Looking Forward: Interest Group Legal Strategy and Federalist Society Affiliation in the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal

Abstract

The conservative legal movement has been gaining traction for nearly half a century and owes much of its success and incorporation into mainstream American politics to the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc). After a blockbuster 2021 term, many Americans noticed the power of a new conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. This ideological composition is the result of decades of careful training of American jurists by FedSoc affiliates paired with tactful political maneuvering to allow their originalist allies to ascend to the highest level. The insurmountable conservative supermajority at the Supreme Court leaves left-of-center interests with little choice than to concentrate efforts at intermediate federal appeals courts. The recent rulings’ policy implications, including those considered by our colleagues in this symposium such as gun control, abortion, environmental regulation, free speech, free exercise, as well as tribal sovereignty, do not bode a welcoming Supreme Court for litigation strategies supporting the goals of left-of-center or