About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

19 U. St. Thomas L.J. 1 (2023)

handle is hein.journals/usthomlj19 and id is 1 raw text is: SYMPOSIUM WELCOME ROBERT K. VISCHER* Welcome to the University of St. Thomas Law Journal's fall sympo- sium exploring the rise of private power and political authority. I am grate- ful to Megan Massie and all the student editors who have worked hard putting this together, as well as their faculty advisor, Professor Ben Carpen- ter, and Professor Chuck Reid, who was the moving force behind this par- ticular symposium. I am also grateful to the scholars who are contributing to this conversation on an important and timely topic. It is especially impor- tant for a Catholic law school to be the venue for this conversation, for reasons I will briefly explain. Five or ten years ago, you might have looked at today's symposium program and concluded, ah, typical left-leaning concerns with private power coming out of a left-leaning legal academy. Concerns over private power, after all, meant concerns over the free market. Times have changed, though-this is definitely a bipartisan issue now. Just one week before this symposium, the Federalist Society convened its annual conference, and the theme was private and public power.1 The annual Federalist debate posited the question, RESOLVED: Concentrated corporate power is a greater threat to individual freedom than government power.2 That was the debate at the Federalist Society! David Brooks recently reported from the National Conservatism convention in Florida, noting the emergence of a new right dedicated to using state power to break up and humble the big corporations and to push back against coastal cultural values.3 Republicans, after de- cades as cheerleaders for corporate America, limited regulations, and free market orthodoxy, are now in the midst of an anti-corporate evolution.4 The rise of private power is a concern across the political spectrum, though the origins of the concern differ widely. * Dean and Mengler Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law. 1. 2021 National Lawyers Convention, FEDERALIST SoC'y, https://fedsoc.org/conferences/ 2021-national-lawyers-convention (last visited Jan. 28, 2022). 2. Id. 3. David Brooks, The Scary Future of the American Right, ATLANTIC (Nov. 18, 2021), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/1 1/scary-future-american-right-national-conserva tism-conference/620746/. 4. Nihal Krishan, How the GOP went from being pro-Big Business to anti-Big Tech, WASH. EXAM'R (Nov. 14, 2021), https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/how-the-gop-went-from- being-pro-big-business-to-anti-big-tech. 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most