NPR: The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement

The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement

Thirty years ago, when most of the major legal institutions in America were left/liberal, conservatives and libertarians set about trying to create conservative/libertarian institutions to counter them. That the premise of a new book by Steven M. Teles (a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School), The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law.

Orin Kerr writes at the Volokh Conspiracy that Teles looks at what he sees as the institutions that have resulted because of this movement; The Federalist Society, the Institute for Justice, the Center for Individual Rights, law school centers of law & economics (many funded by Olin), and George Mason University Law School.

On the Federalist Society, Teles argues persuasively that the key to its influence is in hosting a "big tent" that is open to a wide range of conservative and libertarian ideas. As Teles tells it, the Federalist Society is influential because provides a way for dispersed conservative and libertarian law students and lawyers to identify each other, get to know each other, and to establish an intellectual identity apart from the left/liberal views that tend to dominate the law schools. Teles also argues that the key to the Society's role is that it hosts debates rather than takes positions; this enables a wide range of different views to feel at home, while also focusing attention on the long-term development of ideas.

Matt Frost at The American Scene writes about the reasons for the rise of the school as discussed in the Teles' book: "Since electoral advantage is not enough to effect change in the nation's legal framework, conservatives mobilized to build an intellectual infrastructure that could support their long-term ideological project."

8:17 PM ET | 02-20-2008 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Nothing has furthered the conservative agenda more than this movement, which really began in the schools, with the students around the US who realized more and more the greater role our government has taken in our private lives.

It is these same youth, guided by intellectual movement that whispered in the shadows of a Post Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, Federalist dominated legal mentality that found a home in legacy of Reagan and helped in later times ensure a Republican coup in 1994, only to redefine itself post 9/11 and is now even at odds with itself, going back to the original crux of the matter that helped give rise to these institutions: the sovereignty of the citizen/state, in light of an increasingly present federal authority.

Hence the McCain dilemna we have now, and the phenomenon of Ron Paul, and the surge of the independent (whether libertarian/populist/socialist leaning) minded voter.

It was with this crisis in mind that the current administration placed so much emphasis on securing federal judges with core conservative values, knowing all too well that the pendulum would eventually try to swing back the other way.

Cheers

Sent by platonicform | 1:58 PM ET | 02-21-2008

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