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by E. Sebastian Arduengo

Plenty of media attention has been justifiably focused on constitutional rights, such as due process and the individual right to bear arms. The Second Amendment has been discussed in the context of debate over compromise gun safety measures in the U.S. Senate and due process concerns were raised by some human rights groups over the federal government’s questioning of the Boston Marathon bombings suspect.

But one needs to do some digging to find some discussion of the Seventh Amendment, which guarantees the right to jury trials in civil cases. And while it may not appear all that important, and some have even argued that juries needlessly increase the time and cost of taking cases to court, the Seventh Amendment actually ensures some democratic accountability in our courts by ensuring that citizens have a say in administering justice. So, over time, what started as a way to ensure that judges appointed by the King were not overly partial to the Crown, became a way for citizens to hold corporations accountable for wanton wrongdoing.

So, it was heartening that U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) recently brought some much-needed attention to the Amendment in a speech at the William & Mary Law School, because over the last quarter-century the Supreme Court and Congress have been working together to slowly chip away at our right to a jury trial in civil cases to the point where it’s almost meaningless through a mix of well-intentioned legislation and blatantly pro-business rulings.

by Jeremy Leaming

Last year, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the Senate floor to bemoan his Republican colleagues’ ongoing use of the filibuster to block or greatly delay the president’s nominations to executive branch agencies, the federal bench, and to defeat consideration of legislation.

Reid then praised some of the senators who have been pushing for filibuster reform, such as Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). The plan, in part, would force senators to work harder to sustain a filibuster. Merkley calls it a “talking filibuster.” In a press release, Merkley explains how his proposed changes would blunt the use of the filibuster. (Sen. Merkley is one of the featured speakers at the 2013 ACS National Convention in June.)

As it stands now Republicans have crafted a new norm of requiring a supermajority to end debate and allow up-or-down votes on legislation and nominations. The compromise gun bill was killed because of this new norm, though some wobbly pundits suggested the president was at fault. Indeed the late Bob Edgar blasted the use of the filibuster as essentially shutting the place down and his group lodged a lawsuit to force reform of the procedural tool.

At the start of the 113th Congress, Merkley and other senators urged a simple majority vote to change the Senate’s rules on the filibuster. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), said “a revolution has occurred in the Senate in recent years. Never before was it accepted that a 60 vote threshold was required for everything. This did not occur through Constitutional Amendment or through a great public debate. Rather, because of the abuse of the filibuster, the minority party – the party the American people did not want to govern – has assumed for itself absolute and virtually unchecked veto power over all legislation, any executive branch nominee, no matter how insignificant the position, and over all judges, no matter how uncontroversial.”