Republican senator mike lee talked about the us cancel call to the comes with exercising freedom of speech, spoke of the Federalist Society attorneys convention in washington dc. Good morning. Good morning. I apologize about my voice. I am Vice President and director of the practice groups and article one initiative of the Federalist Society. It is my honor to introduce our speaker for the morning address, no question the senator from utah is known well to this audience and i doubt that i could add much in the way of fun facts or previously undisclosed details about his distinguished career in service to the country but i can say i once worked on capitol hill and when there are Public Servants in the legislature the phrase jack of all trades master of none was very often the most charitable characterization that came to mind when observing some of our nations representatives up close but not so with senator mike lee. The senator has always been generous to the society with his masterful understanding of our system of government and his formidable legal expertise. Which he says was instilled at a young age around the dinner table by his father rex lee, former solicitor general of the United States. A quick search of the Federalist Societys website demonstrates he has offered his views to us on a wide range of issues and has always done so with considerable wisdom and insight. It will include subject of his new book, saving 9, the fight against the lefts audacious plan to pack the Supreme Court and destroy american liberty. By the way if you go to the Federalist Societys instagram page, theres a link to be entered into a drawing to receive a signed copy of the book from the senator. He has also spoken about regulation by the administrative procedure act, policy and process of judicial appointments, the founding fathers, big government, forgotten historical heroes, role of congress. American exceptionalism. Fidelity to the constitution. Robert borks antitrust paradise and the list goes on. In addition to all of that do you know in the last two years, he sat down with our article one initiative and created a fascinating and educational 16 episode video series focused on article one of the constitution called the constitution line by line. With his steady guidance the series walks audiences through every word of the document and offers his unique reflections as a lifelong admirer and student of the constitution. These videos have been viewed more than 300,000 times. If you havent watched it yet i invite those of you here in person to check it out and or many viewers joining us by live stream, you can watch the series, the societys youtube page. Weve invited the senator, related to the convention theme, we are delighted he could carve out time to join us. Please join me in welcoming the senior senator from the state of utah senator mike lee. [applause] thank you. Thank you. The absolute first time that ever happened in the city of washington so thank you. I love this conference, the Federalist Society is an import part of my life since before i was a lawyer. A true story, when i was in high school, naturally, the president of the teenage republican club, we organized the field trip to be at law school, to go and hear judge robert bork speak. Doing stuff like that is a good way to make girls like you in high school. And [applause] our former president loves talking to sharon, was with him at the white house and asked me a question and went forward with the details and it took too long to explain the details of my speech today but it was a very complicated question about the intricate interaction between the constitution in the senate rules, strategic question about a particular maneuver. Remarkably coincidental, talking to one of my staff members, i would need a few hours and consult with a handful of experts on the senate rule and a couple lawyers and you can do that. Good to have you, johnny, i guess that is what im doing the rest of the day. The group of people i had in mind, took me four or five hours and ready to go home and outlined it, the head of the office of president ial personnel outlined it, 15 steps, hes going to be impressed, glad i dont have to explain it. I cant do this, you have to explain it. I walked in thinking he would have forgotten about it and gotten distracted. He sees me coming back in. I have been waiting, come in. He starts pulling people in. Everybody come on in. Mike scott an answer for us. White house staffers had me sit down, lined up behind me, talking to me. What have you got . Out i outlined it for 15 minutes. I was proud of myself thinking he was going to bear his heart out to the. Thank you so much. Instead he goes mike, when the rest of us were 16, we were out chasing girls and doing crazy crazy stuff. But then i think about you. At 16, you are not doing that. You are at home sitting at a desk and studying these senate rules of the constitution. Am i right . I said it is not far off, it is kind of true. I did like girls, thats where i met sharon. I knew it. I knew that was you. He turns around and says to the staff, this is the conical part. And yet he has a beautiful wife. I dont understand. Also happy to have my son james with me. James was the president of the Federalist Society and his twin brother john is president of the Federalist Society. Its a second religion in our home. What can i say . So a few weeks ago my former boss Justice Alito gave some outstanding remarks that i believe relate perfectly to the theme of this conference. Explaining of the fact that something bad happens when we as a society cant tolerate speech. When we cant tolerate views that differ from our own and it has an impact on all sorts of things we might not imagine. Characterized speech on College Campuses including speech on University LawSchool Campuses as being in an abysmal state. He went on to say freedom of speech is essential. Colleges and universities should be setting an example and law schools should be setting an example. The universities, because the adversarial system is based on the principle that the best way to get at the truth is to have strong presentations of opposing views. It is absolutely true in our chosen profession who cant get to the truth unless you have this opportunity. You cant cut anything with scissors with only one blade. That allows us to get to the truth. That is being tested right now as a result of a couple features. Number one, we see the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of a few within government. Number 2, we have seen the American People be deceived as to the meaning and purpose of government. We have been asked to treat government as if it were some kind of omnipotent omniscient force, an entity that can know what is just and true at every moment and always do that thing. We are asked to create an almost supernatural relationship with that in which we assume that it is right even when many expect us not to criticize it. We neglect the fact that it is just a force, government is a force and like fire it is dangerous and has to be controlled, should never be trusted. As we lose sight of those things and lose appreciation, respect for polite civil discourse we run into dangerous head waters that could threaten and undo the protections of the constitution and certainly pose a clear and present threat to the adversarial system which is itself essential to safeguarding individual liberties. If you get called in by this entity whose sole purpose is to exert force on you, to coerce you into doing or not doing a particular thing, if you dont have adequate representation, the adversarial system wont work and if the adversarial system doesnt work you will lose your right, lose your the buddy culminating in loss of life, liberty and or property. Back to revolutionary times in america, goes back as long as human beings and government have existed but in our own country, think about john adams representing those 9 british soldiers. This was not a popular set of clients to take on and he knew that it wouldnt be and lived through to his expectations, he took a lot of heat for doing that but he made note of the fact that it was necessary to do that at the time because the adversarial system and the duties of the profession required nothing less. Profession required nothing less. In naacp versus alabama, we were given a glimpse into how this can be affected by social trends that can tend to lead people to effectively forfeiting their right to adequate representation. If through government course of force you can extract someones confidential information you can extract information regarding donor list, regarding the composition of your association. Specifically so that you can hold those individuals up for shame, ridicule and scorn. Bad things are going to end up happening. Fortunately in that case the Supreme Court of the United States said that these rights, that these rights the freedom of speech and freedom of association are indispensable to the preservation of freedom of association, take a workgroup espouses dissident police. The right theyre talking about their specifically was the right not to have to open the kimono, to make known to the entire world it was part of them, who joined him, who is supporting them and so forth. Of course, sadly naacp versus alabama didnt put in into the discussion. It did for a while. For several decades, there were exceptions from time to time. I think americans decided generous with the idea of maintaining the privacy, the integrity of the freedom of association. And the freedom of association if you think about it, its about as much as the headwaters of all of our other rights come certainly all of our other First Amendment rights in many of the other rights protected in the bill of rights. Because so muchbe of what we dos groups, as entities, what we do together, relates to other rights and protects us so that we can remind each other we are not alone. And particularly this is important when standing up to government. When we can assemble, we can stand up to government more confidently, we can petition the government for a redress of grievances more effectively. For nearly all of us who are religious its also essential we be able to assemble in order to practice our religion. So you cant really have free speech or the access to a petition for the redress of grievances without the ability to assemble and for most of us you cant really have religious freedom protections, they dont mean much because you cant practice most religions reflected and represented in this room and bless you do so as a group. So a what changed . Well, covid didnt help. It didnt help to put it really, really mildly because all of a sudden one of the big crackdowns the most honorably to assemble. All of a sudden we were told you cant get together. On shoot, church in kentucky was told that it couldnt even hold a drivethrough Easter Service where people would drivethrough in their car. Thats absolutely absurd. This took it way, way too far and it extended it to almost everything. This in turn led to people no longer being able or feeling confident being able to stand up to government to question government edicts in the course of doing this. This has continued post covid and its gotten really ugly in the last year or two. Supreme court of course had to intervene in americans for prosperity versus bonta and focused on the requirements under California Law requiring disclosure of disclosure of some of the same things for some of the same reasons consumer to what was presented in naacp v. Alabama. And the court ended up invalidating that statute, that issue in bonta concluding quote, every demand that might chill association was at stake here. So they subjected to exacting scrutiny and found that the california statute failed under that exacting scrutiny. These rigorous disclosure laws that really were not designed at the end of the date and would certainly have the effect of the end of the day of chilling the freedom of association and all the other incidental rights attached to that. Then a month or two ago something really creepy happen in alabama. In this case in alabama get it with alabamas vulnerable child compassion and protection act, the department of justice, and this was litigation surrounding a law passed by the Alabama Legislature a lot dealing with transition of children experiencing gender identity issues. The department of justice issued the subpoena to a nonparty to litigation regarding that statute. They issued it to the eagle forum of alabama, and the department of justice demanded access to all eagle forums internal and external Communications Associate with the legislation. They wanted to know what eagle forum had been saying, while this law was being considered by the alabama c legislature. They wanted to know what role they might have played in it. Now thankfully, judge lyle burke of a Northern District of alabama recognized the department of justice is subpoenaed as a clear and present threat to the First Amendment rights of the eagle forum and of its members come telling the subpoena quote abuse of discovery and laffaire at its worst. By the way, this was a really interesting case. I first became aware of this case before that abusive subpoena was issued. I became aware of it in connection with the confirmation proceedings of a woman named nancy a bhutto who has been nominated to serve on the u. S. Court of appeals for the 11th circuit. She has been serving as a director of strategic litigation of one of the entities involved in that litigation, and they were engaging in some of the mostga rampant, blatant Forum Shopping that ive ever seen. They filed a couple of District Courts are defiled in one District Court and didnt get the judge that he wanted to get so they filed in another case and then there were all these efforts to dismiss one suit and consolidate it with the other. And it ended up going to the Northern District of alabama. But this is an example of thein kind of abuse. Either way she still hasnt been confirmed to give you know in my colleagues to those on the judiciary committee, you might talk to him about how hot it is at the director of strategic litigation for an entity involved in litigation would claim under oath during her confirmation proceedings not to know anything about the litigation strategy going into filing multiple actions and engaging in blatant Forum Shopping that was laterpl called out by both federal District Courts involved in the litigation. As a result of all of these kinds of actions, and you see all sorts of other things being chilled, look what happened on september 23. Where you had fbi agents, fbi agents who were not just wearing a suit. They were armed with long arms, Ballistic Shields and a bad and ram and he forced a man named mark houck from his pennsylvania home. They did so at gunpoint in front of his wife and in front of their seven children. They are peaceful prolife protesters have received the same treatment over the past few months. This is how theyme deal with the who lawfully and peacefully exercise their free speech rights and their associational rights. They do so with an overwhelming show of force. Now, this is disgraceful. This is the sort of force would ordinarily reserved for really hardened criminals who are bent on imminent lawless conduct and violence. Alisa government is reminding us here of what government at its core is. Its force. Nm government is forced with the potential of lawful violence under the perimeter of Government Authority and that exactly what we need to return it, thats why we need to restrict it. Thats a guide to why we need to restore an understanding of the constitution, the constitution as my wife t sharon likes to remind people is, its not there for the sunny days, at least not just there for the sunny days. It is there a special for the rainy days, the difficult days, it is therefore the emergency moment because you dont ever want to let force with a badge operate in an unrestrained fashion. But the net impact of the sorts of things, whether they appear to be efforts selectively to target people based onor their viewpoints, is to chill speech and ultimately that has the inevitable effect of weakening the adversarial system. Because as weve seen all this happening simultaneously that we have seen enormous pressure brought to bear on institutions, including and especially our profession. Where you have seen some prominent law firms, including some in this town, doing everything they can to shun certain clients, doing everything they can in some circumstances even to shun outstanding remarkable lawyers based solely on their prior employment experience, including many who worked in the trump administration. Whenever this happens to whatever degree it happens it weakens the adversarial system. But we as a profession can decide not to allow that. That can function if and only if those who believe that way, those who believe its important to shun that business and to shun those lawyers, if we refuse to accept their edicts we can maintain the adversarial system. We can make sureir both of the blades on the scissors still function. Its up to us and to be able to that weve got to be willing to represent the unpopular client, even when its difficult, even in many circumstances when it w might be an unpopular client with which we might strongly disagree. Thats what we signed up for as lawyers, as officers of the court and as people who claim allegiance to our constitutional system of government. Together we can stand up to this. We can keep this flame alive. We can make sure that the editors alsisi is there to protect our rights and the rights of our prosperity generations too come. Thank you. [applause] happy to take questions if there are any. You can ask me about law, politics, or relationships or fashion. [laughing] gardening tips, rock music lyrics from the 1970s and 80s, anything you want. Yes, sir. Good morning. Thank you for visiting with us. Ive a question for you because i would like to hold our society to the same standards that we would hold the other side in which sometimes doesnt live up to those standards. The other side often attacks President Trump nominees for the positions they took, for the feisty gittin for example, on immigration issues or whatever else. Likely most of them ultimately ended up being confirmed. What are sometimes unfortunately see from our side, whether in the senate or f et cetera is having liberal nominees who theres lots of right of issues but on the clients represent them for example, taking on gitmo detainees, people are accused of crimes, et cetera. And given your remarks which i agree with, isnt that a problem we shouldgi work on on our sides well with liberal nominees for candidates, and attorney general or whatever else . Yes, its a good question and i tend to agree with that. In the judiciary committee, you notice i generally dont oppose a nominee based solely on a client the nominee is represented. Even if those clients have used very disagree with. My view is that Everyone Needs good representation. I dont think its a good idea to go after somebody on that. Usually if youve got concerns as a u. S. Senator with a judicial nominee coming through, you are much better served looking elsewhere than the client someone has represented. There sometimes patterns that can evolve or in some instances if youve gotot a state attorney general up for a judicial position you can look at some of the amicus briefs that that person has filed. Sometimes those, because they are more or less deciding on their own what causes you want to take on. Thats a little different than representing a client in traditional litigation but i generally dont go after people based on the client list. I think thats repugnant. Thank you so much for your time. So since you offered to let us ask about politics, im going to. We, we just had a midterm election,dt or rather i heard, i heard. [laughing] or arguably are currently having one in the few states, and a red wave was very much expected, and what ended up happening kennelly bay best described as aha red trickle. So i i would just add what do yu a what . A red trickle. I would just ask, what you think the party needs to do to reinvent itself in 2024 . And what should bet our takeaws from what just happened . Also, congratulations on your own reelection. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] look, as republicans i think were always at our best and especially right now when we offer contrasts, when we show how we are different than the other party. There is a and the temptation in this town that some find overwhelming to make themselves more electable by moving themselves halfway, half the distance to the other party. This doesnt end well because it turns out the other party is always moving left, and that also confuses voters. It doesnt give them a good reason to vote for us. I haveve always believed we woud do well especially as republican politicians seeking federal elected office, we will always do much better if we say look, the federal, is too big and too expensive, is it doing too much stuff that it should never be doing. Your other departments we would shut down and here are the activities we should allow to be pursued by state governments rather than the federal government, and providing a fair amount of detail that shows how were different than the other party. I think would win elections when we do that. We lose when you try to me to them at the distance to the goal. [applause] meet them half the distance. Good to see you. Im tended to ask about fashion or rock music, the deplorable decline of rock music among the young but a set of want to talk it to you about epistemology because think your point about deliberation is an important one and i think its because of the underlying loss of the belief in truth and what you have roughly 70 of americans who dont believe that absolute truth is even the thing to be known and as epic as more and more ascendant in the culture, the people think deliberation the founders that was all about getting at a truth that existed, not creating a truth. To the extent we no longer think there is a truth that exist then we would use government forced to shut it down because its all about asserting my truth. Would love to your thoughts on that. First of all its interesting because you are exactly right, bill. Sometimes wondered whether veritas in the local eventually have quotation marks around it. But the more we deviate from that, the more we dissent into chaos and yet in a cruel twist of irony come those who are most determined to put quotation marks around the word truth can also be the same people who will persecute us relentlessly based on the fact that we believe differently than they do. So apparently they do believe in some truth, just not ours. As i think we are to be ready to call that out, and also ready to call out those who deny the existence of truth. I think theres something extraordinarily stupid going on in so much of academia today. And i think this is going to end up affecting a lot of academic institutions that have for centuries been respected. At a think what theyre going to see is people will vote with their feeds. Parents come some parents of these will vote with their check books and send the kids somewhere else if they continue to deny the existence of truth. Yes. Senator, so youve been a strong proponent for cutting the size and scope and truthfulness of the federal government, and just for my entire lifetime i think every single year the federal government has grown. His grin under both democrats and republicans. I recall an article i cant member were i sought under under the last administration that suggested, the suggested the former president would win was Something Like 70 of vote if all he did was drive a wrecking ball through three or four federal agencies. Is there any hope for actually objectivity shrinking the federal government rather than just slowing the size of its growth . Yes. The short answer to your question is yes. I believe there is but it is going to require legislative action and it will require us not to simply rely on electing a president who can for a period of years erect temporary executive created walls. We need structural reform and i have long said that if a genie appeared messaging to pass any one piece of legislation currently before the congress it would be the reins act. S the reason, thats when it says major rule regulations, if it were passed wouldnt take effect automatically. Congress would have to a friendly enacted and the president would have to signed into law. Its doing the right way what congress tried to do the wrong way before shutdown in legislative vetoes. No law and in our republic e made without elected lawmakers. The domino effect of that would be extraordinary and would have our republic back. I think we should take ilya next and i think its the last question of the session. [laughing] i am going to ask about fashion and answers about that. Whom are you wearing, and [laughing] and if the republicans to take the senate majority, will the article one initiative be back in fashion . I have no idea who this is a kenneth cole. [laughing] [applause] Nordstrom Rack [laughing] okay. If we get the majority and its hard to say at this point whether we will, i mean because the vote counting in the van and to some extent in arizona are counting votes i send each vote individually on the back of a mule up a mountain where it has be read bypp a shaman and handed over to an oracle and then the flight back on a carrier pigeon. Actually it might be an african or european swallow. [laughing] not really a matter of where it grips it. Its a matter of white ratios do anyway so look, i think we could pull this off because i do think were going to win nevada anything would got a decent shot its going to be fantastic trying to talk at them into running for the senate for a decade. Finally happened. But between arizona and george i think we wineo at least one of those. So if that happens there a tight majority but a majority nonetheless. I think if that happens we must reinvigorate though what i referred to as the article one project, the focus on article one. It is the reason why our liberties are being destroyed. People lose sight of the fact that the whole reason we have a constitution is to constraini government power and to prevent excessive accumulation of power in the hands of a few. If everything instance him in every instance other than come with the sole exception of a 13th amendment which of course prohibits slavery, every other provision of the constitution restrains Government Action and not individual action. And we ignore this and we allow consolidation and accumulation of power left and right. And the only thing that can save say conservatism, the only thing that can save our liberties is if were willing to acknowledge the fact we lose liberty when we hand the power to make law over to anyone who is unelected and unaccountable. We especially lose liberty when we hand over power to someone who is not just unelected and unaccountable but its also the same entity charged with enforcing the same laws that they can make up as they go along. Were doing that because congress is the fault, we are the culprit because we have since the 1930s increasingly moved towards passing legislation by platitude. We should have good law in every action and we hereby delegate to commission or department our agency with power to make and enforce good law. Thats crap and weve got two dollars i that it is crap and ts we have to pass a reins act, have regulatory budget act come thats what we need the unshackle act. There are about ten legislative proposals ive got ready to go. Its time for us to lock, load, and fire on the step because the Administrative State must fall under ourur leadership. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you. Lunch is next. The senate dabbles in today at 1 45 eastern time. Working on legislation that would require states to recognize interracial and samesex marriages as legally valid if help in another state that does not recognize such unions. It would also repeal the defense of marriage act signed in 1996 which defined marriage as between one man and one woman under federal law. Off before lawmakers are working on funding the government passed december 16. 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