The courts. Good morning and welcome. I am dean reuter. It is my pleasure to welcome you here today. In the room, or watching on the live stream, or cspan. Welcome as we mark the 40th anniversary of the Federalist Society. I say the word mark purposefully. Some applause is appropriate but i am blessed interested in accolades. I am more interested in looking to the future. Indeed, my prediction as a veteran of the Federalist Society is that the Federalist Society is poised to accomplish more in the next 10 years then it has in the past 40. But, that depends on you. Not only is this organization yours, you are the organization. You are the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is nothing more than its volunteer membership. Well, maybe the donors too. [laughter] the donors are important. We are a Nonprofit Organization and we are good at being a Nonprofit Organization. So, donors are important. The theme of this years convention is particularly topical. The current state of the legal profession. Our profession is, well, should be an example to the rest of the country. The idea that matters are debatable. That debate leads to truth. 98 of the lawyers that are ruining it for the rest of us. [laughter] to get to the business of the convention, we have a firstclass series of events. That phrase reminds me of a brief story i have told once before. Somebody asked me to reiterate the story. The story goes back to my early career and concerns two backtoback business trips i was taking. Even though it was the beginning of my career, there were airplanes. I was working for the federal government. Because of trouble complicate travel complications, my flight landed at Dulles Airport after midnight. I went home for a few hours and had the first flight out the next morning to california. In the morning i went back to the airport. Still dark. Standing in line. Looking ahead. Flying on a budget, cut rate, no Frills Airline that does not exist anymore. Trying to pay taxpayer dollars trying to save taxpayer dollars. I see a very eager young man behind the counter dressed in Bright Company colors like a Fast Food Restaurant employee. As i approached, he said, is this your first time flying . I was young but i was dressed like a businessman and had a carryon bag. Because i had learned landed early that morning i was able to respond, this isnt by first time flying today. [laughter] that went straight over his head. I assumed he meant to ask me if it was my first time on the airline. I was booked in the back of the plane. Probably what was at that time a smoking section, if you can remember. I was thinking about upgrading to firstclass even though i was making a paltry amount of money. I would have to do it at my expense. I asked, do you have firstclass Seats Available . To his credit, he looked me in the eye and said sir, all our seats are firstclass. [laughter] i said, of course, then trudged off to my flight. At this convention, it really will be firstclass. A couple of quick things before our opening address. Use the qr code. If you want to cle credit, you need to check in every day. If you do not sign in, you will not get credit. When you leave, you need to sign out with the credit, the qr code. Otherwise by this time next week you will be claiming 170 hours of credit and they will deny you. I want to take a moment to thank the Jack Miller Center for sponsoring something new this year, a rare documents exhibit. And the trust we are bringing here for your viewing in the South Carolina room upstairs. Dont wait too long to see it. There, you can see and hold original copies of blackstone commentaries, the 17 87 pamphlet of the u. S. Constitution, a First Edition of the federalist papers, the First Official publication of the bill of rights, the 1776 edition of Thomas Paynes comments and more. Youre going to love it. If you drop your Business Card there, you can win this. This is a leaf of the federalist papers. Federalist 40 six, an original First Edition. Very handsome. We have never done a drawing, it is not really our thing. But we have also never had a leaf of the First Edition. I am looking forward to that. Back to the business of the convention. We have recruited a long time Federalist Society leader, someone who can speak to the 40 years of the organization from the beginning to this moment. He asked me to be brief in his introduction, so i will. You already know him. Chief judge bill prior sits on the 11th circuit nearing 20 years. Importantly, he started and ran the Tulane Law School chapter of the Federalist Society. The first time tulane had a chapter. [applause] he was then a clerk for judge john maynard wisdom. He served as deputy, then the Alabama Attorney general for years. You might not know he served on the u. S. Sentencing commission. He has been in private practice and taught at various law schools. I would say as it touches the law, he has been there. Please welcome me in joining please join me in welcoming chief judge breyer. [applause] good morning. Thank you for the kind introduction. It is a pleasure to be here with you and with this great society. As always, i am looking forward to the addresses, debates and discussions for this convention. This year, we celebrate an important anniversary. 40 years ago, stephen calabrese, a law student at Yale University , planned with his friends Lee Lieberman and david mcintosh, who are law students at the university of chicago, threeday symposium in new haven on an academic topic. Federalism legal and political ramifications. Among the speakers were robert bork, Antonin Scalia and ted olson. President reagan appointed bork and scalia to serve as judges on the United States court of appeals for the District Of Columbia that here. Ted olson already served in the office of Legal Counsel and the department of justice. About 200 people attended the symposium. And so began the Federalist Society for law and Public Policy studies. What started as an organization for law students grew quickly. For my part, i arrived as a firstyear student at Tulane Law School in the fall of 1984. Two years after the societys first symposium. As a orientation for firstyear students, representatives spoke and encouraged us to become involved in extracurricular activities. Most of the Student Groups like the log review or the Student Bar Association had no overt ideological agenda. One Student Group clearly did. The president of the new chapter of the National Lawyers guild explained its history as a liberal counterweight to what he called the conservative american bar association. [laughter] that presentation made me think that perhaps tulane needed a new Student Organization dedicated to traditional angloamerican ideas about the rule of law. Of course there was no internet to search. None of us students could yet afford personal computers. Nor did we have cell phones. William f buckley junior was Publishing National review, which had covered the formation of the Federalist Society. I searched my issues and found an advertisement for this society with a phone number for an office in washington, d. C. I called the number, which in those days was a big deal for a poor law student on a tight budget because the call was longdistance. The societys first and only employee eugene meyer answered the call. With his guidance, i worked soon afterwards with another student to plan our first event at tulane. Similar efforts happened all over the country. Today, the Federalist Society sponsors thousands of programs with tens of thousands of participants and attendees. It has chapters that more than 200 american law schools with more than 10,000 student members and annually hosts a National Symposium for hundreds of students, law professors, judges, Public Officials and policy experts. It has chapters for lawyers in about 100 cities with more than 65,000 members. It has a Faculty Division that sponsors programs for current and aspiring law professors. For decades, it has held this National Lawyers convention in our nations capital. We have a lot to celebrate. What is our mission . Named for the founders who favored the ratification of our constitution and sporting a logo with the bust of the father of the constitution james madison, the society is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom. That the separation of powers is central to our constitution and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. Through its programs, videos and podcasts seeks to promote an awareness of these principles and further their application. From the start, the Federalist Society has promoted rigorous and open debate is the best way to ensure the founding principles of our constitution receive a fair hearing. The results speak for themselves. Thousands of lawyers, judges, academics, Public Officials and students have gathered for this convention to hear public speeches and debates about the rule of law, covered by a free press. In many ways, it is as if we are holding the yale symposium again for a bigger crowd at a fancier venue with better food. On the surface at least, not much else has changed. On this happy occasion, i must ask, is there more to the story . Are we ready to consider tough questions . Do we care about debate as we say we do . What do the critics say . Is there more to the Federalist Society that meets the eye . What do we really do . After 40 years, i decided it was time to work harder and investigate this secretive and mysterious network that critics charge has captured the federal judiciary. Including the Supreme Court of the United States. So, i researched the topic, an odyssey itself. What i found exceeded even my wildest expectations. I quickly discovered i should not waste my time attending the thousands of Public Events with the chapters across the country, nor should i bother with the many volumes and back issues of the Federalist Society review, the youtube videos and podcasts or pages of information on the website. The critics explain that the public operation provides only camouflage. As the writers at slate explained, the Federalist Society has styled itself a debating society long after it ceased being anything of the sword. And as intellectual luminary ellie missile [laughter] had done, usually is not able to operate in anonymity. To get to the truth, i had to go to the shadows. Where the real operation of the society happens. Wait a minute. There we go. [laughter] my odyssey began by consulting the work of a longtime critic. A leader of the worlds greatest deliberative body. Toiling away doing deep, thoughtful and Insightful Research has my former colleague as a state attorney general, an elite lawyer and seasoned investigator, senator Sheldon Whitehouse of rhode island. We decided to meet at a private beach club. [laughter] or has he calls it, a long tradition on the coast of rhode island, where he insisted we would find no operatives in the shadows. Truth be told, what senator whitehouse has discovered is more startling than anything i could have ever imagined. According to senator whitehouse, for years, dark money operatives working from the shadows have installed Supreme Court justices handpicked by the minions of far right donors. Little did i know that millions of american voters, past president s of the United States and United States senators only provided camouflage for the real operation. At the center of that stealth operation has been a reclusive leader of this society. The cochair of the board of directors, leonard leo. As centered senator whitehouse puts it, leonard is the spider you find at the center of the dark money web. [laughter] his spider web to state courts, City Councils and even local schools to subvert democracy with dark money. Senator whitehouse has also explained that all of you in attendance for this convention have one thing in common. You all know leonard and he knows all of you. [laughter] as commentator trip brennan puts it, if dark money conservative groups represent the death star of the conservative legal movement, leonard leo is darth vader and the emperor rolled into one. [laughter] the Senate Democratic policy and Communications Committee has even provided an illustration of the spiderweb to identify all of the power players in the society. This illustration helps you understand how the power players knew the real work in the shadows. Take a look. I start with what the critics call the ideological brain trust. The academics. Although many doubt the influence of contemporary legal scholarship on american law, i say do not worry. Replace is secure. As senator whitehouse explains, if you are out to deconstruct american law and replace it with what the big donors want, you need some intellectual weaponry. You dont just need justices who do what you ask, you need legal theories. You need to get the justices you put on the court, the intellectual artillery, the demolition theories that will help them destroy the precedents and deconstruct our legal system. You need the brain trust to systematically cheerlead for cultivated fringe ideas. And for those young or aspiring law professors worried about a topic for your next law review article, i say be not afraid. Senator whitehouse explains, the legal theories are easy to come up with. [laughter] you reverse engineer. You start with a big donor interests want and work backwards. So there you have it. You need legal theories, intellectual artillery to deconstruct our legal system but these theories are easy to come up with through verse engineering. Everybody got that . Lets not turn to the law clerks and the students. If you are new to the Federalist Society or find its Mission Statement obscure, worry not. One of the great journalists of our time had a Venerable Institution for investigative journalism. I speak of has distilled the work of the society into three steps. First, lay the pseudoacademic table for the mega movement. You heard that right. The pseudoacademic table for the maga movement, whatever that means. Recruit students to indulge their parole or while placing them on greased rails to the federal bench. [laughter] sounds painful. [laughter] regardless of actual qualifications. Third, most important of all, this is key, serve chickfila. [laughter] [applause] i suspect many law students here today are here for one day one thing, the food. As vox. Com reports, students and faculty always attend federalist satiety events because they have the best food and alcohol. Students and law clerks, have a great weekend and enjoy the food. For the students in attendance dreaming of becoming judges come in the past i would have advised you to study hard and get good grades. Become an editor of the law review. Get a clerkship. Practice and perform public service. Catherine rubino tells us that thanks to this society, ideological purity and pursuit of a far right agenda is the single most important bona fides for conservative nominees. No less an authority than mark joseph stern. Really, is there less of an authority . [laughter] Federalist Society judges tend to hire Federalist Society clerks and the conservative legal movements rattlers radicalization machine produces an endless line of Young Lawyers even more extreme than their predecessors. Over the past halfcentury, each generation of conservative attorneys, particularly those with judicial ambition, has become more radical than the last. Now to the finest product of the radicalization machine. My people. The judges. Judges, if you are wearing a hearing aid, you might want to turn it up. Senator whitehouse says that although money talks, dark money whispers. [laughter] hopefully ostensible neutrality provides cover so that sitting judges and Supreme Court judges 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 without running afoul of rules barring judges from engaging in partisan political activities. They say it is also a showcase to vet and prep future judges. If i understand them right, the Federalist Society is like a combined lecture circuit and Career Placement Service a law school, but ostensible neutrality . I think they might have us confused with el. Yale. [laughter] what about the Educational Program . Explains that recent decisions by the Supreme Court on abortion, the establishment clause, the Second Amendment and Administrative State have created a health scape that can be laid directly on the doorstop of fed sock. So if you are a judge, this convention offers you a unique educational opportunity. To get ahead of the curve and start work on the sequel. Health scape two. Not all critics of the society are on the left. Consider harvard law professor adrian vermeulen. Who recently published an oped in the Washington Post entitles, there is no conservative legal movement. There is no conservative legal movement. What a coincidence to run into all of you here this morning. [laughter] for the last few years, the professor has been composing a requiem for what he calls originalism inc. Touting a better originalism he calls constitutionalism. Or what i call living coming goodism. I am a skeptic. But after reading the oped and watching the recent term of the Supreme Court, probably feels a little like president Truman Holding the newspaper with the headline do we defeats truman. If your practitioners at the Supreme Court, you might not recognize the next time you visit. Rick keene brooks of Democracy Docket warns that fed sock has threatened to make the federal courts unrecognizable and in one Supreme Court term seems to have accomplished that feat. Perhaps we should perhaps we should hold the convention there next year. But no, the rooms are too small and the food is better here. We could never leave the mayflower hotel. Too many memories. For those of you attending the convention for the first time, the critics also have special insights about this event. Jay willis helpfully calls this annual convention a threeday festival of conservative legal luminaries explaining that the correct schools of jurisprudential thought are those that yield the conservative legal movements preferred policy outcomes. He describes the society as one of the most powerful reactionary forces in the legal universe. Which hebrew grudgingly admits makes the partition it participation of many nonreactionaries at its fancy events equal parts baffling and alarming. A more objective source, person professor tellis describes us as a network to give conservatives a chance to meet one another and check one another out. His words. [laughter] i suspect many of you have been looking forward to checking each other out. [laughter] perhaps now is a good time to announce the launch of the new dating. [laughter] swipe right. [laughter] [applause] my law clerks here are excited about it. I hear that next year we will launch another dating app for the National Student symposium. They will call it legal tender. Tonight, the society will hold its annual Antonin Scalia of memorial dinner. Or what vox. Com describes as a ball for the whos who in the conservative legal movement. There we go. I guess we are like baptists because we do not dance. [laughter] we dress up and drink. Lisa tells me that about 2000 people have tickets for the dinner. In fact, we are sold out. For those of you who made the cut, congratulations. Take a selfie. Post it. It is a facial. You are now listed. For those of you still on the waiting list, keep trying. Better luck next year. To sum things up, you can make a real case that the Federalist Society is the single most influential Advocacy Group in washington right now and its story began with a small startup grant from the olin foundation. After all, it is just another way in which rich donors get lavish tax breaks for donations that can come if used property properly, clash with norms of democracy. I dont know about you, but i would call a Student Group beginning with a small grant for an academic conference and growing into one of the most influential organizations in the United States promoting the constitution and the rule of law , an organizational example of the american dream. May God Bless America and may god bless the Federalist Society. Enjoy the food. [applause]