Meet The 5 Finalists For Federalist Society President
The selection of a new leader comes at a critical time for FedSoc—and the conservative legal movement.
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In June, Eugene Meyer announced that he would be retiring as president and CEO of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies—aka the Federalist Society or FedSoc, the nation’s largest organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers and law students. FedSoc retained CarterBaldwin, an executive-search firm, to spearhead the search for Meyer’s successor. And now, according to three sources connected to the Society, that search has been narrowed to five finalists.
I reached out to the Federalist Society for comment, providing them with the list of finalists I had received. Peter Robbio of CRC Advisors, the Society’s longtime public-relations firm, issued the following statement: “Out of respect for the candidates and to ensure integrity and candor, the deliberations of the search committee are confidential, and the Society won’t be commenting until the process is concluded.”
Founded in 1982, the Federalist Society today boasts some 90,000 members, an annual budget exceeding $25 million, and more than 50 employees. But these numbers don’t adequately capture the influence of the organization, which has played a key role in the evolution of the law over the past four decades—including the move of textualism and originalism from the fringes to the core of American jurisprudence, reflected most prominently in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
And Gene Meyer, who has led FedSoc for 40 of its 42 years, played a key role in its rise. In the words of Ian Ward of Politico, “Meyer transformed the organization from a small ‘debating society’ for right-leaning law students into a legal and political powerhouse that has been involved in almost every high-profile conservative judicial appointment of recent decades, including those to the Supreme Court.” So the selection of Meyer’s successor is a momentous occasion—not just for the Federalist Society, but for the law and legal profession writ large.
The leadership transition comes at a critical time for the Society, as well as for the conservative legal movement more generally. The overruling of Roe by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was a huge victory for the legal right— but with Roe “consigned to the ash-heap of history, the glue that has historically held the Federalist Society together is slowly becoming unstuck,” in Ward’s words.
Splits within the movement that were previously papered over, in service to the larger goal of pushing back against the excesses of legal liberalism, are now coming to the fore. They include divides between social conservatives and libertarians, supporters of judicial restraint and advocates of judicial engagement, originalists and common-good constitutionalists, and Never Trumpers versus MAGA people.
And these divisions will affect the future of FedSoc, which could go in either of two directions—embodied in its two key leaders, president Gene Meyer and board of directors co-chairman Leonard Leo. “Team Gene” would like to keep the Society focused on its original mission of “sponsor[ing] fair, serious, and open debate” about important legal issues. “Team Leonard,” on the other hand, would like to take FedSoc in a more political direction, turning it into a power player in politics—the path personally taken by Leo, who resigned as the Society’s executive vice president to help Donald Trump pick judges, followed by his current work as a conservative legal activist and D.C. power broker.1
One major unanswered question about the Federalist Society’s future is how much influence it would have—over judicial nominations, Department of Justice appointments, and legal issues more generally—if Trump regains the White House. As reported by Marianne LeVine and Azi Paybarah of The Washington Post, “Trump’s relationship with leaders and allies of the Federalist Society has frayed since he left office,” with the former president complaining “that his first-term Justice Department leaders were too weak, that his Supreme Court picks have tried to come across as too ‘independent,’ and that the court system has broadly been biased against him.” So FedSoc folks in a second Trump administration won’t hold nearly the same sway that they did during the first—i.e., judicial selection won’t be “insourced” to the Society, as former White House counsel Don McGahn memorably put it. But whether FedSoc’s influence will be modestly diminished or completely dissipated remains to be seen.
Let’s now turn to the five finalists:
Robert Alt. Alt is president and CEO of the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute, which describes itself as “an independent research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to advance free-market public policy in the states.” Before assuming leadership of the Buckeye Institute in 2012, he was a director in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, working with former Attorney General Ed Meese. Alt graduated from the University of Chicago Law School (2002) and clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder (6th Cir.).
Michael Fragoso. Since August 2021, Fragoso has served as chief counsel to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He previously served as chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working for Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy of the U.S. Department of Justice (OLP). He graduated from Notre Dame Law School (2012) and worked at Kirkland & Ellis before entering government.
Ryan Newman. Newman has served as general counsel to Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fl.) since October 2021. During the Trump administration, Newman served as counselor to the U.S. attorney general, deputy general counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, and acting assistant attorney general at OLP. Prior to his service in the executive branch, he worked as chief counsel to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Newman graduated from the University of Texas School of Law (2007) and clerked for Judge Richard Leon (D.D.C.), Judge J.L. Edmondson (11th Cir.), and Justice Samuel Alito. Prior to law school, he graduated from West Point and served as an armor officer in the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Paul Ray. Since April 2022, Ray has served as director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Before that, he served as the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and as counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Labor. He graduated from Harvard Law School (2011) and clerked for Judge Debra Ann Livingston (2d Cir.) and Justice Samuel Alito.
Dean Reuter. Reuter has worked at the Federalist Society since 2001 and assumed his current role, senior vice president and general counsel, in June 2021. He previously served in the Offices of the Inspector General for two different federal agencies, as counselor to the inspector general and deputy inspector general. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law (1986).
Collectively speaking, they’re all impressively credentialed and solidly conservative. They’re not the most diverse group in terms of race/ethnicity and gender—all straight white males, as far as I know—but remember that this is FedSoc, not the Biden administration picking a SCOTUS justice. [UPDATE (2:46 p.m.): Mike Fragoso is Hispanic. According to one source, “He’s Cuban American and grew up speaking Spanish. This is also why he hates communists….”]
Each candidate has his own selling points. Alt has experience leading a conservative nonprofit. Fragoso is the most politically well-connected and knowledgeable. Newman and Ray have excellent credentials, including Supreme Court clerkships, plus government experience. Reuter has more than two decades at FedSoc, giving him the greatest institutional memory and insight into the organization’s workings.
I don’t have any particular insight into who’s most likely to get the job; if you do, please drop me a line. This is definitely a process worth watching, since it will shed light on the current state and future trajectory not just of the Federalist Society, but of the conservative legal movement in which FedSoc plays such a significant role.
As Ian Ward wrote in Politico, “the Federalist Society has always been—and continues to be—a mélange of competing factions and personalities, where libertarian academics, ambitious law students, white-shoe lawyers, and hard-driving conservative activists subtly jockey for influence and control. The selection of Meyer’s successor will indicate which faction currently has the upper hand, but it’s unlikely to end the race.”
[UPDATE (12/4/2024, 9:47 a.m.): Per Sarah Isgur of Advisory Opinions (around the 24:00 mark), it's now down to Dean Reuter and Robert Alt.]
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As I’ve previously explained, my personal preference is for FedSoc to serve as a debating society, not a political organ—and there’s only so far it can go into political territory. As I recently noted, its status as a 501(c)(3) organization under the tax code prohibits it from engaging in partisan political activity, endorsing candidates, and the like.
In Trump v. United States, a handful of judges who were hand-picked by presidents contended that “Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine” some of Trump’s “actions” to change the outcome of a presidential election because such actions were within the “conclusive and preclusive” scope of “authority” granted to the president by our Constitution. They represented, “We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that” Trump “have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts” undertaken to change the outcome of a presidential election and “with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers” to change the outcome of a presidential election “this immunity must be absolute.” So I propose that anyone who wants to lead the Federalist Society be asked to state their views on how actions of an incumbent president to prevent his elected successor from replacing him could constitute an “official” act or an “exercise of” the president’s “core constitutional powers.” I'd really like someone to help me understand how changing the outcome of a presidential election is one of the “core constitutional powers” granted to presidents by our Constitution.
Considering what's become of FedSoc, it'll be Newman.