Panel Recap – Roundtable: About the Constitution in 2020

Bringing together four of Yale Law School’s constitutional heavyweights, last Friday’s roundtable discussion was both backward- and forward-looking. Moderated by Duke’s Neil Siegel, the panelists spoke about the Constitution in 2020 as a movement, where it came from and what it aspires to achieve. After Reva Siegel introduced the Constitution in 2020 project, Robert Post spoke on democratic constitutionalism, Jack Balkin examined the purposes of a constitutional theory, Bruce Ackerman highlighted a constitutional concern for economic justice, and all the professors debated the future of the Supreme Court and its appointment process.

 Video courtesy of Yale Law School.

 

Reva Siegel recounted how this "Constitution in 2020" endeavor was instigated in response to a conservative project called the Constitution in 2000. The Constitution in 2000 was a document produced within the Reagan Justice Department in 1988 setting forth favored and disfavored lines of constitutional decisions. The document was a blueprint for change, imagining how a more conservative constitutional terrain could be achieved through judicial appointments and constitutional litigation. It was utopian, but restorative. It was also highly successful. Now it has spawned a responsive vision, the Constitution in 2020 project, which includes conferences, a book, and this blog.

Constitutional Conventions: Getting 20/20 Vision About Them by 2020

Crosspost from Balkinization

The Constitution in 2020 is at once an effort to articulate a theory of progressive constitutionalism that can counter the ascendency of conservative constitutionalism’s theory of originalism – and is an effort to imagine what such a progressive constitutionalism can realistically hope to accomplish in the medium term. Notably, a majority of the essays in the book appear to give up on judge-centered approaches to constitutional change and seek to bring about progressive ends through legislation and social movements. Whether this is because the authors of the essays just don’t have their five votes on the Supreme Court as of yet (the cynical perspective of one recent review) – or whether it is because they have really grown convinced of some of the disadvantages of judge-led constitutional change – the volume makes clear that today’s mainstream liberals in the legal academy are no simplistic defenders of judicial review, judicial supremacy, and judicial liberal activism. The romance of FDR might remain, but the romance of the Warren Court has faded for most. This shift has been underway for some time, to be sure, but today’s law students are more likely to see their liberal law professors questioning Roe in earnest than previous generations. Brown may still be untouchable; but this book helps the next generation see clearly that if they want to own their Constitution and have it represent the best of their own constitutions, there are democratic methods outside the judiciary to make that happen.

2020 News

The newest addition to the site is our "2020 News" page, where you can catch news items related to The Constitution in 2020. Up now are streaming videos from this summer's National Press Club event (featuring Walter Dellinger and Mark Tushnet) and ACS Convention (featuring William Forbath, Rachel Moran, Larry Kramer, and Vicki Jackson), as well as a podcast of Jack Balkin's interview on KERA (Dallas).

THE CONSTITUTION IN 2020 in the News

The Constitution in 2020 has been the subject of several thoughtful write-ups in the past few weeks. In addition to reviews in the Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Daily Journal, Jeffrey Rosen's "What's a Liberal Justice Now?" (from the May 31st edition of The New York Times Magazine) offers readers a concise overview of the intellectual trends that The Constitution in 2020 is engaging and/or exploring. In the process of laying out the pre-history of The Constitution in 2020, Rosen glosses several major schools of constitutional interpretation, namely, democratic constitutionalism, strict constructionism, and minimalism (I'm throwing quite a few "-isms" around, but no worries -- Rosen does a fantastic job explaining each and their interrelations). One note: While Rosen's article seems to suggest that minimalism is a fading, "Clinton-era" remnant, it's still alive and well, in the pages of The Constitution in 2020 no less (see chapter 4: Cass Sunstein's "The Minimalist Constitution"). Much of the frission in the book arises from the interplay between democratic constitutionalism and minimalism... but that's the subject for another post (or four).
 
Once you've got your constitutional sea-legs under you, you should head over to Ari Shapiro's "Conservatives Have 'Originalism,' Liberals Have...?" on NPR.com. Shapiro uses the publication of The Constitution in 2020 as an occasion to revisit the conversation about what the left/liberal/progressive method of constitutional interpretation is or should be. Several scholars weigh in, opening up what has rapidly developed into a lively discussion in the article's comments section.