A revolution is underway in the federal courts. A 20-year campaign by the radical right to fill the courts with conservative ideologues has already done severe damage to 50 years of civil rights progress. Already a number of rights and laws protecting minorities, women, workers, the disabled and the environment have been rolled back, and more are at risk.

The stakes are very high. The courts have narrowed or struck down anti-discrimination laws, the Violence Against Women Act, affirmative action programs, and other guarantees of equal opportunity. And the courts are allowing more and more restrictions on a woman's legal right to choose and are taking aim at workers' rights and environmental protections.

Much of this is happening outside of public view. While most people know about the role of the Supreme Court and the importance of a Supreme Court nomination, far fewer pay attention to the lower federal courts.

Yet these courts can have an even greater effect on the law than the Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court typically hears fewer than 100 cases a year, the federal courts of appeal, which are the courts that are immediately below the Supreme Court, decide almost 30,000 cases a year. Thus, the courts of appeal are the courts of last resort for most people.

The radical right, recognizing the importance of lower court judges, set out 20 years ago on a relentless political effort to capture the courts. During the Reagan and first Bush administrations, the right wing began their efforts to pack the federal courts with conservative ideologues.

The Clinton administration nominated centrist judges rather than continue the politicization of the courts. But Senate Republicans responded by blocking votes on numerous qualified, moderate judges in order to keep those seats open in the hopes that a Republican president would fill them with conservative ideologues.

Now President Bush is poised to complete this right wing court-packing plan. And because federal judges are appointed for life, these right-wing judges have the power to change the nation for decades to come.