Republicans used tax-exempt Federalist Society to take over federal judiciary

NY Times
January 30, 2006
DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

In Alito, G.O.P. Reaps Harvest Planted in '82

...In 1982, the year after Mr. Alito first joined the Reagan administration, that movement was little more than the handful of legal scholars who gathered at Yale for the first meeting of the Federalist Society, a newly formed conservative legal group...With grants from major conservative donors like the John M. Olin Foundation, the Federalist Society functioned as a kind of shadow conservative [Republican Party] bar association, planting chapters in law schools around the country that served as a pipeline to prestigious judicial clerkships...