2008 Mid-Year Meeting
Conference on Constitutional Law
June 3 – 6, 2008
Renaissance Cleveland Hotel
Cleveland, Ohio
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Why Attend?
Constitutional law is always changing, but the changes since the last AALS professional development program on constitutional law are particularly dramatic. The Supreme Court has significantly changed the emphasis of its prior jurisprudence of government power and abortion rights. The so-called federalism revolution of the 1990s might have reached its limits. Laurence Tribe announced that he had suspended working on his treatise on constitutional law because the field was in such flux that no overview seemed possible. How can scholars of constitutional law respond to these developments? Participants in the 2008 Conference on Constitutional Law will have a chance to consider these and many other topics.
Several important developments, pointing in various directions, shape scholars’ concerns today. The first, of course, is the arrival of the Roberts Court, increasing the likelihood, foreshadowed for decades, of consolidated control of the Supreme Court by adherents of judicial philosophies that have come to be identified with judicial and political conservatives. Pointing in a different direction, and presenting the possibility of renewed and transformed tensions between Congress and the Supreme Court, are the results of the 2006 congressional elections. Constitutional theory has itself been changed. The debates over interpretive theory that animated constitutional scholarship in prior decades have damped down, although some interventions of that sort persist. Taking up more space in our discussions are alternative constitutionalisms, including comparative and state constitutional law. The most recent AALS workshop on constitutional law, jointly sponsored with the American Political Science Association in 2002, focused on the interaction between political science and constitutional theory, and that interaction has only thickened since then.
The 2008 conference will present opportunities to discuss these issues. The prospects for the Roberts Court will be the subject of a plenary session followed by discussions in smaller groups of specific areas of constitutional law. Under the heading of alternative constitutionalisms we will have a chance to discuss comparative constitutional law, state constitutional law, European Union law seen in constitutional perspective, and transnational law in general. Issues of executive power have taken a new place in constitutional scholarship and teaching. A panel will discuss the substantive law of executive power, primarily in connection with national security issues. Because issues of executive power played a smaller role in our courses in the past, questions of pedagogy are particularly important and perhaps under-discussed. Participants will have a chance to exchange ideas about how to teach the constitutional law of executive power. Questions about citizenship – be they about full citizenship within the nation, or about who can become citizens and how – link constitutional law and transnational law, and have taken on increasing importance.
Finally, this conference will hold a joint luncheon with the concurrent Conference on Evidence with the Honorable Nancy Gertner, Judge, US District Court, District of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts.
The topics to be covered at the 2008 Conference on Constitutional Law range widely across the field, but all touch on matters that nearly everyone who teaches and writes about constitutional law must consider with some regularity. Why attend? Because you will come away from the conference with new ideas for your scholarship and teaching.
~Planning Committee for the Conference on Constitutional Law
Stephen M. Griffin, Tulane University
Phoebe A. Haddon, Temple University
Lori Ringhand, University of Kentucky
Jay Tidmarsh, Notre Dame Law School
Mark V. Tushnet, Harvard Law School, Chair
Who Should Attend?
Teachers of civil rights, constitutional law, federal courts, immigration law and law and social science will find this conference of interest.
When is this Conference?
The conference will begin on Tuesday, June 3 with registration at starting at 5:00 p.m., followed by three days of plenary and concurrent sessions. The conference will conclude at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, June 6. In addition to the program sessions, receptions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and luncheons will be held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Where is this Conference?
The conference sessions and sleeping accommodations will be at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, 24 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44113. The room rate is $169 for single or double occupancy. This rate is subject to a 15% sales tax. Children staying in the same room with their parent(s) are free of charge. This hotel is non-smoking.
How Do I Register?
This conference is part of the AALS Mid-Year Meeting. The Mid-Year Meeting consists of three professional development programs: The Workshop for Law Librarians, the Conference on Constitutional Law and the Conference on Evidence. The registration fee for the workshop is discounted 50% when signing up for the entire Mid-Year Meeting. You can choose to register for the two Conferences and/or Workshop using this form. When registering for the AALS Conference on Evidence, you are automatically registered for the AALS Conference on Constitutional Law and can attend sessions at both Conferences. Attending the AALS Workshop for Law Librarians requires a different fee. You will receive a discount of half of the workshop registration fee by registering for all three programs.
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