A new report argues that activist networks and aligned legal organizations are increasingly using the court system to advance left-wing policy goals they cannot win through elections or legislation, bypassing democratic accountability and turning litigation into a tool of ideological governance.

The 19-page Lawfare in America report, published by the Alliance for Consumers Action, warns that lawsuits once intended to resolve individual disputes now operate as de facto legislation. Courtrooms, the report says, have become “a primary battleground for the Left’s ongoing campaign to reshape American society,” with activists “advancing political and social agendas through strategic litigation, a practice better understood as ‘woke lawfare.’”

Instead of seeking compensation for specific harms, the report argues, many lawsuits now aim to extract sweeping policy concessions through settlements and consent decrees. Those agreements often force corporations to adopt changes that far exceed existing legal requirements.

According to the executive summary, activists and trial lawyers are using litigation to reshape corporate governance, employment practices, ESG policies, and broader social norms. “Settlement agreements stemming from these lawsuits routinely mandate sweeping policy reforms far exceeding compensation for alleged harms or requirements to follow existing laws,” the report states.

The report examines cases ranging from diversity and inclusion mandates imposed on major corporations to environmental litigation designed to reshape entire industries. One example cited — the Obama-era EEOC case against Bass Pro Outdoor World — shows how government agencies and aligned advocacy groups “imposed comprehensive DEI recruitment and training policies that go far beyond resolving individual discrimination complaints or enforcing federal civil rights law.”

Employment discrimination lawsuits, traditionally used to resolve individual claims, now serve as leverage to force companies to overhaul hiring practices, adopt mandatory diversity training, submit to external compliance monitoring, and maintain permanent reporting obligations.

“This report documents how weaponized lawfare has become a preferred mechanism for achieving political outcomes without elections or democratic accountability,” the report states. “When activists fail to persuade voters or legislators, they increasingly turn to courts to achieve the result they want.”

O.H. Skinner, executive director of Alliance for Consumers, said activist litigation has fundamentally distorted the judiciary’s role. “Courtrooms across America have become weaponized by radical activists as part of an ongoing campaign to reshape American society and push political and social agendas onto consumers,” Skinner said. “Only by understanding the playbook being used by woke activists can public officials begin to restore the proper role of courts in our democracy and ensure that major policy decisions are made through democratic processes accountable to the American people.”

Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, said the report exposes the political motives behind what he called “divisive, radical policies” imposed through litigation rather than lawmaking. “These activists are weaponizing the court system for political gain and leaving everyday consumers behind,” Hild said. “The Leftist woke machine doesn’t care about consumers, only about power.”

The report also examines environmental lawsuits against major energy and manufacturing companies that seek abatement funds, injunctive relief, and industry-wide behavioral changes never enacted by state or federal legislatures.

“Courts were designed to resolve disputes, not to serve as engines for ideological policymaking,” said Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute. “This report shows how woke lawfare uses litigation pressure to extract policy concessions that activists could not achieve through elections or legislation. The result is governance by lawsuit, regulation without representation, and lasting policy changes imposed without public consent.”

The Lawfare in America report merely codifies what many conservative legal analysts have warned for years: litigation is increasingly used not to protect rights or enforce the law, but to impose sweeping social policy without legislative approval.

Whether Congress or the courts push back remains an open question, but the report concludes that this strategy has already reshaped corporate behavior and government policy, and it shows little sign of slowing without a concerted response.

The severe winter weather sweeping across the Northeast pushed New York’s homeless death toll to nineteen on Thursday. New York City mayoral candidate and long time New Yorker, Curtis Sliwa, attributes the crisis to the city’s status as a “sanctuary” jurisdiction for illegal aliens — and says he’s “never seen it worse.” 

The massive influx of illegals during former President Joe Biden’s term — a fair number of whom were transported to sanctuary cities — put a strain on the already limited resources available to house the city’s homeless population, and Sliwa argued that has brought the crisis to a breaking point.

“I’m watching emotionally disturbed persons and homeless people exhibit Darwinian traits. Survival of the fittest,” Sliwa said. He described encountering a homeless man with no shoes who was missing half of his foot. The man told Sliwa that both his shoes, including the one specially made for his disability, had been stolen by the “stronger” homeless. Sliwa told the Daily Wire he and his nonprofit the Guardian Angels have encountered many grim scenarios while attempting to help the homeless through the winter spell.  

Sliwa said the crisis did not begin with the election of New York’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but with the previous administration under Democrat Eric Adams. “A lot of this is the result of Eric Adams’ failures as mayor, in which he housed a lot of the migrants, at the expense of our own homeless,” he said. “They spent $7 billion housing migrants that we didn’t even know in hotels, motels, giving them lodging, food, clothing. Okay. But we weren’t doing likewise with our own homeless and more importantly, the emotionally disturbed who should have been brought to mental health care hospitals because they clearly are a danger to themselves and everyone else.” 

In fiscal years 2024 and 2025, New York city spent $6.77 billion on funding for people seeking asylum in the United States. Financial support ranged from housing in shelters and New York hotels, prepaid debit cards to families in hotel-based, non-congregate shelters for food, legal and medical services, and relocation assistance. 

Sliwa says it’s New York’s homeless who end up paying the price. “Now we’re beginning to pay the price that our own homeless, who are out on their own for many months, many years as a result of the priority being the migrants.”

However, Sliwa did not entirely excuse Mamdani.  “I don’t see any of the homeless outreach workers that the mayor keeps talking about,” he said. 

Mamdani’s critics however argue  the newly appointed mayor’s end to end encampment sweeps has contributed to the rising death toll. Brian Stettin, a senior adviser in the Adams’ administration, told the New York Post, “When a person is in imminent danger, there is no debate. Whatever ideological divides we should not have any impact on these policies during a ‘Code Blue.’” 

Sliwa added that his organization’s hands are tied. “We’re just citizens,” he said, noting the Guardian Angels cannot carry out involuntary removals to bring people indoors. “That has to be done by the city, the police department, and other agencies—but they’re just not doing that.”