U.S. President Donald Trump speaks, on the day he signs energy-related executive orders at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A woman who voted for President Donald Trump three times is now leading the challenge to his sweeping tariffs, saying Trump has exceeded his authority, according to The New York Times.
Sara Albrecht heads the Liberty Justice Center, a right-leaning legal organization representing an "ideologically diverse" coalition of businesses that has sued over the legality of Trump's tarriff policy.
"The role of her group, the Liberty Justice Center, underscores just how much the tariff issue has divided conservatives," the Times reports.
In 2018, the group brought a case to the Supreme Court that resulted in the justices’ ruling "that public sector workers could not be required to pay collective bargaining fees. The case was a major blow to labor unions that had raised millions from the fees," according to the Times.
The group has filed close to 140 lawsuits since 2011, and "the group has also fought policies that prohibit schools from sharing information with parents about their child’s gender identity," the Times explains.
Albrecht told the Times that her group had already been "exploring filing cases that challenged what it considered executive branch overreach" in February when Trump first invoked an emergency statute from the 1970s to unilaterally impose the taxes on imported goods.
Liberty Justice Center then joined forces with a law professor to recruit five small businesses as plaintiffs in the case, which will be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
“We knew the businesses were going to have to represent all of America’s small businesses,” Albrecht told the Times, “and we really needed an easy story to tell.”
The businesses include a wine importer, educational electronic kit manufacturer, a women’s biking apparel business, a plastic pipe maker and a specialty fishing tackle company.
Arguing the case are two prominent attorneys, one conservative and one liberal—Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge nominated by President George W. Bush and Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general during President Barack Obama’s terms.
“I thought the Republicans were against tariffs. It never really occurred to me that this would be an issue that I would be fighting a Republican president on," said Jeffrey M. Schwab, the group’s senior counsel.
Albrecht added that it's not as much about Trump as it is about the rule of law.
“It’s about the presidency, not about the president, and it’s about the Constitution,” she said. “We’ve made it about the separation of powers, and that applies to everybody, whether you voted for him or not.”