Washington Post
August 1, 2001
Liberals Form Counter to Federalist Society
By Thomas B. Edsall
An all-star cast of veteran liberals, including former attorney general Janet Reno, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President Elaine Jones, former judge Abner J. Mikva, Harvard Law professor Laurence H. Tribe and former solicitor general Walter Dellinger, has joined forces to support a new legal organization to counter the conservative Federalist Society.
An overflow crowd of more than 300 showed up at a kickoff event Monday night for the American Constitution Society at Georgetown University Law Center.
"Over the years, we have been out-hustled," Mikva told the enthusiastic gathering. "You can return justice to the law again," demonstrating "that rigorous legal thinking is consistent with liberal values," said Mikva, who served five terms in the House and was President Bill Clinton's White House counsel.
The American Constitution Society plans to set up chapters and forums at law schools and in cities across the country, following the pattern of the Federalist Society, which has chapters in 60 cities and 150 law schools.
The Federalist Society was formed in 1982 to battle what conservatives saw as "law schools and the legal profession . . . strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society."
It has become a major source of conservative legal thinking, and a clearinghouse for the selection of conservative law clerks, government political appointees, judges and other key policymaking spots in the Bush administration.
Speakers at the American Constitution Society session contended that in recent years the balance of power in the legal community has shifted to the right with what Jones called "the ascendancy of the Federalist Society."
Georgetown law professor Peter Rubin, president of the American Constitution Society, persuaded former New York governor Mario M. Cuomo, former solicitor general Drew S. Days III, former senator Charles McC. Mathias (R-Md.) and Harvard law professor Christopher Edley Jr. to sign on as advisers or board members.
Eugene B. Meyer, executive director of the Federalist Society, offered a cautious welcome to the new organization: "If what the group is about is conducting civil, serious, open debates, the more of that the better."
Abortion Foes Light Fire Under Bush's FeetSome groups lobby quietly, gently prodding allies to keep their promises and adversaries to change their minds. The American Life League, a strongly antiabortion group, plays the game differently.
In a full-page ad in yesterday's Washington Times, the organization warned President Bush that if he breaks his pledge to oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, he will be a one-term president, just like his dad.
"Now, Bush appears ready to cave in," the Life League declared. "If he does, even the threat of Hillary Clinton won't reactivate his political base to reelect him in 2004."
The league also is circulating a petition to Pope John Paul II calling for the excommunication of such "culture of death 'Catholics' " as Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R), California Gov. Gray Davis (D) and 48 other current or former public officials who have supported abortion rights.
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