Bring it on
Earlier today, Scott posted Manuel Miranda's excellent piece on the Federalist Society and the lame efforts of the White House to respond to the charge that, heaven forbid, John Roberts might be a member. The best discussion of this group I know of is a Washington Post op-ed by Eugene Volokh from four years ago. Volokh wrote:
Our common bond is just that most of us fall somewhere vaguely right of the center of the political spectrum most of the time. Many leading legal academic and professional institutions are dominated by liberals: A recent study finds, for instance, that 80 percent of U.S. law professors describe themselves as “Democratic or leaning Democratic,” and only 13 percent call themselves “Republican or leaning Republican.” We who dissent from this orthodoxy naturally enjoy talking with each other, even when -- especially when -- we disagree.The society is genuinely open to a variety of views. It takes no position on legislation or on candidates. It files no lawsuits or friend of the court briefs. Its charter is to create discussion, not to lobby, litigate or get out the vote. It welcomes moderates and liberals, if they want to participate, as well as libertarians and conservatives; anyone is free to join.
This openness extends to Federalist conferences, which invariably include liberal speakers, such as Justice Stephen Breyer; Clinton administration White House counsels Abner Mikva and Bernard Nussbaum; professors Akhil Amar, Alan Dershowitz, Randy Kennedy and Kathleen Sullivan; ACLU leaders Nadine Strossen, Burt Neuborne and Steve Shapiro; and many more. I know of no other law-school-based group that consistently sets up panels as balanced as the ones we Federalists put together. . .As my colleague Dan Lowenstein, a Democrat and political appointee of former California governor Jerry Brown, once said, “The Federalist Society is one of the few student organizations putting on public events that contribute to the intellectual life of the law school.”
Volokh is absolutely correct. I have attended several dozen Federalist Society panels. Almost without exception, they have included liberal panelists, usually in equal proportion to conservative ones. The organizers of the big national programs obsess about balance. I've been asked after programs whether I felt the panel was balanced. I've been asked whether I thought the liberal speakers effectively held up their end of the debate. The Federalist Society falls within the finest American tradition of open discussion and debate. Though its leftist critics are probably ignorant of this fact, I doubt that knowledge of the Society's obsession with fair debate would make them more kindly disposed towards us.
In depicting this organization as an evil cabal instead of a debating society comprised of all shades of conservatives and libertarians, leftists embarrass themselves. Serious Democratic Senators like Joe Lieberman, the ones the leftists need to make anyway headway at all against Roberts, are blowing off this phoney issue. They expect a right of center president to nominate right of center judges some of whom will have connections with the only national organization of right of center lawyers.
Miranda is correct in arguing that the White House shouldn't have distanced itself from the Federalist Society. But if the result is that leftists continue to lose credibility by flailing against us for a while, that's not so bad.
