The White House has officially announced its intent to nominate Prof. Christopher Schroeder (right) of Duke University School of Law to the head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy.

"In his new role, Schroeder would be a leading voice on legislation related to law enforcement and the federal court system, and on nominations for the federal judiciary," according to The Blog of the Legal Times. "If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the chief policy advisor to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden."

ACS is very proud to announce a successful conclusion to our search for a new executive director: Caroline Fredrickson (right).

Since 2005, Fredrickson has been the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, where she led the organization's efforts to promote its priorities in Congress, the White House and federal agencies. Her selection is the culmination of a thorough search process that began after the former ACS Director Lisa Brown was selected by President Obama to be Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary. Deputy Executive Director David Lyle has admirably served as acting executive director in the meantime.

Prior to assuming leadership of the ACLU's national legislative portfolio, Fredrickson served as General Counsel and Legal Director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Before that, Fredrickson was Chief of Staff to Sen. Maria Cantwell and Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. During the Clinton administration, Fredrickson served as Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. She has been widely published and appears frequently in the media on topics including labor law, anti-discrimination law, and human and civil rights issues. She holds a law degree from Columbia and graduated summa cum laude from Yale. 

Attorney Keenan Kmiec, a former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, recently wrote a column decrying the "[c]omplaints about judicial activism [that] have plagued Supreme Court confirmation hearings for decades." As were co-authors Goodwin Liu and Pamela Karlan at this month's release of Keeping Faith with the Constitution, Kmiec is most concerned with understanding judicial philosophy of President Obama's judicial nominees. However, according to Kmiec, "Empty or ambiguous charges of 'judicial activism' only make things harder."

Understanding a nominee's judicial philosophy is hard work, but it should be the goal of the confirmation process. Amorphous charges of 'judicial activism' score cheap political points, but they have no place in a serious confirmation debate. Let's banish the term or at least use it carefully.

Following the recent ACS event announcing the release of Keeping Faith with the Constitution and a companion volume, called It is a Constitution We Are Expounding, co-author of Keeping Faith, Goodwin Liu talked to ACSBlog about the void in constitutional debate the book will fill.

He also said that Keeping Faith, which explores the weaknesses of "orginialism" and "strict construction," and offers an approach to interpreting the Constitution that is faithful to its principles, would prove useful in approaching debates over judicial nominations. Liu said, "There is going to be a lot of disagreement of how our Constitution should be read and interpreted and what kinds of qualities a judge should bring to that interpretation." Liu, associate dean and professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law, co-authored Keeping Faith with Pamela H. Karlan, professor of law at Stanford Law School, and Christopher Schroeder, professor of law at Duke University School of Law.

Watch Liu's interview below, and download a podcast of the interview here.

On Friday, May 1, Law Day, ACS released two important new books on the Constitution and constitutional interpretation, and hosted a panel discussion at the National Press Club with the authors and other experts on the ideas presented in the books, moderated by Dahlia Lithwick. Keeping Faith With the Constitution offers a compelling and common-sense approach to constitutional interpretation that is faithful to the Constitution's words and principles and explains why it is the world's most enduring written Constitution. The authors of the book are three leading constitutional scholars: Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan and Christopher H. Schroeder. The companion volume, It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding: Collected Writings on Interpreting Our Founding Document, is an anthology of excerpts of some of the finest existing writing on methods of constitutional interpretation, taken from decisions of the Supreme Court and other judicial opinions and speeches, the scholarly literature, and other sources. It was edited by Pamela Harris and Karl Thompson, and includes a Foreword by Professor Laurence H. Tribe. These books are designed to be useful to a wide readership, including lawyers, judges, law students, and every citizen engaged in the nation's debates over the Constitution, the courts and judicial nominations. Watch video of National Press Club event on the books here.