Monday, February 03, 2020

Patrick Mahomes is going to Disney World.

And so are all the federal and state judges (and lawyers who want to be judges) to attend the Federalist Society meeting, which was this weekend in Orlando.

But should they?  There's a proposal to limit judicial membership in the organization.  Justice Thomas, who was at the meeting, spoke out against the proposal (via WSJ):
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioned a proposed ethics rule that would discourage federal judges from belonging to the conservative Federalist Society and its liberal counterpart, the American Constitution Society.

Justice Thomas has long participated in events sponsored by the Federalist Society, which has groomed many of President Trump’s judicial nominees.

“And now I think they’re about to silence the Federalist Society. So I guess I can’t come back,” Justice Thomas quipped Friday at Federalist Society convention at Walt Disney World.

“Some of us are fighting back,” responded U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a former Thomas law clerk who interviewed his former boss before the audience.

The ethics proposal, circulated last month by the federal judiciary’s policy-making body, the Judicial Conference of the U.S., would tighten existing guidance that lets judges belong to the two groups but not take leadership roles.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its a bad idea to implement the proposed ethics rule. But it might be a worse idea not to. If the federalist society and and the am. con. society become (or already are) proxies for political parties, the judiciary's already battered role as an independent non-partisan branch of government will be destroyed. That will, in time, relegate our legal system to something no better than what they have in third world countries.

Anonymous said...

On my first day in office I will designate the Federalist Society a threat to national security.

Anonymous said...

You do that. We own you.

Your welcome!

Rumpole said...

I once saw Clarence Thomas on the It's a Small Unregulated World After All ride at Disney. He didn't say anything naturally.