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"There are few intellectual movements in American political history more successful than the Federalist Society. Created in 1982 to counterbalance what its founders considered a liberal legal establishment, the organization has now become the conservative legal establishment, and membership is all but required for any conservative lawyer who hopes to enter politics or the judiciary. It can claim 40,000 members, including four Supreme Court Justices, dozens of federal judges, and every Republican attorney general since its inception. But its power goes even deeper. In Ideas with Consequences, Amanda Hollis-Brusky, an expert on conservative legal movements, provides the first ever comprehensive documentation of how the Federalist Society exerts its influence. Drawing from a huge trove of documents, transcripts, and interviews, she presents a series of important legal questions and explains how the Federalist Society managed to revolutionize the jurisprudence for each one. Many of these questions--including the powers of the federal government, the individual right to bear arms, and the parameters of corporate political speech--had long been considered settled. But the Federalist Society was able to upend the existing conventional wisdom, promoting constitutional theories that had previously been dismissed as ludicrously radical. Hollis-Brusky argues that the Federalist Society offers several of the crucial ingredients needed to accomplish this constitutional revolution. It serves as a credentialing institution for conservative lawyers and judges, legitimizes novel interpretations of the constitution through a conservative framework, and provides a judicial audience of like-minded peers, which prevents the well-documented phenomenon of conservative judges turning moderate after years on the bench. Through these functions, it is able to exercise enormous influence on important cases at every level. With unparalleled research and analysis of some of the hottest political and judicial issues of our time, Ideas with Consequences is the essential guide to the Federalist Society at a time when its power has broader implications than ever"--

This thesis contributes to an understanding of the pathways of civic influence into the least dangerous branch of American politics - the Judicial Branch. Specifically, this thesis examines the influence of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy - a conservative and libertarian legal network of more than 40,000 members - on twelve of the most salient Supreme Court decisions concerning federalism and the separation of powers over the last three decades. As a special case, it also examines Federalist Society influence on a subset of controversial Executive Branch policies issued under George W. Bush. To understand the unique nature of this civic group's influence, it establishes the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy as a kind of epistemic community; i.e., a network of legal professionals and civic leaders bound together and shaped by a set of beliefs about law, the nature of government, and constitutional interpretation. Using this framework, it proceeds to demonstrate how individual members of the Federalist Society acted as "cognitive baggage handlers," carrying these shared ideas into their roles as judges, academics, litigators, and government officials. Finally, it evaluates the extent to which these actors were successful or not in diffusing the epistemic community's ideas into law and policy. It finds that while there is substantial evidence of Federalist Society influence in the areas of federalism and separation of powers, overall the results have been mixed. The final chapter examines why that was and speculates as to the conditions that might facilitate and frustrate epistemic community influence more generally.

AbstractThe Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the U.S. Department of Justice offers binding legal advice to the executive branch, including the president. Its advice touches most aspects of law, but it is especially influential for its interpretation of constitutional provisions that rarely, if ever, are subject to judicial scrutiny. While its importance is acknowledged by journalists, law professors, and legal practitioners, political science has yet to incorporate OLC systematically into studies of the presidency outside the ambit of war and emergency powers—areas where OLC achieved notoriety during the George W. Bush administration. We argue that there are unique and important reasons for political scientists to study OLC beyond its War on Terror legacy. In this essay, we construct a theory‐driven research agenda for incorporating OLC into studies of the rhetorical and administrative presidencies, Neustadtian bargaining and the unilateral presidency, and transformative bureaucracy.

AbstractThis article reviews the causes, contours and potential consequences of President Donald J. Trump's 234 appointments to the federal judiciary. The causes will be familiar to political scientists who are fond of reminding people that "elections have consequences" and that the "Supreme Court [and by extension entire federal judiciary] follows the election returns." The contours of the Trump Judiciary are congruent with Trump's campaign promise to appoint judges "in the mold of Justice Scalia," the conservative legal icon who died suddenly in February 2016. We show how Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made good on this promise with the help of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, appointing ideologically conservative, young, and mostly male and white judges to lifetime appointments on the federal bench. In laying out the potential consequences of Trump's remaking of the federal judiciary, we outline three areas where these judges are likely to make an impact on law and politics in the coming decades: rolling back liberal and progressive victories in the culture wars, likely in more subtle ways that align with Alison Gash's concept of "below-the-radar" legal change; extending the federal deregulation campaign that began in earnest with the Reagan Administration; and issuing rulings in the areas of voting rights, campaign finance, and redistricting that tip the scales of democracy in favor of Republican electoral outcomes.

In 'Separate But Faithful', Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Joshua C. Wilson provide an in-depth look at the Christian Right's efforts to build a comprehensive legal movement aimed at radically transforming American law and policy to reflect 'Christian Worldview.' Drawing on an impressive amount of original data from a variety of sources, the authors examine the causes, contours and consequences of these efforts.

In 'Separate But Faithful', Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Joshua C. Wilson provide an in-depth look at the Christian Right's efforts to build a comprehensive legal movement aimed at radically transforming American law and policy to reflect 'Christian Worldview.' Drawing on an impressive amount of original data from a variety of sources, the authors examine the causes, contours and consequences of these efforts.