Eugene B. Meyer has served as various combinations of the President, CEO, and Executive Director of the Federalist Society for over 30 years.
Harvard Political Review: The Federalist Society has existed since 1982, but today we face many constitutional questions unique to our time. How would you describe your mission in the context of today’s politics, media, and technology, and has it changed over time?
Eugene Meyer: Our mission hasn’t really changed over time because our mission is to promote principles of limited government, the separation of powers, the rule of law and individual freedom, and the idea that the role of the courts should be to say what the law is, not what it ought to be. That is our core mission. That doesn’t change too much over time, although the specific issues that we focus on do change.
The second thing that is a big part of what we do is a focus on debate, and the discussion of ideas. We’ll have people who might be thought of as being genuinely friendly to the Federalist Society and the principles we support, and they’ll be debating people who might be viewed as being very much on the other side. We do that as a regular matter. Many of our meetings at colleges and law schools are centered on debate. We try to include a wide variety of views, and to have civil and serious debates and discussions.
HPR: You mentioned that your mission hasn’t changed much over time, and that your focus remains on certain issues like limited government. What do you see today as the greatest threat or problem facing what the Federalist Society might think of as the ideal constitutional society?
EM: Well, what we’ve wanted to do over time, and continue to want to do, is create a discussion in which the principles that underlie the Constitution are taken seriously.
In particular, the role of the judiciary is incredibly important in our system of separation of powers. It is important that each branch does only things within its own orbit, and that it doesn’t engage things outside that orbit. And that’s just an ongoing challenge. Unless some major unforeseen change occurs, that will be a challenge 20 years from now, just as it is a challenge today, and just as it was, frankly, a challenge 20 years ago. What we’re trying to do is make sure that these principles and ideas are thoroughly debated.
The reason we care about them so much is that America has done a fairly good job of protecting freedom over its over 200 years of existence, and that’s not something that is automatic. That comes from a serious structure of government in which there are clear rules we all live by. In order to protect freedom, you really require a sound rule of law.
It is important that everyone understands and knows the ways in which our system of government works, that these rules apply to everyone, and that they are consistent and knowable, and hopefully remain limited in scope.
HPR: You’ve emphasized the importance of the judiciary. Does the Federalist Society have a preference for either judicial appointments or elections?
EM: Well, the Federalist Society doesn’t take policy positions per se, with the exception of what I’ve already discussed. We have had a great deal of discussion about judicial selection, and that topic has generated some incredible debate. While we certainly don’t have a position, many of our events have explored judicial selection.
For example, at the state level, you can have elections and appointments, and appointments at the federal level as well, but you also have these commissions. This is called the Missouri Plan, in which the state bar association usually has significant say in judicial appointments. In our programs, there have been many questions raised about whether that really works to take politics out of the process. But again, we don’t take specific positions on issues like that.
HPR: If the process of protecting freedom is an ongoing one, something that isn’t automatic, what can people today do to become a part of that process of defending our Constitution?
EM: One thing people can definitely do is to take our constitutional structure very seriously.
Why we care so much about the Constitution is not because we want to worship people who were alive a couple hundred years ago, but because they did the best job that, in our view, any set of human beings has ever done to establish a structure of government that protects freedom. This means they, in Madison’s famous words, set ambition against ambition. Of course, you can write down any number of wonderful ideas on paper, but the problem was that the process of making and enforcing the laws, and judging violations of the law, was all in the same hands. As Montesquieu said, that is essentially the definition of tyranny. And indeed that is how it works out.
So part of what we need to do today is recognize that the separation of powers really means something. And what that means is that neither the president and the executive branch, nor Congress, nor the judiciary can do anything it likes. Congress can pass whatever laws it wants, but they’re not going to be executed or enforced if the president decides to weaken their ability to enforce those laws. Likewise, the president, although Congress does have the ultimate power of the purse, must execute the laws. And so what you see is that they balance each other out fairly well. At the end of the day, and as we’ll probably see with what’s going on in Washington right now, the executive and legislative branches must compromise to some degree and be able to work together.
Simultaneously, the judiciary can, and should, determine whether the president or Congress is violating the Constitution. However, it should not do anything more than that. It should almost be blind to policy – this is the concept of justice as blind. The judiciary can recognize that congress has passed a law, but determine that that law has no effect, because it violates the Constitution. So this scheme is fairly basic, but it’s extremely important for people to understand it in order for it to work properly.
We need as many people as possible to speak up when this scheme is violated and, most importantly, to speak up even when doing so might not achieve what they’d like to achieve politically. Even if you think something is a really desirable result, you can’t stretch any of the branches’ powers beyond their constitutional orbits. Many people only look at what they want, but you can’t do that if you’re being serious about the Constitution.
HPR: The question that most people ask themselves when getting involved in the discussion about the Constitution and how it affects the government is the question of liberty versus security. I know the Society doesn’t take an official position on that, but would you have any comment for someone who recognizes how dangerous the world is right now, but who also wants to be involved in protecting the Constitution?
EM: Well that’s a really good question, and our national symposium in early March was on that exact topic, liberty versus security. Of course the question is striking today, but honestly, that’s always been a key question throughout human history. It’s a question that our Constitution addresses to some degree in the best way it can. But there will always be major issues along those lines, and there certainly are today.
Again we won’t take a position, but when we think something is really important like that, we try to have as many high-quality, clear debates about it as we can. We do believe that you can learn by both seriously advocating your own position and seriously listening to the other side, which lets you test how strong your views are and how valid they turn out to be when placed against stiff opposition.
Hopefully, both sides learn from that discussion, and you definitely end up with better policy as a result. And there’s no issue where that is more the case than that of liberty versus security.
Both sides of course have a great deal to say, but sometimes you’ll hear some politicians argue that liberty and security are not really in conflict. That’s nonsense—of course there’s a trade-off between the two. It’s just a question of the amount of one you’re willing to give up for the other, which is something we obviously need to have a serious discussion about. There are real costs to going one way or the other, and we need to decide how to balance the two.
This interview has been edited and condensed.