Phil Brest, a veteran of the judicial confirmation battles, was named on Wednesday as the new president of the American Constitution Society, a leading progressive organization active on legal issues nationwide.
Mr. Brest, 38, was a senior White House counsel in the Biden administration and played an instrumental role in winning confirmation of 235 federal judges in the Biden era, topping the total from President Trump’s first term by a single judge.
Those judges were a stark departure from the past. Many came not from the ranks of prosecutors and corporate lawyers but from the worlds of defense, civil rights and labor law, and they included scores of women and people of color.
Before that, Mr. Brest was a top lawyer on the Senate Judiciary Committee and advised Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and then the chairman of the panel, on nominees and confirmation issues.
He is joining the prominent nonprofit group, previously headed by former Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, at a time when Democrats and progressives see grave threats to the rule of law. Mr. Trump is also pushing nominees with very conservative credentials onto the federal bench over Democratic resistance, while being stymied from naming some of his preferred choices of trial court judges and U.S. attorneys.
Mr. Brest recently spoke with The New York Times about his vision for the group, how a liberal organization can influence the judiciary in a time of all-Republican rule and whether the Senate tradition of giving home-state senators veto power over state-level nominees should be preserved.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Can you lay out your vision for the group?
A.C.S. as an organization both needs to meet the moment and to prepare for the future. Meeting the moment really comes down to supporting and defending principles, institutions and people. By principles, I mean the rule of law. I mean democracy. By institutions, I mean the judiciary, civil society. And by people, it’s lawyers who challenge government overreach, and it’s also judges who are grappling with really, really complex issues, trying to get the right answer. And doing so in the face of enormous public and political pressures.
Do you think the rule of law is under threat right now?
I do. And I don’t think that is the view of only one political party. I don’t think that’s the view of the left versus the right or progressives versus conservatives. I think any observer, even a casual observer, can see how the rule of law is under pressure, under threat, and how we need to come together, organizations like A.C.S. and others, to help counter government overreach and this slide away from the rule of law.
How do you bring that home to people?
These sort of broad, lofty concepts — they’re vital, they’re important to the continuity of our constitutional system. But they don’t necessarily resonate with people who are worried about their everyday lives and pressures. We have to be part of the solution in explaining the very real everyday impact.
So this affects women’s reproductive freedoms. This affects people’s intimate relationships. This affects whether people of color and students and people with disabilities can be fully part of our democratic process. This affects government workers. This affects those who receive grants from the federal government. This affects those who care about vaccinations. There are endless ways that I think we can connect this to people’s lives.
People have described the organization as the progressive Federalist Society. How do you feel about that?
I don’t think that any organization should be judged only as an analog to another or in the shadow of another. There are things that we can learn from the success of the conservative legal movements in prioritizing judges and the judiciary. I recognize their success over many decades, and I think we can have similar success.
You have had some success yourself, though, in getting judges on the bench. How does that play into your new role here?
This will be a new vantage point for me, being part of civil society as opposed to a senior staffer in governmental roles. I think there is much more to do on judges. And I do think that the time that I spent in government helps inform the approach that I think we need to take.
Where A.C.S. is less likely to have influence with the Senate majority or the current occupant of the White House, I think there is room to pivot to the state courts. And that is already being done.
Beyond the number of judges you were able to get confirmed, do you see the diversity of those judges as your main success?
The numbers matter, the quality of judges matters. And I am really, really proud of the caliber of nominees that were put forward, many of whom did have the backing of A.C.S. and who really only knew about the process thanks to A.C.S. But yes, I think diversity matters. Diversity matters for instilling confidence in outcomes.
You previously had essentially three paths to the bench: You could be a prosecutor. You could be a Big Law lawyer. You could be a sitting judge, maybe a state court judge, maybe a magistrate judge. And so bringing more balance to the court, bringing on civil rights lawyers and public defenders and labor lawyers, I think that should be a model going forward.
The president wants to abolish blue slips, the rule that requires that home-state senators sign off on trial judge and U.S. attorney nominees. Where do you stand on them now?
I have seen how views on the blue slip can ping-pong. I have seen how views on the blue slip can stay the same. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but the context in which I’ve thought about it has always been: “What is the Senate’s prerogative? What is the White House’s prerogative?” And not from those who actually are impacted day to day by the judges who could potentially be appointed with or without a blue slip. So I suspect I will land on a position at some point. I owe it to the network and I owe it to myself to hear perspectives that I haven’t previously heard.
You’ve been a behind-the-scenes guy in two places and now you are going to be the face and voice of an organization. How will that be different?
I certainly think I will draw on my time as a staffer. I think I will draw on the relationships that I built, relationships on the Hill, relationships in the executive branch, relationships with other progressive organizations, certainly relationships with the judiciary. I think I’m ready for prime time.
But I also hope to learn from others and hear from others. I’m not too proud to seek guidance even though I have confidence in my vision for the organization and confidence that I can execute on that vision.
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent for The Times, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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