December 21, 2007

Volokh conspirators are calling attention to the pending bill with its disturbing implications: federal judges would find themselves in large measure barred from attending conferences not "sponsored by any bar association, any judicial association (including the National Judicial College and Federal Judicial Center), subject-matter bar associations, and the ABA's Judicial Division." After all, the organized legal profession and judicial bureaucracy has the best interests of us all at heart, so why permit judges to turn elsewhere for possible sources of ideas or analysis?

It's hard to see the proposal as anything other than an example of the Jacobs thesis come to life and parading itself around unashamedly for all to see. Earlier here, here, here, and here.