The 2009 ACS National Convention included the panel "New Challenges for Constitutional Litigation," featuring Eve Gartner, Deputy Direcor, Public Policy Litigation and Law Department, Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute; Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union; and Daniel P. Tokaji, Professor of Law, Associate Director of Election Law at Moritz, the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. The panel was moderated by Paul R.Q. Wolfson, WilmerHale.
"[U]ntil recently, the Court has applied a test in the abortion context that I believe it applies in no other context. What the Court has said is that facial challenges to abortion restrictions can succeed if the law is unconstitutional in a large fraction of cases in which the law is an actual restriction," said Gartner. "However, two years ago in the Gonzales v. Carhartt case -- the challenge to the federal law on so-called 'partial birth abortion' -- the Court indicated in a somewhat schizophrenic and perhaps even unprincipled fashion that it was changing the rule."
I think Gartner sounded the
I think Gartner sounded the most rational and clear of the panel. Though she has an obvious liberal slant, my thinking is much in line with hers.
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