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Debate Club's 'Secret Handshakes' Now Public Grins November 17, 2002 By ERIC LICHTBLAU WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - In the early days of the Bush administration, allegiance to the conservative debate club known as the Federalist Society was declared almost in a whisper. A nominee for a top Justice Department post, questioned by a Democratic senator last year about his membership in the society, professed that he had no idea what its politics were. Judicial nominees, meanwhile, scrambled to disavow positions they had taken before the society. As critics attacked its influence in the White House, members complained of McCarthyite smear tactics. But if membership in the Federalist Society was once a source of controversy, this week it became cause for a party, as several thousand members at the group's 20th anniversary conference reveled in its growing influence in the Bush administration in the wake of the Republican-swept elections. A three-day conference that concluded today at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington looked at times less like a private law conference than a Justice Department retreat. No fewer than 12 senior Justice Department officials - including John Ashcroft himself and half of his 10 top-ranking assistant attorneys general - gave speeches and attended seminars. Law professors, lawyers, lobbyists and society members from around the country shared coffee and White House-shaped cakes with cabinet members, and talked legal shop with conservative icons like Justice Antonin Scalia; Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor; and former Judge Robert Bork. Despite a budget of $3.2 million and nearly 30,000 members, the Federalist Society does not stake out official positions or endorse candidates. It does not bring lawsuits or file legal briefs. What it does, organizers say, is promote dialogue about constitutional principles and the law. Along the way, it has attracted conservative admirers throughout the Bush administration and the federal judiciary. That is what has the society's critics so worried, particularly with the prospect of several openings on the Supreme Court soon. Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, sparred with Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff and other conservative lawyers at a Federalist Society debate on Friday on the impact of the war on terrorism on American civil liberties. Ms. Strossen, invited as a contrarian liberal voice, was in the clear minority. "The society has done a lot to advance public debate," she said. "But it's very dispiriting to me as a civil libertarian that the very conservative, pro-government wing has really taken over not just the group but, in a way, our justice system." Federalist Society members, once ticklish about such attacks, seemed to delight in them at this week's conference, as Mr. Ashcroft, Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and others lampooned the liberal voices who dread the group's influence. "There are some who would paint the Federalist Society as a nefarious underground cabal with secret handshakes and blood oaths," Mr. Ashcroft deadpanned. Then, as his audience cackled, he added, "I called you all here because I want to know who squealed." Another theme at the conference was a sense of wonderment over how far the group had come. The Federalist Society started 20 years ago as a loosely cobbled network of conservative groups rebelling against what were seen as ultraliberal student and faculty bodies at places like Yale Law School, recalled Mr. Bork, a former law professor. Today, the society has 140 law school chapters and 60 lawyers' chapters, and membership has grown by 5,000 people in the last year, said the society's president, Eugene Meyer. "Who would have thought 20 years ago," Justice Scalia said at the society's black-tie gala on Thursday, "that that little organization of students at a couple of law schools would have evolved today to a power of such proportions" that mere membership could endanger a judicial nomination? Pausing, he said, "It could have been a grand flop." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/politics/17FEDE.html?ex=1038506309&ei=1&en=0a36081b0619850c HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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