As Democrats’ efforts to oust President Trump from office have played out in the Senate this week, his opponents in the judiciary branch of government maneuvered to curb conservatives’ growing influence on the federal bench.
The ethical advisory arm of the federal judiciary is circulating a
draft rule that would ban judges and their clerks from belonging to the Federalist Society, an organization aimed at fostering an originalist interpretation of the Constitution at law schools and through forums and debates across the country.
The proposed rules change is the latest salvo in a campaign to cast the Federalist Society as too political, and thereby politically risky, for judiciary participation. The Wall Street Journal editorial board labeled the proposal “judicial political mischief masked in high sounding rhetoric,” a step that is spurring a backlash among “judges and others” who should denounce it as “undermining legal education in America and perhaps violating the First Amendment right of association.”
Conservative activists put it more bluntly, calling the rules change a transparent attempt to neuter the Federalist Society. The motivation is obvious, these activists say, after the Senate has confirmed a record number of Trump-appointed judges, many of whom are Federalist Society members or have participated in the group’s events.
