In a rousing speech at the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) 23^rd annual National Policy Conference in Arlington, Va., Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) thanked the members for protecting the rule of law and standing up to the abuse of power of the Biden administration.

Republican state attorneys general are aggressively seeking to keep the Biden administration in check and hold federal bureaucrats accountable. Since Joe Biden took office, attorneys general such as Brenna Bird of Iowa, Steve Marshall of Alabama, and Alan Wilson of South Carolina have filed dozens of lawsuits against the administration including most recently suing the administration over new regulations that would criminalize millions of firearms owners. All three AGs will speak on a panel at the Republican National Lawyers Association National Policy Conference on May 17.

Cruz to receive the Hon. Edwin Meese III Award at the 2024 National Policy Conference

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) is pleased to present the 2024 Hon. Edwin Meese III Award to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at this year’s National Policy Conference on May 17, in Arlington, Va. The Hon. Edwin Meese III Award is bestowed upon an individual who has upheld the rule of law in the face of adverse political challenges.

Click here to register for the May 17, National Policy Conference.

Matthew Whitaker, former Acting Attorney General in the Trump administration, will make the case at the RNLA National Policy Conference on May 17, that the ongoing lawfare against President Donald Trump amounts to election interference.

Click here to register for the RNLA National Policy Conference.

Our condolences to the family of C. Boyden Gray on his passing. He was a friend to the conservative legal movement and a defender of the rule of law. Ambassador Boyden Gray spoke at the RNLA National Policy Conference often, most recently in 2021. But we remember him best as the 2008 recipient of the Hon. Edwin Meese III Award and for giving the keynote address at our 2008 National Policy Conference. (Pictured below with fellow Meese Award winner Dick Wiley.)

In When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives, Heather Mac Donald addresses the causes of racial disparities in outcomes in education, culture, and other areas. She expertly and with exhaustive research makes the case that the true cause of outcome disparities is not what has become a conventional wisdom of racism, but rather, the gap in academic skills and educational opportunities between black and white Americans.

Mac Donald traces the beginning of the racism conventional wisdom to the 1971 opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power. Prior to Griggs, only deliberate and intentional discrimination stated a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and similar statutes. In Griggs, the Court adopted a disparate impact theory, finding for the first time that measuring outcomes rather than intent could create liability for discrimination. As Mac Donald reports, disparate impact analysis now pervades not just the law, but all of culture. Indeed, she writes, “The concept of disparate impact is destroying America’s core institutions in the name of inviting invented racism.”

During the 2022 National Policy Conference, RNLA presented the Junior Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, with this year's Hon. Edwin Meese III Award, which is bestowed upon an individual who has upheld the rule of law in the face of adverse political challenges.

On April 1, 2022, RNLA hosted its annual National Policy Conference in Arlington, Virginia to hear from several speakers on issues pertinent to Republican lawyers.  A crowd favorite was Ilya Shapiro, author of “Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations & the Politics of America’s Highest Court,” who discussed the Supreme Court nomination process and public discourse on the role of the courts.

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) is pleased to announce that Kevin Hanratty is the recipient of the 2022 Betty Murphy Award, which will be presented at the National Policy Conference on April 1, in Arlington, Virginia. Kevin is a banking consultant and attorney in Queens, New York, where he serves as a member of the New York City Districting Commission.  Kevin has been a long-time leader of the RNLA’s New York Chapter. 

RNLA’s National Policy Conference is in one week and we thought we would highlight four of the speakers' views on the just-completed Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.  But as Senator Tom Cotton, who will be awarded the Ed Meese Award at the conference, points out:

The media's cheerleading for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation, despite her soft-on-crime record, goes beyond bias—it's propaganda.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) March 24, 2022