James Bopp

James Bopp Jr. (born February 8, 1948) is an American conservative lawyer.

He is most known for his work associated with election laws, anti-abortion model legislation, and campaign finance.

Bopp served as deputy attorney general of Indiana from 1973 to 1975.

He has been 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, a book promoting the Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion.

He became Indiana's Republican National Committeeman on the Republican National Committee in 2006, and became the RNC's Vice Chairman in 2008.

He later served as Indiana's committeeman on the Republican National Committee (RNC), and was the RNC's vice chairman from 2008 to 2012.

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

He has repeatedly been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States by the National Law Journal,

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 wrote 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."

In ProtectMarriage.com v. Bowen, Bopp represented ProtectMarriage.com in a suit 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 the November 2020 election, President Donald Trump was defeated by Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Trump refused to concede the election and made false claims that the election was "stolen" from him; Bopp supported Trump's false claims.

Bopp filed four lawsuits challenging the election results in four swing states won by Biden—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.

Bopp's lawsuit, brought on behalf of a handful of voters in each of the four states, sought to throw out more than 6.3 million votes across 18 counties and therefore made Trump the winner of those states, and thus the election.

One week after filing the lawsuits, Bopp abruptly withdrew the suits.

He declined to explain why.

Bopp also represented True the Vote, a right-wing advocacy group that promotes false allegations of election fraud, in several failed lawsuits that questioned the presidential election outcome in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The lawsuits produced no evidence of significant fraud or irregularities.

True the Vote claimed to be investigating the 2020 election and aimed to raise more than $7 million for donors.

Fred Eshelman, a Trump-supporting businessman and political donor, contributed $2 million to the group, but later sued after it became clear that there was no evidence to support the group's conspiracy-laden claims.