The “Constitution in 2020” Conference
on Mar 22, 2005 at 10:39 am
For obvious reasons, now is the season for looking backward—for retrospective assessments of the Rehnquist Court, and, in particular, of the Chief Justice’s influence on the law from the time of his appointment as an Associate Justice until the present day.
But before there was a Rehnquist Court, there was a fairly detailed vision of what such a Court might look like. Many of the more important developments in Rehnquist Court doctrine—on issues such as federalism, textualism, the remedial power of courts, and affirmative action—were presaged by a series of jurisprudential blueprints drafted by attorneys in the Reagan Justice Department, such as this and this.
That Reagan Administration constitutional vision has now largely been realized, by way of Republican judicial appointments, in at least some areas of law; and some Court-watchers have begun to consider what the Court’s jurisprudence might (or should) look like in the next generation. Naturally, much of this speculation centers around the impact of possible Bush Administration appointments.
But what if Republicans do not retain control of the appointments process in the coming decades? How might the constitutional vision of progressive judicial appointments differ? What constitutional understandings might guide progressives in Congress and the Executive branch? To address these questions, the Yale Law School and the American Constitution Society are sponsoring a conference entitled “The Constitution in 2020,” which will bring together many renowned constitutional attorneys and scholars for the express purpose of “reclaim[ing] the Constitution for progressive values.” The Conference will be in New Haven on April 8th-10th, and students, attorneys and faculty from around the country are invited and encouraged to attend. The Conference website (with details and info) is here, and a blog devoted to the Conference can be found here. The Conference is part of a recently launched ACS initiative to develop and promote a progessive constitutional vision. More information on “The Constitution in the 21st Century” Project can be found here.
Disclosure: I have played an extremely modest role in helping plan the Conference.
