Conservatives Take a Victory Lap at Federalist Society Event

A Trump administration official had a message for a roomful of conservative lawyers at the Federalist Society’s annual convention, as he and other officials discussed the president’s priorities and achievements: “the tide has turned.”

The Federalist Society’s annual convention in Washington last week, held almost exactly year after President Donald Trump’s election, represented a victory lap of sorts for the thousands of lawyers and judges attending as they celebrated a year of conservative wins.

“The tide has turned, really, when it comes to DEI, racial preferences, racial discrimination. It’s true in climate change as well,” Steven Bradbury, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, said at a panel Thursday on the administration’s legal priorities. “It’s amazing what difference an election can make and having the right president in office.”

While the first administration was a “great experience,” the second administration is “operating on another level,” he added.

Trump, and the changes his administration ushered in this past year, was a frequent topic throughout the conference, held Nov. 6-8 with the theme, “New Legal Frontiers.”

There was few signs of any distance between the Federalist Society and Trump, who’d expressed disappointment earlier this year about advice he’d gotten from the organization on judicial nominations during his first term.

Conservative panelists generally had little, if anything negative to say about the administration as they talked about its approach to gun rights, diversity initiatives, and efforts to rein in a federal judiciary seen as having thwarted some of the Trump’s policy goals. Current and former administration officials also spoke at the event.

Celebrating Wins

Conference attendees were greeted on its first morning by commemorative coins on each seat of the hotel’s main ballroom that honored various “generational wins” for the conservative movement at the Supreme Court, where Trump has appointed three of the nine justices. Two of them — Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — spoke at the conference gala dinner Thursday evening.

An image of a fetus on one side of a coin marked the decision that overturned the national constitutional right to abortion; a graduation cap represented the end of affirmative action in higher education admissions; the symbols for male and female stood for last year’s decision upholding a law that blocked gender affirming care for transgender minors. “Our legal movement has much to celebrate,” opened a note accompanying the coins, from the president and CEO of the group American Juris Link.

Panelists trumpeted the Supreme Court’s decision in last term’s Mahmoud v. Taylor case, which required a Maryland school district to offer opt outs for LGBTQ+ reading materials. The Trump administration joined the Becket Fund in successfully arguing before the court.

“For the first time in over half a century,” one said, the Supreme Court had vindicated parental rights to direct their childrens’ religious upbringing.

And further victories are yet to come, panelists said, in battlegrounds ranging from church autonomy to pushing back burdensome climate litigation to the continued expansion of gun rights following the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in 2022— a ruling that found all three of Trump’s high court picks in the majority.

The administration has notched victories beyond the Supreme Court, current and former officials said during their own panels.

During a moderated fireside chat, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche touted changes across the Justice Department, including rolling back regulations and unwinding investigations under the Biden administration he said were initiated for the wrong reasons.

“The whole point of President Trump winning is so we can have prosperities, so we can take America back,” Blanche said, during remarks where he also described a “war” with the judiciary.

At a separate panel, Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recently departed chief of staff, rattled off a list of the administration’s victories at the Supreme Court and appeals courts, largely in early stages of challenges against the president’s agenda.

“I’m only limiting my examples because of time, not because of opportunities,” Mizelle said, after naming several examples when lower court judges who ruled against the government saw their rulings lifted.

Harmeet Dhillon, the leader of the DOJ’s civil rights division, was introduced as a foundational figure in ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are “on the way out.”

“This is a revolutionary new place where change is happening,” Dillon said, touting the hundreds of resignations that followed her arrival, and putting out a recruitment pitch to lawyers.

‘Renewed Energy’

The celebratory tone builds upon cautious optimism expressed at last year’s annual event, hosted just days after Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Fifth Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham kicked off the 2024 conference with a joke during opening remarks about “last week’s blowout victory”—before delivering the punchline he was referring to a football game. A law professor also opened a bottle of champagne and led a toast to recent Supreme Court rulings that curbed federal agency power.

Officials from Trump’s first administration attended this year’s event, including ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Ilya Somin, a libertarian legal scholar behind a legal challenge over Trump’s tariffs now being considered by the Supreme Court, was also there, along with leaders from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, another conservative-leaning group that sued over Trump tariffs.

It also follows concerns that the organization known for its embrace of originalist legal theory would have a diminished role during the second Trump administration over the president’s judicial picks.

Dean Reuter, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president, concluded this year’s event on a hopeful note. He noted all three days of the conference had sold out.

“It is my greatest hope coming out of the convention that you feel as engaged and as motivated as I do, and that we continue this journey together with renewed energy and relentless resolve ever forward,” he said.