Free Republic

THE SEATTLE school integration case decided by the Supreme Court last month was brought in the name of a group called Parents Involved in Community Schools on behalf of Jill Kurfirst and her ninth-grade son. But it was a little-known, Sacramento-based organization called the Pacific Legal Foundation — a conservative public interest law firm involved in the case from the beginning — that developed many of the legal arguments five justices ultimately found persuasive. Where did the foundation come from? The story begins with former Justice Lewis F. Powell. Shortly before he was nominated to the court in 1971, Powell,...

WASHINGTON - Soon after President Bush took office, two events set in motion what has become an extraordinary battle between the White House and Senate Democrats over the appointment of federal judges. First, the new president and his aides turned to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers' group, to help select candidates. Of Mr. Bush's first batch of nominees, 8 of 11 were proposed by the society. There could have been no clearer signal that Mr. Bush intended to follow the pattern set by his father and President Ronald Reagan of shifting the courts rightward and reaping the political benefit...