Right Wing Organizations - FedSoc

This is the first installment in a series of blogs on the efforts by the Religious Right to change our democracy into a theocracy. Although their spin is that they are trying to restore the country to what the Founding Fathers set up, in fact they are trying to undermine the very principles our Founding Fathers agreed to when they framed our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Our first organization is the Federalist Society or FedSoc, which is short for Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. By way of background, we look to People for the American Way and their web site.

“Since its inception, the Federalist Society has played a key role in advancing the right-wing agenda. As a ideological proving ground for ultra-conservative activists, lawyers, and scholars, the Federalist Society has long served as a valuable professional network for those on the Right and has proved to be a valuable resource from which the Bush administration has culled not only numerous administration officials, but also judicial nominees.” Their principle issues are as follows:

> The Federalist Society hopes to transform the American legal system by developing and promoting far-right positions and influencing who will become judges, top government officials, and decision-makers. FS is “dedicated to reforming the current legal order.”

> The Federalist Society is a well established network of right-wing lawyers, politicians, pundits, and judges. Many members of the Federalist Society advocate a rollback of civil rights measures, reproductive choice, labor and employment regulations, and environmental protections.

> They are in favor of the abolition of the Securities and Exchange Commission and limiting the powers of the EPA and other Federal agencies, limiting the reach of gender equity laws (Title IX) and voting rights laws, and expanded powers of war-time presidents.

> Federalist Society members helped to encourage President Bush’s decision to terminate the American Bar Association’s nearly half-century-old monopoly on rating judicial nominee’s qualifications for office. Since the Eisenhower administration, the American Bar Association has provided the service to presidents of both parties and the nation by vetting the qualifications of those under consideration for lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary.

The Federalist Society has 15 different “practice groups” that focus on particular legal issues, such as civil rights and labor and employment law. In Federalist Society’s guide to forming and running a chapter of the society, FS says it “creates an informal network of people with shared views which can provide assistance in job placement.”

Here is the conundrum that they pose. The Federalist Society states that it is founded on the principles that “the state exists to preserve freedom,” that “the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution,” and that the duty of the judicial branch is “to say what the law is, not what the law should be.

Spinning a perceived support for individual and states rights, they are in fact very much in favor of the Federal government controlling every aspect of your life. We should consider their Madisonian viewpoints as Anti-constitution and dangerous to our fundamental freedoms.