The Meese Revolution: The Making of a Constitutional Moment (2024)

by Steven Gow Calabresi and Gary Lawson.

Gary Lawson and I have just published an intellectual biography of former Attorney General Ed Meese, which argues that Ed Meese is the most influential person ever to hold the office of U.S. attorney general—but almost no one knows it. (The runners-up are: Homer S. Cummings (1933-1939) and Robert F. Kennedy (1961 to 1964), neither of whom helped to win the Cold War or to shape judicial selection for nearly forty years.) We explain why Ed Meese beats out Cummings and RFK in 401 pages of text. We think our book would be of great interest to many of the readers of this blog.

Ed Meese was at the center of virtually every major accomplishment of Ronald Reagan's transformational presidency, from winning the Cold War without firing a shot to the economic boom that by the end of the 1980s was the envy of the world. Meese served for nearly eight years on President Ronald Reagan's National Security Counsel, and when Meese and Secretary of State George P. Schulz disagreed, President Reagan always sided with Ed Meese. Meese also served as the Chairman of President Reagan's Domestic Policy Counsel. Ed Meese was in all matters of policy President Ronald Reagan's right hand man in waging the Reagan Revolution.

Our book reveals that Ed Meese: (1) urged Ronald Reagan to make Bill Casey his campaign manager in 1980 after Reagan won the New Hampshire Republican primary that year and later to name him as head of the CIA; (2) urged Ronald Reagan to make George H.W. Bush his running mate in 1980; (3) managed Ronald Reagan's presidential transition in 1980, baking in the submission of Reagan's revolutionary slashing of marginal tax rates in legislation submitted to Congress as soon as Reagan took office; (4) advised President Reagan on the firing of air traffic controller union members who went out on strike in 1981; (5) convened the first meeting with President Reagan in the White House on developing the strategic missile defense systems from which the Patriot missile systems now defending Kiev and Tel Aviv are descended; (6) urged President Ronald Reagan's first term judicial appointments of Judges Robert H. Bork, Antonin Scalia, and Ralph K. Winter, among many others; (7) helped President Reagan confidentially hire his third White House Chief of Staff, Howard Baker, when Donald Regan resigned because of the Iran-Contra scandal; and (8) with the help of Leonard Leo, successfully lobbied President George W. Bush to appoint Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005.

More to the point for our book, Ed Meese is the person most responsible for the rise of constitutional originalism, a style of legal interpretation that treats the text and original meaning of the Constitution rather than the policy fads of the moment as authoritative law. Ed Meese gave more than thirty speeches on constitutional law and originalism during his tenure as Attorney General debating liberal Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and John Paul Stevens. Meese gave speeches on originalism, constitutional criminal procedure, religious liberty, economic liberties, the separation of powers, and federalism, as well as on many other legal subjects.

Our book tells the inside story of the nominations during Ronald Reagan's presidency of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and of Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy, as well as the unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork. We explain that former Chief Justice Warren Burger gave Meese more than eight months notice of his resignation in June 1986, but that this news never leaked because only Reagan, Meese, and two top Meese aides knew about it. We describe Meese's success when he was Attorney General in urging President Reagan to appoint such stellar federal court of appeals judges as Judges Laurence J. Silberman, James L. Buckley, Stephen F. Williams, Douglas H. Ginsburg, David B. Sentelle, J. Daniel Mahoney, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Edith Jones, Jerry Smith, Danny Boggs, Frank Easterbrook, Pasco Bowman, Diarmuid O'Scannlain, and many, many others.

We discuss how Ed Meese's legacy of superb judicial appointments was, through Meese's shrewdness, carried on by President George H.W. Bush, and by his White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray—with the aide of Meese DOJ alumna Lee Liberman Otis—who secured Justice Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court and the appointments to the federal courts of appeals of Judges Ray Randolph, Michael Boudin, John Walker, Dennis Jacobs, Samuel Alito, Paul Niemeyer, Morris Arnold, and many others.

Finally, we explain how Ed Meese helped bring Don McGahn, President Donald Trump's first White House Counsel and judicial appointments advisor into the Federalist Society by befriending him when he was a law student attending a Federalist Society National Lawyers' Convention in the mid-1990's. Don McGahn, and President Trump, brought to fruition the Meese Revolution on the Supreme Court between 2017 and 2021 with the splendid appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—aided again by Leonard Leo.

Today, in 2024, originalism is a major force in the courts, with a majority of Supreme Court justices and a raft of lower-court and state-court judges at least taking it seriously as a major contributor to decision-making. That would have been unthinkable in 1985 when Meese took office. At that time, originalism was essentially unknown to the legal academy and almost wholly absent from the judicial process. Ed Meese turned the U.S. Department of Justice into "the academy in exile," where originalism was developed, refined, theorized, and put into practice.

Our book describes Ed Meese's central role in the rise of originalism. Meese's story threads through virtually all important legal and policy events of the 1980's, many of which continue to shape the world of the 21st Century. We are still living through the Meese Revolution.

Comments

[Robert Efroymson]

Fascinating. I must confess that the only things I knew about Meese were that he was Reagan’s AG, and that his name sounds kinda funny.

Obviously I missed a lot. Thanks for posting this!

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

Meese is not the plural of mice.

[SRG2]

Correct. The plural of mouse is "meeses" (or "meeces") according to Mr Jinx

[Peter Kreeft taught me LOGIC, BEWARE !!!!!!!]

I think the real thing of imporance missed is the fruit of all this

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. Fully Revised Second Edition. Edited by David F. Forte and Matthew Spalding. Foreword by Edwin Meese III.

[SRG2]

winning the Cold War without firing a shot

Is this the Reaganite myth that "Star Wars" (SDI) led to the collapse of the USSR?

to the economic boom that by the end of the 1980s was the envy of the world.

This is sheer invention. A boom due to deficit spending, and the collapse of the S&Ls due to deregulation in the early 80s hardly constitute enviable outcomes.

[Dan Schiavetta]

This is not the Meese that I remember.

Best encapsulated by the “Meese Commission” farce, and a cartoon with Meese as a policeman with a flashlight shouting “HALT! Who goes there!!” with the flashlight shining backwards on his own face.

[Peter Kreeft taught me LOGIC, BEWARE !!!!!!!]

Dan, as they say in logic class, never argue from a contrafactual.
The cartoon is for people who already reject Meese. It is not an argument. "You must be wrong because I am making fun of you"

[SRG2]

Perhaps in the desperate battle to win recognition from Trump, Calabresi has decided to open up a second front against Josh Blackman by reinventing the past.

[Brett Bellmore]

"(2) urged Ronald Reagan to make George H.W. Bush his running mate in 1980;"

Good of Calabresi to note that Meese was responsible for some disasters as well as accomplishments.

[bernard11]

the economic boom that by the end of the 1980s was the envy of the world.

First, much of the credit for that "boom" goes not to Reagan, but to Volcker, a Carter appointee. It certainly has zip to do with Meese. Can anyone point to a specific Reagan economic policy that was developed, even partly, by Meese, or endorsed by him other than in a cheerleading sense? I doubt he knows zip about economics.

Note too that growth under Clinton marginally surpassed that under Reagan, without the accompanying deficits. Aftermath of Meese's wisdom, I suppose.

Also the "brilliant" tax cuts of the early Reagan years had to be heavily modified later, by both him and Bush.

But hey, you want to write another chapter of "Myths and Legends of Ronald Reagan," go ahead.

[Krayt]

Mention all of it. Democrats whined to back off the severe fed behavior, and Reagan, with an economics degree, said, "Stay the course."

That's real leadership, not the type of faux leadership talking heads praise when saying how brave a politician is to risk the ire of the voters and raise taxes, but never brave to risk the ire of the voters and cut spending.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Reagan did not know what he was saying and did not know what he was doing.

One reason he was delayed off so long on meeting the Soviet leader was because his aides were afraid he'd give away the store (which is what almost happened at Reykjavik). They frantically had to give him a course on "Soviet Union 101" before he went.

As for the economy, a popular TV show at the time was "Fantasy Island". A cartoon at the time had Reagan, smiling, arriving with his suitcase. Roarke says to Tattoo, "His fantasy? To cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget."

[David Nieporent]

No mention of the Meese Commission in this hagiography?

[Dan Schiavetta]

On the afternoon of December 31, 1983, there were six homeless families in my crisis center. They were victims of the recession, cuts in social services, and the "f**k you" mean-spiritedness that was part and parcel of Reagan's U.S.A. Haitian refugees were being sent to Fort Drum (in semi-arctic conditions, deadly to them) and nobody cared. We had to stay late to find roofs over their heads.

At the time, Meese was saying that there was no detectable hunger in America, and people were going to places like my crisis center because it was easier than paying. At the time, I was saying "f**k you" to Meese, and I still say it, including to Josh and the other privileged white males who have never had to go hungry, and have never spent even an hour with people in need.

You know my real name now, and the name of the crisis center was Family of New Paltz (N.Y.). We were at 39 North Chestnut Street.

[Dan Schiavetta]

P.S. We were at the mercy of a crabby landlady who complained about the rent not being paid on time.

[Brett Bellmore]

I can't see how there's anything wrong with complaining about the rent not being paid on time. Unless, of course, it WAS being paid on time.

Was it?

[Dan Schiavetta]

No, due to strained finances, such as not getting promised government funding (it was ten months late in those years — you can look it up). Hardly my point though.

[Daddyhill]

Cummings and RFK, Jr., "...neither of whom helped to win the Cold War..."? I can't say anything about Cummings, but this is a negligent disregard of Bobby Kennedy's work. Where were you in October, 1962? I was in junior high school at the time and had read or heard enough about nuclear weapons to have recurrent nightmares, and to be afraid of falling asleep sometimes because I thought we might not live to see the morning. When JFK announced the presence of nukes in Cuba, I understood perfectly why he was afraid. My homeroom teacher told us then that he was "scared to death"--perhaps not something an adult should have said to roomful of 13-year-olds.

There's no question that Bobby and others helped design Jack's plan to meet the Soviets head-on, so to speak, and carry out that plan, which was risky and far from certain to succeed. The blockade worked, however, and Khrushchev had to back down. We found out only years later about the secret agreement regarding US missiles in Turkey. But that was OK with most of us too. We had survived.

The Kennedy's and Khrushchev demonstrated publicly that the truth about nuclear war was terrible enough to make risky and embarrassing policy changes seem almost trivial by comparison. For the first time many Americans like me realized that both sides in the Cold War understood the insanity of nuclear weapons. The weapons continued to pile up, on both sides, but more and more bombs simply meant that the idea of using them was even more insane. Both sides, sadly, adopted the policy of proxy wars which took us to Vietnam and them to the Middle East. On the other hand, both sides committed themselves less to the arms race and more to the space race.

JFK and Bobby took a course that changed the Cold War into something less nightmarish for kids like me. Denying Bobby a ranking well above Ed Meese's amounts to something like a desecration. It also overlooks what Bobby did to bring the US into the 20th century during one phase of the civil rights revolution. What did Meese ever do to improve the lives of people who didn't look like him? It also overlooks Meese's role as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which he failed to enforce the existing laws intended to limit Iran's military build-up. How did that accomplish anything other than a proxy war in Nicaragua and the conversion of the CIA into a cocaine dealership?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Daddyhill

Thanks — making a point forgotten today.

[Peter Kreeft taught me LOGIC, BEWARE !!!!!!!]

How illogical to argue originalism , pro or con, and ignore the original men and writings and context !!!
https://carm.org/government/quotes-on-the-original-intent-of-the-constitution/

Original intent of Constitution

James Madison, fourth president, 1809 to 1817
“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate constitution and if that be not the guide in expounding it there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise on its powers… what a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.” )
Justice Joseph Story, founder of the Harvard Law school, nominated to the Supreme Court by President James Madison.
“The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments [documents] is to construe them according to the sense of the terms in the intention of the parties.”

“the real object of the [First A]mendment was not to countenance, much less to demand, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects.” (Barton, Original Intent: the Courts, the Constitution, and Religion,

Justice James Wilson “(1742 to 1798) one of only six people who signed up both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was a law professor, nominated by President George Washington as the original justice on the United States Supreme Court and in 1792 he was co-author of America’s first legal commentaries on the Constitution.”
“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”

[arpiniant1]

Meese was a scumbag

"One of our most effective weapons against drug traffickers," Meese wrote in his autobiography, "was to confiscate the assets of their criminal activity, such as expensive autos, yachts, businesses and homes.... To make this technique even more effective, we shared the proceeds with cooperating local law enforcement agencies to enhance their drug-fighting activities."[46]

U.S News & World Report: You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protection?
Meese: Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.