Jonathan Mitchell, ’01, Named to Washington Post's "50 People Shaping our Society in 2025"
Post Next 50
In our fractious, dispirited nation, the big legal battles in recent decades have pitted originalists — those who seek answers in the words and values of America’s founders — against advocates for a living Constitution, one that adapts to changing mores, technology, culture and family life.
Enter the legal renegade whose mission, as he puts it, is to “undermine” the work of both originalists and progressives: Jonathan Mitchell, part cultural conservative, part demolition man.
He is, most famously, the guy behind the Texas law that gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion. He’s represented supporters of Chick-fil-A in San Antonio against efforts to bar the eatery from opening at the local airport because the company opposed same-sex marriage. He advised a Texas man who wanted to sue his former partner because she planned to travel out of state to get an abortion.
He’s a frequent burr in the side of the Supreme Court, which he believes has become a “lawless” institution that is constantly “making up constitutional rights.” He’s an originalist of sorts, but he breaks with them by challenging the idea that Supreme Court rulings are statements for the ages that reflect and set the nation’s principles. No, he says, they are merely a referee’s call in the moment. The enduring work, he believes, belongs to the lawmakers in Congress.
Mitchell, 48, is a savvy, tireless crusader for his view of the law, which he recognizes is not a perspective that either the left or the right embraces these days. “I still have my work cut out for me,” he says.
Many of his fellow constitutional lawyers view Mitchell as an extremist, hell-bent on erasing fundamental rights. They are appalled that he believes precedent — the body of past rulings that form the foundation of most courts’ work — is neither binding nor supremely important. They view him as a political and cultural flamethrower, standing athwart progress, seeking to roll back LGBTQ rights and abortion rights, chip away at union rights and expand notions of religious liberty.
Read more at The Washington Post