Inside the Right-Wing Judicial Machine
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since its founding in the 1980s, the Federalist Society has been advancing right-wing judges through the American judicial system. One of their most ardent critics called up a member to talk about how.
Guest: Mark Joseph Stern, Slate senior writer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you are a conservative lawyer with big ambitions, Slates, Mark Joseph Stern says, |
| 0:12.8 | every November, there is just one place you want to be. |
| 0:17.2 | The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. |
| 0:20.9 | That is where the Federalist Society hosts its National Lawyers Convention. |
| 0:25.9 | Oh yeah, oh my god, if you are a Federalist Society member, you have your calendar cleared |
| 0:33.9 | months in advance. |
| 0:36.5 | To be honest, Mark usually clears his calendar for this event too. |
| 0:40.6 | The Federalist Society is a right-wing networking organization that has counted Supreme Court |
| 0:45.2 | Justices among its members. |
| 0:47.4 | Eve's dropping here has a way of telling Mark which way the legal winds are blowing. |
| 0:53.2 | This year, Mark had not yet booted up his computer to tune in when a friend and colleague DMed |
| 0:59.0 | him urgently to say, you have got to pull up this livestream right now. |
| 1:05.8 | He texted me and said, oh boy, Judge Prior is giving the opening address and he just |
| 1:11.7 | insulted Dahlia Lithwick. |
| 1:15.1 | From the start, the Federalist Society has promoted rigorous and open debate as the best way |
| 1:21.2 | to ensure that the founding principles of our Constitution receive a fair hearing. |
| 1:27.0 | And the results speak for themselves. |
| 1:29.1 | This speech is delivered in a kind of lawyerly code, so I'm going to translate. |
| 1:34.0 | The guy who's speaking, William Prior, is a Federal Appellate Judge from Alabama. |
| 1:39.4 | And he's trying to be funny, calling out reporters like the ones who are at slate who openly |
| 1:44.3 | worry that the Federalist Society has amassed too much power. |
| 1:48.6 | Is there more to the Federalist Society than meets the eye? |
... |
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