On February 6, 2020, ACS held a symposium on the future of separation of powers and how Congress might once again perform its core legislative duties.
Opening Keynote: Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-8)
Panel 1: The Rise of the Unilateralist Presidency
Featuring: Kimberly Atkins, Hon. Brad Miller, Erica Newland, Victoria Nourse, and Sai Prakash.
Panel 2: Protector-in-Chief: Cooption of National Security by the Executive Branch
Featuring: Mieke Eoyang, Gene Healy, Marty Lederman, Hina Shamsi, and Bijal Shah.
Lunch Keynote: Hon. Jeh Charles Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security
Panel 3: Imagining a Resurgent Congress
Featuring: Simon Lester, Reta Jo Lewis, Zachary Price, Kate Shaw, and Donald Sherman.
Background
Read a summary of the event. The scope of presidential power was a key source of debate among the framers of the Constitution. Some, like Hamilton, advocated for an “elective monarch,” while Benjamin Franklin supported a “plural presidency” of more than one executive, and until very near the end of the convention, the president was to be elected by the Congress. Ultimately, it is the legislative power described in the Constitution’s first article that is most expansive, including the powers to declare war, to borrow and coin money, and to make “all laws necessary” to carry out its powers. Almost 250 years later, with the Trump administration vowing to fight “all the subpoenas” issued by Congress in the impeachment inquiry, successive administrations sparring with Congress over presidential decisions to engage in military action abroad without congressional authorization, and the U.S. Attorney General’s (and perhaps some Supreme Court Justices’) embracing of the “unitary executive theory,” where does that leave Congress? Can it conduct effective oversight of the executive branch? How might it reassert itself as a muscular branch of government? Our symposium discussed the state of the future of separation of powers and imagined how Congress might once again perform its core legislative duties.
ACS held a panel discussion on the state of campaign finance on January 16, 2020. Titled "Revisiting Campaign Finance Regulation 10 Years After Citizens United," the event featured Jason Abel, Lee Goodman,Chisun Lee, and Ciara Torres-Spelliscy and was moderated by Michael Tomasky.
A decade after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, super PACS and independent expenditures now dominate the political landscape. The FEC, tasked with monitoring these expenditures and enforcing campaign finance laws, lacks a quorum. What is the current state of play and what changes can and/or should be made to the way our elections are regulated?
Featured Speakers:
Michael Tomasky, Editor, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas; Columnist, Daily Beast;Moderator
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Professor of Law, Stetson University
Chisun Lee, Deputy Director, Election Reform Program, Brennan Center for Justice
On October 23rd, the American Constitution Society convened a panel of experts for a discussion on the causes, effects, and solutions to income inequality in the United States. The speakers discussed how tax law, labor law, and antitrust law might all be used to curb inequality and the widening racial wealth gap and what constitutional potholes advocates should avoid. Read the discussion's major takeaways.
Lisa Cylar Barrett, Director of Policy, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
Lina Khan, Academic Fellow, Columbia Law School and Counsel, U.S. House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law
Anne Marie Lofaso, Arthur B. Hodges Professor of Law, West Virginia University College of Law
Ganesh Sitaraman, Chancellor Faculty Fellow and Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law School
Dora Chen, Assistant General Counsel, Service Employees International Union, Moderator
On September 25, ACS held our annual panel discussion at the National Press Club where a diverse group of experts offer their insights previewing the Supreme Court Term that will begin October 7.
Featuring:
Kimberly Atkins, Senior News Correspondent, WBUR; Contributor, MSNBC, Moderator
Hon. Paul Clement, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis, LLP; Former U.S. Solicitor General
Hon. Walter Dellinger, Partner, O’Melveny; Douglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law; Former Acting U.S. Solicitor General
Katie Eyer, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Hon. Donald Verrilli, Jr., Partner, Munger, Tolles & Olson; Former U.S. Solicitor General
Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar and Clinical Professor of Law, Penn State Law
In the subject line please write: “The 2019-2020 Supreme Court Preview.”
In the body of the email, please provide your full name.
Please note that today’s event has only been approved for California and MCLE credit. Upon completion of the webinar, you will receive a California Certificate of Attendance and course evaluation form for your records. Please email your completed evaluation form back to info@acslaw.org so that we may continue to improve our programs and events. Please note that if you are seeking CLE credit in a jurisdiction other than California for this event, please consult directly with that state’s CLE rules and regulations.
ACS Board Chair and Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan discusses constitutional interpretation in this 9-minute video. The questions Karlan explores include:
The multiple approaches to interpreting the Constitution.
The fact that there was not a single framing of the Constitution.
Whose responsibility it is to interpret the Constitution.
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., observing in 1977 that his more conservative Supreme Court colleagues were under-enforcing the guarantees of the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment, urged state courts to “step into the breach” and to scrutinize constitutional claims vigorously because “[w]ith federal scrutiny diminished, state courts must respond by increasing their own.” Now, with the federal courts moving ever more to the right under the current administration, it may be increasingly important for progressive advocates to look to state courts and state constitutions to advance civil rights and protect individual liberty. Which types of rights might receive stronger protection under state constitutions? What might be at risk with such a strategy? Where the federal and state constitutions contain substantively the same text, is it legitimate for state courts to reach different conclusions than the U.S. Supreme Court about constitutional questions? As progressives look at an increasingly inhospitable federal judicial landscape, are state courts and constitutions the answer?
SPEAKERS
Richard Schragger, Perre Bowen Professor of Law & Joseph C. Carter, Jr. Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law; Moderator
Mary Bonauto, Civil Rights Project Director, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
Hon. Anita Earls, Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
