INGRASSIA: The Supreme Court’s Attack On Free Speech Proves The Federalist Society Can No Longer Be Trusted As An Authority For Selecting Judges In A Second Trump Administration
In 2016, one of the issues that helped calm the nerves of ambivalent conservatives and get them to support President Trump, whom they perceived as an insurgent populist with questionable positions on social issues like abortion, was his commitment to selecting judges on a list provided by the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society has long been considered a trusted authority, especially for conservative lawyers. For years it was customary to believe that any judge that had the FedSoc stamp of approval was worthy of an appointment to the federal judiciary. This was because FedSoc was supposed to stand for textualism and originalism, a faithful adherence to the Constitution’s intended meaning – its judges were widely perceived to be among the cream of the crop.
