A judicial think tank - or a plot?

It has also evolved into a powerful network for young conservatives looking for clerkships or jobs in Washington, fueling the buzz that one doesn't get a top legal job in government without a tie to the Federalist Society.

"Anyone who is ambitious knows you have to network," says political scientist Sheldon Goldman, who writes on judicial nominations at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "With a conservative Republican administration in power, the Federalist Society is a wonderful opportunity to network."

But, as Judge Roberts is finding out, such affiliations can cause problems in a highly charged political environment that has often marked the nation's capital since its early days.

For example: The Freemasons, a fraternal organization that counted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin among its members, created such suspicion in the late 1820s with its secret rites that it prompted an organized backlash. "The first national convention of any political party was the anti-Masonic party," says Senate historian Donald Ritchie. The third-party movement nearly killed the Freemasons before the organization recovered in the late 19th century.

In the 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy rose and fell on highly exaggerated charges of communist infiltration of the US government. In the 1990s, Republican senators grilled Clinton nominees on their membership in the American Civil Liberties Union, which many conservatives view as a liberal bookend to the Federalist Society.

"If a nominee has been very active in either organization, it raises some red flags. If you have that membership and a record of activism, that compounds the felony," says Professor Goldman.

Early in his first term, President Bush announced that he would not be calling on the American Bar Association to screen judicial nominees - a break with nearly 50 years of presidential practice. Critics worry that that mantle has passed to the Federalist Society - directly or indirectly.

Judge Roberts says he doesn't recall joining, and the Federalist Society doesn't disclose its membership, citing protection of privacy. But his name surfaced in the society's 1997-98 directory as on the steering committee for its D.C. chapter, a point first raised by Mr. Ross and the IDS.

Federalist Society officials play down the connection. "Being on the steering committee is different from being on the Board of Visitors. It means that a lawyer agrees to keep his law firm in the loop on our activities, not that he has a controlling role," says Mr. Meyer.

Whether Roberts was a 'member' of the Federalist Society, "the question is: So what? What are we talking about here: the Communist Party? The Ku Klux Klan?" asks Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and a society member.

Recently, the society's executive vice president, Leonard Leo, took a leave of absence to help the Bush White House with the Roberts nomination. Critics say it's another sign of the society's influence in the Bush administration's overhaul of the nation's courts.

"It's not a secret conspiracy. The Federalist Society is quite clear about where they want to go on issues like civil rights law and corporate regulation. Their views are in the public, but the public hasn't paid attention," says Ross.

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