May 3, 2005
The American Constitution Society and the Center For American Progress present:
The Return of the Constitution in Exile?
Do President Bush’s judicial nominees threaten fundamental environmental, health, safety and workers’ rights protections and even Social Security?
Featuring:
Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law; Legal Affairs Editor, The New Republic
Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Michael Greve, Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Moderated by:
Simon Lazarus, Of Counsel, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood; Public Policy Counsel, National Senior Citizens Law Center
“Imagine that the interpretation of the Constitution was frozen in 1937. Imagine a country in which Social Security, job safety laws and environmental protections were unconstitutional. Imagine judges longing for that. Imagine one of them as the next Supreme Court nominee.” So begins “The Unregulated Offensive”, published in the April 17, 2005 edition of the New York Times Magazine by Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Law at George Washington University School of Law. In the article, Professor Rosen traces the rise of the “Constitution in Exile” movement, which seeks to return constitutional law to what it believes was a pre-New Deal Golden Age of limited government. Participants in this program will discuss and debate the ideas underlying the “Constitution in Exile” and their relevance to the current controversies over judicial nominations.
Transcript
• Transcript: Full text (PDF)