Two years ago, a champagne cork went flying on the Federalist Society convention stage as panelists toasted recent Supreme Court wins. A celebratory mood was still on display at this year’s annual gathering of the conservative legal movement, but those feelings were mixed with shock from Democrats’ midterm victories. “On election night, there was a congressman…
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Two years ago, a champagne cork went flying on the Federalist Society convention stage as panelists toasted recent Supreme Court wins. A celebratory mood was still on display at this year’s annual gathering of the conservative legal movement, but those feelings were mixed with shock from Democrats’ midterm victories.
“On election night, there was a congressman who said we all need to lawyer up. So, here we are,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio joked to attendees Friday evening.
The Federalist Society has become a tentpole of the conservative legal movement in the course of its 40-year history.
Law students founded the group in the 1980s, seeking to combat liberal ideology on college campuses, but it has since developed into a pipeline for aspiring conservative lawyers as they journey from law schools to prominent firms — and in some cases, administration positions or judgeships.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority emerged as the crown jewel of that project.
Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society’s longtime leader who extended its influence in part by building an extensive network of major donors, created the lists President Trump used to select his high court nominees during his first term: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Now back in the White House for his second term, Trump has publicly sparred with the Federalist Society after some of the president’s own judicial nominees struck down his signature agenda items. Last year, Trump took to calling Leo a “sleazebag.”
That fray had already raised questions about the future of the president’s judicial selections. Now that Democrats are retaking the Senate — with some pundits predicting the party could maintain control in future cycles — discourse around whether Trump will be able to build on his legacy of appointing conservative judges has grown. And Republican senators are racing to confirm remaining vacancies before the change of power in January.
Democrats’ sweeping victories in traditionally red states like Mississippi and Kansas left some lawyers dazed as they traveled to the nation’s capital for this week’s convention.
“Did you think it would be this bad?” one lawyer at a prominent conservative legal group asked after learning the person he had sat next to for lunch was from Texas.
In addition to flipping Texas’s open Senate and gubernatorial posts, Democrats claimed multiple seats on its supreme court for the first time in years as well as in its attorney general’s office.
Mariah Cermone, president emerita of the Federalist Society’s Texas student chapter, noted the Lone Star State’s new dynamic as she introduced one its Republican justices to deliver the convention’s opening address.
“Even though Texans have taken to troubleshooting their grievances by holding their breath till they happen to turn blue, I must say that I still choose Texas every day of the week and twice on Sunday,” said Cermone, a native Floridian.
Another conservative law professor, John Yoo — who currently works at University of California at Berkley but is set to move next year to the University of Texas — joked, “I can’t even find a red state to move to.”He called the midterm results “stunning” while speaking on a panel.
“I think the American people supported President Trump’s effort to restore order at the border, but gosh, I think that the challenge to birthright citizenship was a serious mistake,” Yoo said. “Overaggressive enforcement of immigration laws that resulted in the killing of two American citizens was a serious mistake.”
Still, the convention was full of celebration, both over America’s 250th birthday — which it honored with a themed bar and merchandise — and the conservative movement’s continued victories before the Supreme Court.
Rubio, who delivered the conference’s Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture on Friday, encouraged attendees not to be dismayed by the political setbacks.
“Great things that last are built in decades, not election cycles,” Rubio, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, said.
One law student framed the election outcome as merely part of a historical norm, saying he didn’t see the “purpose” of being negative about the movement’s long-term prospects.
“This is not the end of our country that we had, you know, one bad midterm performance,” Will Schwieterman, who attends the University of Chicago, said in an interview. “It’s only the end if we stop fighting for what we believe in, stop standing for the Constitution, and you know, just kind of accept things as how they are.”
That optimistic tone was on display throughout the convention.
After Alliance for Consumers Executive Director O. H. Skinner moderated a session, he gifted attendees commemorative coins to “lift your spirits about the future of the law in our nation.”
The coins celebrated the conservative legal movement’s “generational wins” at the Supreme Court last term. Each coin lists one of four decisions: expanding presidential firing power, narrowing the Voting Rights Act, allowing states to enforce transgender athlete bans and invalidating Hawaii’s gun restrictions.
“The recently completed Supreme Court term demonstrated the Court’s continued commitment to building and expanding off past generational wins and its ability to continue successfully tackling new and emerging questions of great societal importance,” Skinner wrote in an accompanying note.
As Trump’s Supreme Court appointees all participated in a video for the convention, Justice Samuel Alito delivered the keynote at the annual dinner.
Though Alito didn’t directly reference the midterms, he warned Congress could make good on its past threats to use the power of the purse.
Some Democrats and outside groups have previously floated taking a congressional vote to defund the court’s operations — seeking to put pressure on the conservative justices to change course.
“Congress can turn off the lights at the Supreme Court and stop everything from happening if they want to defund their activities. And there are many, many, many other things that they can do, or at least try to do,” Alito warned.
Reflecting on his two decades on the court, Alito celebrated recent decisions on abortion, religious rights and other major issues. The justice reflected on these rulings, saying much progress had been made to “try to back toward the original structure” of the Constitution.
“How that is going to play out in the future, and how far it should play out in the future, and whether — those are open questions,” Alito said.
“But those are all very important questions,” the justice said in his final words of the evening.
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