It’s also a showcase to vet and prep future judges. This ostensible neutrality provides cover so that sitting judges and Supreme Court Justices can speak at Federalist Society events and use the network to recruit judicial clerks who can come into the pipeline to help further conservative ideas ever without running afoul of rules barring judges from engaging in partisan political activities. Even though the organization’s leadership has been deeply conservative if not reactionary, it maintains that it is simply a neutral forum for airing competing ideas. The Federalist Society-which styled itself a “debate society” long after it ceased to be anything of the sort-has been the incubator for conservative ideas championed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and others to create jurisprudential theories such as originalism and textualism that, at least in the hands of ideologically conservative people, often leads to deeply conservative results. He remains co-Chairman of its board of directors. It begins with the Federalist Society, an idea factory and conservative farm team which Leo led for a long time and where he continues to exert influence. The success of Leo’s empire has long depended upon compartmentalizing and bootstrapping.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |