FedSoc Forums

The issue at hand in the case of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan Puerto Rico v. Feliciano is whether courts in Puerto Rico can confiscate assets of Catholic entities to fulfill pension obligations to current and former Catholic school employees. The petition for certiorari lists the question as: “Whether the First Amendment empowers courts to override the chosen legal structure of a religious organization and declare all of its constituent parts a single legal entity subject to joint and several liability.” Erin Murphy joins us to discuss the important implications of this case.
Featuring:
Erin E. Murphy, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis


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In his book, A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland, Dr. Seth Jones examines the Reagan administration’s efforts during the Cold War to aid Poland’s Solidarity movement. Reagan used the CIA to support underground operations in Poland like printing leaflets, producing radio and television broadcasts, and coordinating public demonstrations. After extensive research, including review of recently declassified documents, Jones details the success of CIA’s covert activities including the emphasis on leaving no identifiable indicators of U.S. involvement.
Dr. Michael Ledeen served in the Reagan administration and is an analyst and commentator on the Iranian peoples’ efforts to achieve a democratic system of government. Ledeen will interview Dr. Jones about the findings of his book and will inquire as to what comparisons may exist between the Polish Solidarity movement and the Iranian peoples’ struggle for freedom.
Featuring:
Dr. Seth G. Jones, Harold Brown Chair; Director, Transnational Threats Project; and Senior Adviser, International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and author, A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland
Dr. Michael Ledeen, Freedom Scholar, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

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Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public accommodations be accessible to the disabled community. Since its enactment in 1991, it has been understood that any store, restaurant, theater, hotel facility, school, or other building private entities own or lease and make available to the public meet certain requirements for disability access.
Plaintiffs attorneys have been aggressive in enforcing the ADA against all types of physical businesses for years. And now we are seeing a new frontier of litigation - websites. Banks, hotels, service providers, and retailers of all types are beginning to see lawsuits alleging their websites are not accessible to the disabled.
Karen Harned will provide the background on this new trend in ADA litigation, the current state of the law, and highlight a case the Supreme Court is being asked to take this next term on the issue.
Featuring:
Karen Harned, Executive Director, National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

Should statements gathered through enhanced interrogation techniques be suppressed in military commission trials of accused terrorists? Are statements made later to federal investigators cured of any taint by being made in a different place and context? Should the identity of government participants in enhanced interrogations be made available to the defense? In the years since the creation of the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, military and federal judges have grappled with these critical issues of evidentiary admissibility and discovery. Join us as two law professor scholars of national security law discuss the wide-ranging implications of these issues.
Featuring:
James Baehr, General Counsel, Pelican Institute for Public Policy
Prof. Jeffrey Addicott, Professor of Law; Director, Center for Terrorism Law, St. Mary's University School of Law
Prof. Stephen l. Vladeck, Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Please note: During this call one of our speakers had a notably poor phone connection. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause when listening to the podcast.

Three consolidated cases now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court have the potential to re-set the relationship between the federal government and its private partners. In the “risk corridors” litigation, health insurers that participated in marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) did so based on statutory assurances that they would be reimbursed for certain losses due to the riskier subscriber populations newly mandated by law. This was the “risk corridors” program, which lasted from 2014-16. After the insurers began issuing policies on the marketplaces, however, Congress passed appropriations riders that were aimed at blocking the Department of Health & Human Services from making the required risk reimbursement payments. As a result, insurers collectively lost $12 billion during the three-year risk corridors period that was supposed to be, but never was, reimbursed. Multiple lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims resulted in mixed decisions, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the Government was not bound to abide by the ACA’s “risk corridors” framework, but instead was free to de-fund it despite the insurers’ reliance. The Supreme Court has granted certiorari, and is poised to decide the extent to which the Government has latitude – as one cert. petition put it – to “promise boldly and renege obscurely.” The legal, monetary, and public policy implications of the litigation are substantial, and potentially transformative for government contractors.
Featuring:Jason A. Levine, Partner, Commercial and Business Litigation, Vinson & Elkins LLP


Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

Although the de facto government of Venezuela headed by Nicolas Maduro regime is no longer recognized as legitimate by the Organization of American States (OAS) or by most democratic nations around the world, it clings to power with the support of the military leadership and of its allies Cuba, Russia, and China. Many of the the Venezuelan people increasingly blame the Maduro regime not only for election fraud and serious human rights violations but also for hyperinflation, endemic extreme poverty, and violent crime. The crisis in Venezuela is also causing regional instability from the unprecedented outflow of refugees, the presence of heavily armed militias in border areas, and the regime’s involvement with transnational criminal organizations. Suggested solutions range from “strategic patience” to outside military intervention. Our panelists are a Venezuelan human rights activist, a dissident military officer now living in exile, and a former senior U.S. diplomat who specializes in Western Hemisphere affairs.
Featuring:
Ambassador Roger Noriega, former US Ambassador to the OAS and Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs
Rodrigo Diamanti, president of "Un Mundo Sin Mordaza” (A World Without Censorship)
Col. José Gustavo Arocha, exiled military officer and political analyst
Moderator: Grover Joseph Rees, writer, advocate, and former United States Ambassador to East Timor


Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

Remember “The Slants,” the Asian-American rock band who were denied a trademark because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) thought the band’s name was “disparaging”? In Matal v. Tam (2017), the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the Lanham Act’s anti-disparagement provision. (That also resolved the battle over the Washington Redskins’ trademarks.) Well, here we go again, this time with a related provision that prevents registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” marks. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what the clothing brand “Fuct” is going for, and the PTO decided it did not pass muster. The Federal Circuit struck down the relevant provision—as it had in Tam—and the Supreme Court again took the case.
On June 24, the Supreme Court affirmed 6-3, holding that the Lanham Act prohibition on the registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks infringes the First Amendment. Thomas Berry, who contributed to an interesting and entertaining amicus brief submitted by the CATO Institute, will share his thoughts on the decision and its implications on free speech and intellectual property.
Featuring:
Thomas Berry, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

On June 26, 2019, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 7-2, declared that two-year durational residency requirements for obtaining a retail liquor license are unconstitutional. In a decision written by Justice Alito, the Court held that it is a violation of the dormant Commerce Clause to discriminate in favor of in-state residents, even if this discrimination involves alcohol. After all, as Justice Alito wrote, there is no evidence that the Twenty-First Amendment "was understood to give States the power to enact protectionist laws." If there is no "demonstrable connection" to health and safety interests, Section 2 of the Twenty-First Amendment cannot save them.
Michael Bindas, the lead counsel for one of the respondents, will discuss the opinion and the dissent, written by Justice Gorsuch.
Featuring:
Michael Bindas, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

On June 27, the Supreme Court decided several redistricting cases in Rucho et al. v. Common Cause et al. The decision was 5-4, with the majority opinion by Chief Justice Roberts. In it, he writes that "excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust." However, this does not mean "the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts." Justice Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion, opening by saying "For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities."
Featuring:
Prof. Michael R. Dimino, Professor of Law, Widener University School of Law
Hans A. von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.

On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Alito, decided The Dutra Group v. Batterton, which answered the question, can a Jones Act seaman recover punitive damages on his or her unseaworthiness claim? The plaintiff, a Jones Act seaman employed by Dutra Group, was injured on the defendant’s dredge vessel on the West Coast. A hatch blew open and crushed his hand. The district court denied the defendant’s motion to strike the punitive damages claim; the Ninth Circuit affirmed. This decision set up a split in the circuits, because a couple of years earlier the en banc Fifth Circuit held that punitive damages were not available under the rationale of an earlier Supreme Court case, Miles v. Apex Marine.
The Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that punitive damages are not available in an unseaworthiness cause of action. Don Haycraft will analyze the opinion and the dissent, written by Justice Ginsberg.
Featuring:
Don Haycraft, Of Counsel, Liskow & Lewis

Teleforum calls are open to all dues paying members of the Federalist Society. To become a member, sign up on our website. As a member, you should receive email announcements of upcoming Teleforum calls which contain the conference call phone number. If you are not receiving those email announcements, please contact us at 202-822-8138.