appeared on West’s behalf Aug. 22 before the Michigan Court of Claims where the campaign successfully contested being disqualified from the ballot due to deficiencies in the candidate’s affidavit of identity.
Bursch has a track record of representing right-wing causes, including anti-LGBTQ+ rights when he argued in 2022 to the Michigan Supreme Court that the state’s anti-discrimination act should not be interpreted to include protections for sexual orientation and helping to lead an anti-abortion coalition that was opposed to Proposal 3, which enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution.
Bursch also received $25,000 for legal consulting on recount issues from former President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.
“It’s just hugely disturbing to me as a former general counsel of the NAACP, and I still advise the NAACP on election law matters. He’s just a willing pawn of far right-wing sources. Just look at his lawyer, John Bursch,” said Hollowell. “He was the one that filed the case to invalidate affirmative action in Michigan. He was the one that when I was representing Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and Gov. [Gretchen] Whitmer in the abortion trial in Oakland (County) Circuit (Court), Bursch was on the other side trying to deny Michigan women the right of control over their bodies. This is West’s lawyer.”
Bursch told the Advance that he routinely represents and defends individuals and organizations who get “pushed around by government officials and powerbrokers,” noting his representation of Black voters in a lawsuit filed in March 2022 alleging the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) had violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by predominantly drawing several voting districts on the basis of race. A federal judicial panel agreed and ordered new maps be drawn.
“As we proved at trial, Secretary of State Benson influenced the Commission to hire one of her own campaign contributors as VRA counsel, and he then directed the commissioners to use race in drawing district lines in violation of federal law,” said Bursch, who said his representation of West’s campaign was no different.
“I am assisting Black presidential and vice presidential candidates after the Michigan Democratic Party and the secretary of state tried to keep them off the ballot even though they collected well more than the necessary number of signatures. The primary reason for the exclusion? That an individual who notarized Dr. West’s affidavit of identity put her notary stamp on a separate page than his signature so as not to cover up any of the text,” said Bursch.
“It’s frightening that a Michigan official and one of its two major political parties would try to keep an all-Black slate off the ballot for such an absurd reason. And it’s embarrassing that anyone would call a respected scholar and advocate like Dr. West a ‘willing pawn’ simply to advance the Michigan Democratic Party’s agenda. That’s precisely why Dr. West and Dr. [Melina] Abdullah [West’s running mate] are running for office: to speak for those suppressed by major political machines.”
Hollowell said that “what’s frightening is the depths to which Republicans will stoop to try to illegally suppress the votes of African Americans, here in Michigan and across the country, which is what their spoiler candidate West — who lost his way long ago — is all about.”
Edwin DeJesus, a West campaign spokesman also sent a statement to the Advance.
“It’s truly fascinating to hear an election attorney suggest that the best way to preserve democracy is to discourage voting,” said DeJesus. “That’s like saying the best way to save a drowning person is to let them sink. And to imply that Cornel West, who has been a morally consistent voice on critical issues like Gaza, is somehow a GOP pawn? It’s almost as if the idea of real change scares them more than the thought of another status quo election.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported earlier this month that other attorneys with “deep ties” to the Republican Party worked to get West onto the ballot in Arizona, an effort that ultimately failed.
Among those attorneys was Brett Johnson, also a member of the RNLA, who the AP reported was involved in communicating with Arizona electors for the West campaign.
Johnson is also a partner at Snell & Wilmer, which according to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records, has done work this election cycle for the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the Charlie Kirk-run Turning Point USA political action committee (PAC), and American Values 2024, a super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently dropped out of the race and endorsed former Trump’s campaign to regain the White House.
Another Snell & Wilmer attorney is Amanda Reeve, a former Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives, who said her firm represented “the Cornel West campaign,” in Arizona.
The AP asked West about the right-wing connections.
“So much of American politics is highly gangster-like activity,” West told the AP. “I have no knowledge of who they are or anything — none whatsoever. We just want to get on that ballot. And that’s the difficult thing.”
More recently, West leaned into pandemic denialism when he posted a video to social media calling for a COVID-19 Truth Commission and joined with Kennedy in sowing anti-vaccine rhetoric.
“So grateful to you Cornell, for (sic) commitment to ending the corruption,” responded Kennedy Jr., who is now a member of Trump’s transition team.
Also applauding West was Roger Stone, a longtime Trump operative convicted of obstructing Congress in the first of two impeachments of the former president, and also implicated in helping to organize the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“Something significant is happening in American politics when I wholeheartedly agree with @CornelWest,” said Stone on social media.
Something significant is happening in American politics when I wholeheartedly agree with @CornelWest
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 26, 2024
Something significant is happening in American politics when I wholeheartedly agree with @CornelWest
— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 26, 2024
Other attorneys for West with GOP connections include Bryan Tyson, also a member of the RNLA, who has represented West’s interests in Georgia. Tyson is a partner with the Atlanta-based Election Law Group, which has received $60,000 this year for services to the Republican National Committee.
In North Carolina, RNLA member Phil Strach filed litigation last month seeking to force West onto the ballot there after the elections board refused to certify his petitions. Strach is a partner at the Nelson Mullins law firm in Raleigh, which has been paid for services this election cycle by the RNC, and the North Carolina Republican Party.
North Carolina is also where individuals associated with the Trump campaign worked to get petition signatures for West to get on the ballot.
As The Washington Post reported in April, pro-Trump activist Scott Presler was gathering signatures for West outside a Trump rally in North Carolina.
“This helps take away votes from Joe Biden,” The Post reported Presler told a rallygoer.
“We’re helping the Trump team who’s trying to get him on there,” a woman assisting Presler added.
In Pennsylvania, Matthew Haverstick, a managing partner at Kleinbard LLC, argued that the secretary of state’s office under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was wrong to reject West’s paperwork. Haverstick declined to tell the AP who hired him or why. However, Kleinbard has been paid for services by several Republican entities, including the RNC and NRSC.
West also received a maximum individual contribution of $3,300 in 2023 from billionaire Harland Crow, whose gifts of travel and other items of value to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have come under scrutiny.
When asked when or why he thought West, an honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, had embraced right-wing political figures, Hollowell said he couldn’t point to any particular date, but said there was no doubt he had turned a corner.
“Back in the day, I think he articulated some philosophies that people felt were worthy of consideration for race relations in this country,” said Hollowell. “But I think people get too enamored with themselves. Others might even say it’s a form of narcissism. You began to believe that you are the be-all, end-all of what’s going on in this world. I think he’s been in a spiral for many, many years, a downward spiral.”
This story was updated to add a statement from the West campaign.
