Koch Industries, research funding; Institute for Justice; right-wing public interest law firms, funding for

By 1990, enterprising conservative and libertarian activists were wearing a path to Wichita, where they, like Fink before them, would pitch their proposals to Charles Koch in hopes of his patronage. Typical was the experience in 1991 of two former Reagan administration lawyers, Clint Bolick, a former aide to Clarence Thomas, and William "Chip" Mellor III, in search of seed money for a new kind of aggressive, right-wing public interest law firm that would litigate against government regulations in favor of "economic liberty." ... According to Mellor...Charles Koch himself committed $1.5 million on the spot, but with strings attached, keeping him in control....The legal group, the Institute for Justice, went on to bring numerous successful cases against government regulations, including campaign-finance laws, several of which reached the Supreme Court. (178)