Supreme Court Food Fight

by James Oliphant

It may be the start of football season for most Americans, but in Washington, it's a season of a different kind.

Next Monday brings with it the new Supreme Court term. Typically, interest groups from across the spectrum hold forums that preview the upcoming docket, detailing along the way, of course, their hoped-for outcomes. Everyone from the ACLU to the Chamber of Commerce to the American Enterprise Institute gets a slice of the action and court-watchers and the press corps attend them ritually.

So imagine the conundrum today when two key legal policy groups, the conservative Federalist Society and its left-leaning counterpart, the American Constitution Society, held their previews at the exact same time, noon, in the exact same place, the National Press Club. It forced the kind of choice no one, especially journalists, likes to make.

There was only one answer naturally, and that was to try and attend both of them, venturing back and forth like a shuttle diplomat in the Middle East. Both groups had their experts, their analyses, even their in-jokes, and it was possible to hear undeniably smart people forecast certain cases to come out in directly opposite ways, perhaps making it more like an NFL pregame show after all.

What was the key difference? As one ACS staffer sniffed, "Theirs costs 20 bucks, ours is free." But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The ACS panel offered everyone a box lunch. The Federalist luncheon crowd received salad, a chicken entrée, and sizable deserts, as well as table service.

Sounds like a metaphor for America if there ever was one.