Confessions of a Conservative Lawyer
By Tara Ross

Hello, my name is Tara, and I am a member of that infamous conservative organization, the Federalist Society. I even serve on one of its executive committees.

 

Help me, please. My long tenure in the group proves that I am an addict.

 

Just this week, a front page article in the Washington Post helped me to see what a grave error I may have committed by joining this organization. Because of my membership in this group, it appears that whatever chance I had of being a United States Supreme Court Justice may be dwindling away to naught (if, indeed, it is possible for a microscopic, virtually nonexistent possibility of appointment to shrink to an even smaller probability).

 

After all, if John Roberts’ alleged short-lived Federalist Society membership from 1997 to1998 undermines the credibility of his nomination to the Supreme Court, then what would the Senate make of me—a member in good standing for at least six or seven years?

 

The Washington Post has taught me that my membership in this organization makes me a lawyer who cannot be trusted. I have, after all, been brainwashed to walk in lockstep with my fellow crazy right-wing compatriots. Any legal analytical skills that I learned in law school have been overwhelmed—nay, completely eradicated—by the irreversible indoctrination that I received at the hands of my fellow Federalist Society members.

 

Never mind the fact that my attendance at the Federalist Society’s annual conference ensures that I, like other members, routinely have the opportunity to hear presentations by such acknowledged liberals as journalist Juan Williams and Patricia Ireland, former President of the National Organization for Women. Never mind that the Federalist Society does not take positions on public policy issues, preferring to invite speakers on both sides of an issue and then leaving attendees at conferences to judge for themselves.

 

Apparently, all this fairness and honesty in debate is outweighed by the fact that Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, and their liberal colleagues have all but pronounced membership in the Federalist Society to be a badge of dishonor.

 

To hear liberals such as Leahy and Durbin talk, you’d think we were a modern-day incarnation of the Hitler Youth.

 

Okay.  Enough unwarranted self-flagellation. Time for a reality check.

 

Truth be known, members of the Federalist Society are nothing more than a bunch of geeky academics and lawyers who spend their time debating the minutiae of this or that aspect of legal jurisprudence. We disagree as often as we agree. The tie that binds us together is that we care about the integrity of the law—nothing more or less horrifying than that.

 

Why do liberal Senators and the special interest groups that support them find such a prospect so appalling?

 

To put their reaction into context, we must remember that liberals’ favorite legal organization, the American Bar Association, tends to behave in precisely the opposite manner of the Federalist Society. Whereas the Federalist Society refuses to take positions on matters of public policy, the ABA routinely takes positions on controversial topics such as abortion or the death penalty. Whereas diversity of opinion is welcomed at Federalist Society conferences, ABA conferences tend to be a celebration of the monolithic, liberal viewpoints that the organization has already endorsed.

 

In this world, the judges who are most celebrated are those who view the Constitution as a “living,” flexible document. This point of view contends that the meaning of the constitutional text can adapt over time to accommodate changes in society. Ostensibly, the “living” nature of the document is said to allow the Constitution to stay up-to-date with the times. In practice, it enables judges to create moral and legal standards by which the rest of us must live—even when these standards fly in the face of what the legislature has enacted.

 

When liberals such as Leahy and Durbin claim they want jurists who will enforce the law, I argue that the problem is with their definition of “enforce the law.” They mean that they want judges to rely upon a “living Constitution,” which will allow “enlightened” social mores (in the liberals’ view) to be foisted upon the rest of the country through a flexible reading of the Constitution.

 

Members of the Federalist Society know that living Constitutions are dangerous. A nation cannot be free while unelected judges have the ability to usurp the people’s ability to govern themselves through their duly elected legislators.

 

A Constitution should be kept up to date via constitutional amendment. It should not be kept up to date via judicial fiat.

 

If Roberts was ever a member of the Federalist Society, then Americans should take comfort from that fact. Membership in the Federalist Society creates an addiction to nothing worse than promoting the integrity of the rule of law. There is nothing threatening about a Supreme Court Justice who makes it his top priority to do precisely that.

 

Tara Ross is a regular columnist for TAE Online and the author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College.