I think I'm going to cry...WTF is the Federalist Society?

[fooj]

Group Becoming Must for Some Conservatives

Monday July 18, 2005 7:31 AM


By NANCY BENAC

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - At a recent Friday luncheon, former Solicitor General Theodore Olson cast his eyes over a hotel ballroom crammed with lawyers and wryly welcomed ``all of you Federalists who seem to have mastered the secret handshake.''

``For those of you who just stumbled in off the street, it is my duty to advise you that you have stumbled into a right-wing cabal - you will never be the same again,'' the government's one-time chief courtroom lawyer deadpanned as chortles erupted from members of the Federalist Society.

The conservative group - which has no secret handshake and opens its forums to anyone - has plenty to be smiling about these days.

Founded by three law students in 1982 as a debating society, it now boasts a membership of more than 25,000 that includes prominent members of the Bush administration, the federal judiciary and Congress. Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members and other top Bush aides take regular turns at the society's podium.

Chances are good that the next Supreme Court justice will be either a member of the society or someone who has addressed the group.

Olson himself has been mentioned as a potential nominee. Newly confirmed appellate Judge Janice Rogers Brown, also mentioned as a possible future justice, was among those in the luncheon audience recently.

Others on President Bush's reputed short list include Federalist Society members John Roberts and Michael McConnell, both appellate court justices. Still others on the list have addressed the group, including appellate Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones and Samuel Alito, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

While the society has no formal role in consulting with the White House, ``the reality is, given the presence of Federalist Society members within the White House counsel's office and the Bush administration, they are playing a crucial role in selecting judges and likely justices,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal Duke University law professor who has addressed the group.

Georgetown University law professor Mark Tushnet wrote in his book, ``A Court Divided,'' that Federalist Society conferences serve as ``something like the out-of-town preview of a Broadway show, where ambitious conservative lawyers strut their stuff.''

``Appearing at Federalist Society events is one, perhaps the most important, of the ways in which a person who wants to get known as 'reliable' and promotable makes sure that his/her name gets put on 'the list','' Tushnet said in an interview.

Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, a Federalist founder, said the organization has grown ``beyond our wildest dreams. We really started it as a hobby and for fun, to add to the debate and discussion on campus.'' Law schools, he said, are largely Democratic in their orientation, so the Federalist Society took off as a countervailing forum for conservative ideas and networking.

``It really is kind of the hobby and extracurricular activity that took over my life.'' he said.

Not everyone views the organization in such an innocuous light.

The Institute for Democracy Studies, which says it examines ``anti-democratic religious and political movements and organizations,'' calls the society part of ``the infrastructure underlying the right-wing assault on the democratic foundations of our legal system.''

The Federalist Society does no lobbying and takes no positions on public policies, but its sphere of influence is broader than mere debate. Its 15 ``practice groups'' bring lawyers together to develop strategy for litigators on issues such as civil rights, religious liberty and national security.

The society keeps a watchful eye on the American Bar Association with its monthly ``ABA Watch.''

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., frequently quizzes Bush's judicial nominees in the Judiciary Committee about their ties to the society. He has expressed concern that the group may have some sort of informal filtering role in the selection of judicial nominees.

``As we try to monitor the legal DNA of President Bush's nominees, we find repeatedly the Federalist Society chromosome,'' Durbin said at a 2003 hearing. ``Why is it that membership in the Federalist Society has become the secret handshake of the Bush nominees for the federal court?''

As often as Durbin raises such concerns, they are quickly batted down by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who says he's ``darn proud'' to serve as co-chairman of the society's Board of Visitors.

``These aren't just conservatives. These are top-notch lawyers all over this country, top-notch law students who are just sick and tired of the leftward leanings of our government, and, frankly, wanted to bring some balance,'' Hatch countered at one hearing. He added that the organization regularly invites prominent liberals to speak at its forums and debates.

It is a mark of the society's success that liberals have set out to duplicate the formula, founding the American Constitution Society five years ago as a kind of counterweight. Many liberals speak enviously of their competition on the right.

``They've been remarkably successful in bringing together various parts of the conservative movement,'' said Duke's Chemerinsky. ``I only want the left to have its own Federalist Society.''

^---

On the Net:

Federalist Society: http://www.fed-soc.org/



:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. "Sick and tired of the leftward leanings of our government"? WTF?

OK, Senator Hatch. Step away from the bong....

[fooj]

2. ``all of you Federalists who seem to have mastered the secret handshake.''

Have I missed something? Things just get creepier and creepier...

[WCGreen]

14. They keep saying it over and over so that even though

the right has been in power for the better part of 25 years, they still have to have a bogey man to mask their real agenda, the dismantaling of any progress beyond 1792......

[mmonk]

3. Yes, meet the people

that are going to change our country.

[Az_lefty]

4. right-wing cabal => FASCISTS!!!!

I cannot understand what has become of this country. This is just insanity.

[housewolf]

5. Here's more on the Federalist Society

Perpare yourself, it just might make you :cry: more.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3690471

[wli]

6. I'm not sure but I'm terrified

How the heck did these fascists become so unstoppable?

They're going to put dump us all in concentration camps and incinerate us all.

[LeftNYC]

7. Blinded By The Right

David Brock's memoir from his days as a right wing hatchet man talk about the Federalist Society in some detail. He used to schmooze with all of them and each was a liar and activist more than the next.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dr.Phool]

9. After the 2000 election

Shrub stated that he would get his advice on judicial nominees from the Federalist Society, instead of the American Bar Association.

Most people didn't pay attention, or didn't understand.

[fooj]

10. Apparently, I was MIA that day.

:cry:

[Supersedeas]

11. where one goes to be put on the promotion list

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. Evil, pure and simple...

from the 8th Dimension.

Really.

[Emit]

13. Always suspected some connection of Rove & Federalist Soc

After having read this article last year about Rove's plan to destroy the Democratic Party, and his interest in the Federalists Papers:

http://bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm

Rove's intellectual hero is James Madison; his only child is named Andrew Madison Rove. The first time we spoke, I asked him about Madison's Federalist No. 10, which is about "curing the mischiefs of faction' (by "faction," Madison meant, roughly speaking, what we'd call "interest groups"). "Very good! Very good!" Rove boomed out, and then he elaborated, defending interest groups as being supportive of the national interest: "I think this goes back to the definition of 'faction.' I don't think Madison was contemplating, you know, the American Dry Cleaners Association. I think he was thinking about farmers, or tradesmen, or people who lived in the mountains, or planters, or seacoast dwellers, or townspeople, or land speculators, or stockjobbers. So I think he was thinking of it in a different way, much closer to what I'M suggesting is the proper way to think about it, than in -the way that some look at modem American politics. It's not so much that the farmer says, 'I have to have $5.6 billion in drought relief,' as it is 'Do you recognize the importance of animal husbandry and of rural America?' and 'Do you have something that gives me hope for my future and for the future of my children?' The implication that, in No. 10, Madison is saying that groups are driven by their interest and there's only one way in which their interest can be satisfied, I think, is incorrect."

The next time I saw Rove, he had a copy of the Federalist Papers on the table in his office, with scraps of paper marking No. 10 and No. 51, which is also by Madison, and lays out the principle of separation of powers. (It contains the line "If men were angels, no government would be necessary.") In both essays, Madison is concerned with devising structural means to prevent any one force in American society from becoming too powerful. I asked Rove to talk more about the Federalist Papers.

<<snip>>

Rove flipped forward in the book." And in No. 51 he says there are two ways to go about doing this. One is by creating 'a will in the community independent of the majority -that is, of society itself. Heredity or self-appointed authority. The other is 'by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable.' Again, it's not that he's against majorities-he says 'an unjust combination of a majority of the whole. 'Well, that means there could be a just combination of a majority of the whole. But how do you guard against permanent, oppressive domination by a group, a majority, over all others? And he says you can try it two ways. One is by heredity or self-appointed authority, and that's precarious. The second way is the federal republic." Here he picked up the book and read aloud again. "'The society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens that the rights of individuals or of the minority will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.'"

<<snip>>

In our last interview, I tried out on Rove a scenario I called "the death of the Democratic Party." The Party has three key funding sources: trial lawyers, Jews, and labor unions. One could systematically disable all three, by passing tort-reform legislation that would cut off the trial lawyers' incomes, by tilting pro-Israel in Middle East policy and thus changing the loyalties of big Jewish contributors, and by trying to shrink the part of the labor force which belongs to the newer, and more Democratic, public-employee unions. And then there are three fundamental services that the Democratic Party is offering to voters: Social Security, Medicare, and public education. Each of these could be peeled away, too: Social Security and Medicare by giving people benefits in the form of individual accounts that they invested in the stock market, and public education by trumping the Democrats on the issue of standards. The Bush Administration has pursued every item on that list. Rove didn't offer any specific objection but, rather, a general caveat that the project might be too ambitious. "Well, I think it's a plausible explanation," he said. "I don't think you ever kill any political party. Political parties kill themselves, or are killed, not by the other political party but by their failure to adapt to new circumstances. But do you weaken a political party, either by turning what they see as assets into liabilities, and/or by taking issues they consider to be theirs, and raiding them?" The thought brought to his round, unlined, guileless face a boyish look of pure delight. "Absolutely!"
__________________________________

Another Rove connection to the Federalist Society:

FEDERALIST SOCIETY LAWYERS CHAPTER RECEPTION WITH TIM GOEGLEIN
Mr. Goeglein is Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. He will be speaking on “President Bush and the Nomination and Confirmation of Federal Judges.” Tim is a protégé of Karl Rove and was one of the architects of the 2004 Bush campaign. Among his present functions is intermediating the Administration and various constituents groups, most notably the Federalist Society. Mr. Goeglein will be addressing the President’s judicial nominations and possible strategies for upcoming Supreme Court appointments.
FEDERALIST SOCIETY LAWYERS CHAPTER SPRING RECEPTION WITH RACHAEL RODRIGUEZ

http://currentstudents.law.miami.edu/stuorgs/federalist_society/aevents.htm

AS does Grover Norquist:

http://www.federalismproject.org/masterpages/publications/books/realfederalism.html
_____________________________________________________________________

Right Web is a good resource, having categorized all of the different tentacles and funding of the rightwing organizations, including the Federalist Society:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/federalist.php
<<snip>>
About

Established in 1982 by a small clique of conservative law students and lawyers--including Robert Bork, Edwin Meese, and William Rehnquist--who wanted to push the country's judiciary to the right, the Federalist Society has grown into one of the country's most powerful legal associations.

According to Salon, "In 1982, Meese, Rehnquist and other first-generation legal conservatives reached out to law students and encouraged the founding of a new organization: the Federalist Society. Funded generously by Richard Mellon Scaife and patrons, the Federalist Society became a national networking organization that nurtured young conservatives and swiftly became the crucial channel to Supreme Court clerkships and prestigious jobs in the Reagan administration. In 'Closed Chambers,' former clerk Lazarus outlines how Federalist Society clerks formed a self-described 'cabal against the libs' to push justices in a rightward direction. Conservative donors like Scaife were encouraged to endow professorships and to fund conferences and training institutes to tutor judges in corporate deregulation and other articles of conservative legal faith." (5)

<<snip>>

Right Web connections (Federalist Society)

• John Ashcroft, member

• William P. Barr, member

• Robert Bork, cofounder

• Linda Chavez, member

• Michael Chertoff, member

• William Kristol, former contributing writer

• Edwin Meese, cofounder

• Gale Norton, member

• Theodore Olson, member

• Richard Mellon Scaife, original funder


<<snip>>
___________________________________________________________________

Here's a good article putting federalism into perspective as it relates to current events:

http://www.institutefordemocracy.org/pub3.html
<<snip>>
As the conservative movement develops its challenge to fundamental institutions in the American body politic, ranging from the public schools to the Republican Party and the mainline religious denominations, it has not ignored the legal front. Extreme conservative legal organizations sponsoring a combination of right-wing litigation and advocacy are opening the way for a radical transformation of the American legal system.

One of the most significant developments has been the emergence of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, formed in 1982 and based in Washington, D.C. This organization has developed comprehensive challenges to a broad range of constitutional principles, and it is targeting the courts, the law schools, and the American Bar Association (ABA) itself.
<<snip>>

AND related to the above-noted target--ABA:

http://www.politicalstrategy.org/ammokeyword/ammokeyword_lies2.htm

Bush (Lies, Hypocrisy, Corporate Interests)
FACT: Bush announces he is ending the American Bar Association's (ABA) half-century role in vetting nominees for federal judgeships. White House Counsel Al Gonzales notified ABA president Martha Barnett in writing, saying, "In our view, granting any single group such a preferential, quasi-official role in the nomination process would be unfair to the other groups that also have strong interests in judicial selection. It would be particularly inappropriate, in our view, to grant preferential, quasi-official role to a group, such as the ABA, that takes public positions on divisive political, legal and social issues that come before the courts." Shortly thereafter, the Administration grants that preferential, quasi-official role to the fringe right wing Federalist Society, headed by Ed Meese.

_____________________________________________________________________

ALSO, I found this curious and wondered how it relates. I've read that a lot of people in Bush & Co. administration are members of the Federalist Society. Any thoughts on what this memo actually means in realtion to Federalists?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/02/20010226-13.html

<<snip>>
Memorandum

February 26, 2001

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Interagency Working Group on Federalism

It is hereby ordered as follows:

<<snip>>

Section 2. Membership.

(a) The Working Group shall comprise the following officials:

(1) Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, who shall serve as Chairman of the Working Group;
(2) Director, Domestic Policy Council, who shall serve as Vice Chairman of the Working Group;
(3) Secretary of the Treasury, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(4) Attorney General, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(5) Secretary of the Interior, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(6) Secretary of Agriculture, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(7) Secretary of Commerce, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(8) Secretary of Labor, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(9) Secretary of Health and Human Services, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(10) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(11) Secretary of Transportation, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(12) Secretary of Energy, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(13) Secretary of Education, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(14) Secretary of Veterans Affairs, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(15) Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(16) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(17) Counsel to the President;
(18) Assistant to the President for Economic Policy;
(19) Assistant to the President, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(20) Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President, or an appropriate designee thereof;
(21) Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs; and
(22) Such other officials of executive departments and agencies as the President may, from time to time, designate.

<<snip>>

Section 3. Functions. The principal functions of the Working Group are to:

(a) Identify initiatives that promote principles of Federalism, such as:

(1) Federal endeavors which may more appropriately be carried out by State or local authorities;
(2) Opportunities for flexible funding streams, regulatory waivers, and other opportunities that increase State and local flexibility, innovation, and accountability;
(3) Measures for improving Federal responsiveness to State and local concerns; and
(4) Enforcement of rules, orders, and procedures that advance Federalism.

(b) Draft a new Executive Order on Federalism, which will require departments and agencies in the executive branch to adhere to principles of Federalism;

(c) Consult, as appropriate, with State and local officials on issues pertaining to Federalism, including, but not limited to, the issuance of the new Executive Order on Federalism; and

(d) Produce a report to the President on recommendations for promoting principles of Federalism no later than 6 months after the issuance of this directive.

GEORGE W. BUSH
_____________________________________________________________________

[genius]

15. They are extremists who want to end our freedoms and give us tyranny.

They are in contrast to the Madison Society, which supports our form of government.

[WCGreen]

16. The insidious part of this is that they are claiming

they are granting people the freedom our forefather's envision in 1787. When in reality, they are stripping away the individuals, unless you belong to the ruling cliche, rights of protection against the cruelty of the free market system. These are the same folks that shout out loud and long that free enterprise is the best form to promote economic growth but leave out the fact that unfettered capitalism leads to a small number of winners and a very large number of losers, something prominent past republicans such as Teddy Roosevelt recognized.

On the other hand, they are promoting a legal and commercial system protects what is in place and sets up strong barriers against true innovation.

Most of the federal government goes toward protecting property. That means allowing the haves to keep what they have in perpetuity.

Hence the death tax campaign against the Estate Tax. The federalists had a strong say in how this argument was shaped.

So you see folks, freedom to the federalists, is just another way to say what is best for the country is what is best for the economic elite already in place.

You can take that to the bank.

[Emit]

20. Yes, another tenacle

Antithetical to what Madison stood for...

**“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” James Madison, Federalist Paper 47

[Marnieworld]

17. It's like the stonecutters.

Whenever my husband or I see one of them we sing, "We do. We do." Simpsons fans will get it.

[newblewtoo]

18. Best episode ever....

But I seriously doubt the "Freemasons" can hold a candle to the Federalist Society.

[Zorra]

19. An organization of fascist lawyers. The Devil's Quorum. n/t