Tag: Federalist Society

James Duff to leave AO

James Duff, the longtime Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, will retire from that position on January 31. Duff served two stints as Director, from 2006-2011 and again from 2015 to the present. During his tenure, he has brought many significant improvements to the federal courts system’s internal operations and external relationships, including overseeing the federal Working Group on Workplace Conduct and helping the courts quickly adjust to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Not every initiative on Duff’s watch has been a success — the effort to bar judges from associating with the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society was ill-advised from the start — but overall Duff has helmed the AO with a steady hand and extraordinary competence and vision.

Chief Justice Roberts has appointed U.S. District Judge Roslynn Mauskopf as the new AO Director. She will be the first woman to lead the AO in its 81-year history. We wish her the best in the new position.

The federal courts try to self-censor. A federal judge says no.

Hoping not to be bullied is not a worthy strategy for a co-equal branch of government.

A little over two years ago, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) issued a new policy which barred its employees and staff from engaging in partisan political activity, including posting yard signs or making ordinary campaign donations. I predicted at the time that the First Amendment implications would likely turn the new policy into a headache for the AO.

And so it did. In May of 2018, two AO employees filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the policy violated their First Amendment right to engage in core political speech. Last week, the court agreed, granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs and promising to enter a permanent injunction preventing the AO from applying its policies to most of its employees. The court’s opinion is eye-opening, both for the district judge’s robust defense of First Amendment rights and for the AO’s cowardly view of the judiciary’s place in American society.

Continue reading “The federal courts try to self-censor. A federal judge says no.”

Five reasons why the federal judiciary’s proposed ban on Federalist Society affiliation is a terrible idea

The Wall Street Journal reports today (through a staff editorial) that the Judicial Conference of the United States is considering banning federal judges from affiliating with either the libertarian/conservative leaning Federalist Society or its left-leaning counterpart, the American Constitution Society (ACS). The proposed ban comes out of one of the Judicial Conference committees, the Committee on Codes of Conduct, which addresses issues of federal judicial ethics.

According to the editorial, the current draft of the proposal states, in part:

“In sum, the Committee advises that formal affiliation with the ACS or the Federalist Society, whether as a member or in a leadership role, is inconsistent with Canons 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the Code [of Conduct for United States Judges]…”

“Official affiliation with either organization could convey to a reasonable person that the affiliated judge endorses the views and particular ideological perspectives advocated by the organization; call into question the affiliated judge’s impartiality on subjects as to which the organization has taken a position; and generally frustrate the public’s trust in the integrity and independence of the judiciary.”

Given the ongoing efforts of both major political parties to politicize the judiciary, it’s not hard to see why the Committee is sensitive to the organizational affiliations of its judges. But this idea (assuming it is being correctly reported) is both impractical and unwarranted, for at least five reasons. Continue reading “Five reasons why the federal judiciary’s proposed ban on Federalist Society affiliation is a terrible idea”