The Meese Revolution

Prof. Steven G. Calabresi is the Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. He is also a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Fall 2013-2022; a Visiting Professor of Political Theory at Brown University for 2016-2017; and the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society's Board of Directors. Professor Calabresi worked in the West Wing of President Ronald Reagan's White House; was a Special Assistant for Attorney General Edwin Meese III; and he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court and for Judges Robert H. Bork and Ralph K. Winter on the federal courts of appeals. Prof. Calabresi has written over seventy law review articles and essays. He is the author of The History and Growth of Judicial Review: Volume I The G-20 Common Law Countries and Volume II The G-20 Civil Law Countries. Professor Calabresi is also a co-author on two books: The U.S. Constitution: Creation, Reconstruction, the Progressives, and the Modern Era; and The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush. Professor Calabresi has taught: Constitutional Law I; Comparative Constitutional Law, Federal Jurisdiction, Administrative Law, State Constitutional Law, and the Separation of Powers.

Ed Meese was known in 1985 for his devotion to President Ronald Reagan, his boundless energy, and his rock-ribbed conservatism. Some delegates were no doubt curious to see whether this former state prosecutor, San Diego School of Law professor, and best friend of a movie star turned politician was really up to the job of serving as Attorney General of the United States. Everyone probably expected a welcoming speech full of pablum about the importance of the lawyers' guild, pay increases for judges, and respect for the rule of law (with no definition of what that might mean). Little did they know that they were about to hear one of the most important legal speeches in 234 years of American history - a speech that has reverberated throughout American constitutional law for the last four decades and has radically changed the course of our republic in ways that few today appreciate.