Jane Fonda called American POWs war criminals and the Left made her a hero.
She's been untouchable ever since.
That changed this week when campaign finance records revealed exactly what her climate PAC bought.
JanePAC Donated to Both Justices Six Weeks Before the Enbridge Line 5 Vote
Line 5 is a 645-mile pipeline that moves 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids through Michigan every day – supplying 65% of the propane that heats homes in the Upper Peninsula.
The pipeline's Straits of Mackinac crossing is 73 years old, and energy company Enbridge proposed replacing it with a safer concrete-lined tunnel deep beneath the lakebed.
Michigan regulators spent years reviewing the plan, approved it, and then the Michigan Supreme Court stepped in.
Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh and Justice Noah Hood each received $5,000 from the Jane Fonda Climate PAC – known as JanePAC – before joining a 6-1 majority to throw out that approval and send the project back for additional environmental proceedings.
The Commission had concluded that alternatives to the tunnel carried higher risks and costs for Michigan consumers.
Cavanagh and Hood decided that wasn't good enough.
JanePAC spent $81,000 total in Michigan during the current election cycle – not just on the two justices, but on Democrat attorney general nominee Eli Savit ($12,500), and Will Lawrence ($5,000), a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, the far-left organization that pushed the Green New Deal, now running for Congress.
Jane Fonda has publicly denounced Line 5 for years and backed Michigan's Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel – the same attorney general who sued Enbridge in 2019 trying to permanently shut the pipeline down.
"This is one more tool the anti-energy left is using to go after anybody that wants to provide low-cost energy to Americans," Jason Torchinsky, attorney for the Iowa-based Patriots Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Trump Greenlit the Line 5 Pipeline Tunnel and Michigan Judges Overruled Him
Without Line 5, roughly 90 tanker trucks per hour would need to roll through Michigan roads to move the same volume of product.
People in the U.P. heat their homes with that propane.
The Trump administration already granted a key federal permit for the tunnel project. The Army Corps of Engineers cited Trump's January 2025 executive order on American energy in its approval. Michigan's own regulators had issued construction permits in July – the project had more momentum than it had seen in years.
Two justices bankrolled by a Hollywood actress just overrode that.
The ruling sent the project back to the Public Service Commission for more environmental proceedings – a process that could stretch years while Michiganders keep heating their homes with propane flowing through a 73-year-old pipeline those same judges won't let be replaced with something safer.
Jane Fonda Climate PAC Is Part of a National Strategy to Control State Courts
JanePAC isn't operating alone. It belongs to a national network of climate groups that have made electing sympathetic state judges a core political priority.
The Michigan League of Conservation Voters – a member of that same network – endorsed both Cavanagh and Hood in June. The coalition they share has worked to train legal practitioners in applying "climate science" inside courtrooms.
Cavanagh is not a neutral party on these questions. She holds a degree in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan and spent years in environmental consulting before entering the law.
Hood was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in May 2025. He had been on the state's highest court less than a year when he joined Cavanagh to kill a project that would have made an aging pipeline safer.
JanePAC, Cavanagh, and Hood did not respond to requests for comment.
The Founders built judicial independence into the Constitution to prevent exactly this – cases decided before they're filed, outcomes purchased rather than argued.
What happened in Michigan wasn't justice. It was a transaction.
Sources:
- Paris Apodaca, "Michigan Supreme Court Justices Took Campaign Cash From Jane Fonda Org Weeks Before Freezing Pipeline Project," The Daily Caller, August 29, 2026.
- Staff, "Where Things Stand in Michigan's Line 5 Saga," Iron Mountain Daily News, August 24, 2026.
- Staff, "Opponents Promise Fight After Army Corps' Line 5 Tunnel Impact Statement," Detroit News, February 9, 2026.
