ACS Podcast

On Jan. 9 ACS hosted a phone call lead by one of the country's leaders in constitutional scholarship, Stephen Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, to discuss two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this Term, Ziglar v. Abbasi (Jan. 18) and Hernandez v. Mesa (Feb. 21), where the key question at stake is: under what circumstances, if any, can an individual seek damages against federal officers who violate their constitutional rights? Professor Vladeck, who is co-counsel in Hernandez v. Mesa, will discuss “Bivens remedies,” the only mechanism available to plaintiffs who have had their constitutional rights violated and detail the ACS Issue Brief titled, “The Bivens Term: Why the Supreme Court should reinvigorate damages suits against federal officers,” which he authored.

The last decade has seen a steady rise in restrictions on the right to vote, with cuts to early voting, limitations on absentee voting, polling place closures, voter ID laws and changes to voter registration becoming routine in legislatures across the country. The 2016 presidential election, the first in over 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, was also pervaded with calls for “poll watchers” to ensure “ballot integrity” and to protect against voter fraud. The election saw an unprecedented stream of litigation challenging laws and procedures regarding the right to vote. On Jan. 12, 2017 the American Constitution Society hosted a conference call featuring attorneys behind several of these lawsuits. The attorneys provided an update and in-depth discussion of the major litigation that arose during the 2016 election and its implications for elections and voting rights law in the future.

Featured Speakers:

Caroline Fredrickson, president, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy

Dawn Smalls, partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP; member, Board of Directors, ACS; Moderator

Marc Elias, partner; Firmwide Chair, Political Law Practice; member, Firmwide Executive Committee, Perkins Coie LLP

Michael Gottlieb, partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP

On Tuesday, Jan. 24, ACS hosted a briefing call featuring Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School; Deepak Gupta, appellate advocate and principal at Gupta Wessler PLLC and Joshua Matz associate at Robbins Russell LLP. These three leading lawyers discussed the lawsuit alleging that Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by allowing his businesses to accept payments from foreign governments. The participants addressed the following questions:

What are "emoluments" and is Trump receiving them?

Is this a political question? Are there jurisdictional questions?

Who has standing to bring cases in regards to a violation of the Emoluments Clause?

What is the remedy?

Featured Speakers:

Caroline Fredrickson, ACS President, Moderator

Deepak Gupta, Partner, Gupta Wessler PLLC

Joshua Matz, Associate, Robbins Russell LLP

Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School

On Monday Jan. 30, Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society; Nicholas Espiritu, Staff Attorney, National Immigration Law Center; and David Strauss, Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, University of Chicago School of Law, discussed President Trump’s Executive Order barring admission into the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries for 90 days, suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days, and barring any entry by Syrian refugees without time limitation. The participants addressed the following questions:

Are the orders constitutional?

On what basis did five federal judges issue stays of the orders?

What are the implications of reports that Customs and Borders Protection officers were not implementing those court orders?

What can we expect next in the litigation challenging the orders?

And what opportunities exist for lawyers to engage the crisis?

Featured Speakers:

Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, Moderator

Nicholas Espiritu, Staff Attorney, National Immigration Law Center

David Strauss, Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic, University of Chicago School of Law

On Jan. 31, President Trump announced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court. Gorsuch will fill a seat left vacant for almost one year by the Senate majority’s obstructionism. The confirmation process is almost certain to be contentious.

On Feb. 1, 2017 ACS convened prominent legal scholars to speak about Judge Gorsuch's nomination. The speakers addressed the following questions:

By releasing a list of 21 potential Supreme Court candidates during the 2016 campaign, has President Trump raised concerns about the impartiality and fairness of a nominee on his list?

What questions should Senators ask during the confirmation process?

Given Trump’s statements that his nominee will overturn Roe v. Wade, what is the role of justice?

What is at stake for the nation?

Featured Speakers:

Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, Moderator

Erwin Chemerinsky, ACS Board Member, Dean and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, UC Irvine School of Law

Melissa Murray, Interim Dean and Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law, UC Berkeley Law

Christopher Kang, ACS Board Member, National Director, National Council of Asian Pacific Americans

On March 8, ACS hosted a briefing call on the Trump Administration's second travel ban that purports to cure the defects of the first. After the first travel ban was rebuffed by federal courts in its attempt to restrict refugee admissions and travel from designated Muslim-majority nations, the ACS briefing call looked to answer the following questions. How do the two executive orders differ? Are those differences constitutionally and legally significant? And what have we learned in recent weeks about the implementation challenges raised by such orders?

Featured Speakers:

Adam Winkler, Professor of Law, UCLA Law School; ACS Board of Directors, Moderator

Anil Kalhan, Associate Professor of Law, Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law

Dr. Stephen Legomsky, John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus, Washington University Law School;Former Chief Counsel, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (2011-2013)

On Jan. 31, the San Francisco City Attorney filed suit in federal court alleging the Trump Administration's Jan. 25 executive order announcing its intention to withhold federal funds from sancturary cities violates the Tenth Amendment and seeking a declaration that San Francisco is in compliance with federal immigration law. On April 19, Pratheepan Gulasekaram, professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law and Mollie Lee, deputy city attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, joined ACS for a briefing call during which they discussed the litigation and the underlying federalism principles.

Featured Speakers:

Kara Stein, Vice President of Policy Development and Programming at ACS, Welcome

Pratheepan Gulasekaram, Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law

Mollie Lee, Deputy City Attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office

On May 9, President Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, the leading investigator into whether the president's campaign advisers violated the law by working with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. Coming six years before the end of Comey’s ten-year term, the termination raises serious questions about whether the Administration is interfering in the investigation.

On May 11, ACS hosted a briefing call that considered the following questions:

What are the legal and policy implications of Comey's dismissal?

Is appointing a special prosecutor or establishing an independent commission the next step?

What should be the consequences of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' involvement in the dismissal after he recused himself from any involvement in the investigation due to misrepresentations he made to Congress regarding his communications with the Russian government?

Featured Speakers:

Caroline Fredrickson, president, American Constitution Society, Moderator

Stephen Vladeck, professor of law, University of Texas School of Law

Barbara McQuade, professor from practice, University of Michigan Law School; former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan

Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School; former associate counsel and chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush

On Monday July 17 ACS hosted a webinar providing an overview of the actions of President Trump's "election integrity" commission. Experts discuss responses by the states, voting rights advocates and the larger context for this dispute.

Welcome:

Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society, Moderator

Featured Speakers:

Justin Levitt, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law, Loyola Law School

Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State

On August 24, 2017, ACS hosted a call on the most recent challenge to DACA. In June 2012, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (“DACA”), which allowed qualifying young people who were brought to the United States as children to request that any removal action against them be deferred in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Subsequent programs (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (“DAPA”) and the 2014 “expanded DACA”) were preliminarily enjoined by a Texas federal judge, whose decision was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and ultimately by an evenly divided U.S. Supreme Court. Now the Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, and 10 other state Attorneys General have written to Attorney General Sessions indicating their intent to challenge the 2012 DACA in court unless the administration agrees to rescind the program by September 5, 2017.

 

Featuring:

Caroline Fredrickson, ACS President, Moderator

Lorella Praeli, ACLU Director of Immigration Policy and Campaigns

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Penn State Law