Columbia ACS Moot Court Victories at the Regional Round

Congratulations to the CLS teams which competed this past weekend in the regional tournament for the American Constitution Society's Constance Baker Motley Moot Court, held at Georgetown Law School. The team had a terrific showing and collected the most wins of
any school at the competition. Of the eight teams that moved on to the final rounds, three were from Columbia!

Our winners were:

Regional Semifinalists:
Megan Crowley & Adriel Cepeda

Regional Quarterfinalists:
Jennifer Sokoler & Corey Miller
Daniel Butrymowicz & Amanda Hungerford

Congratulations also go to Mina Nasseri and Vishal Agraharkar, who
handily defeated 2L and 3L teams from around the country.

ACS Board Elections

Hey All,
While Hilary and Barack duke it out on the national stage, its about that time of year to have some mud-slingin' election adventures of our own here at CLS. Here's some information from 3L and ACS-election Czarina, Zahra Egal:

ACS Election Procedures 2008

1. All members of ACS National who will be 2L or 3L students in the following academic year are eligible both to vote and to run for positions on the Columbia ACS Board. Candidates must be registered as members of National by the time candidates’ statements are due (April 4).
2. The board positions to be filled by election are as follows:
1. President
2. Vice President
3. Events Chair
4. External Relations Chair
5. Finance Chair
6. Media Chair
7. 3L Representatives (2)
3. Candidates may run for one or more positions. For each position for which they are running, candidates should write a one paragraph statement expressing why they are running for that position. There will be no meeting at which candidates present themselves.
4. Candidates must also rank their preferences for each position for which they are running—which position is their first choice, which their second, and so on.. This information will be used if a candidate receives the most eligible votes for more than one position (see Step 14, below).
5. Candidate statements are due by 5:00pm, Friday, April 4. These should be emailed to zahra.egal@gmail.com. Candidates whose statements arrive after this deadline will not be placed on the ballot and will not have their statements posted.
6. The 3L board members will prepare a list of candidates and candidate statements. This information will be available on the ACS blog, and a link to the information will be emailed to all eligible voters. Additionally, candidate statements will be posted on our bulletin board on the first floor of JG.
7. Elections will occur over four days, during lunchtime (12:30–1:30), from Tuesday April 8, to Thursday, April 10 Elections will occur at a table in the hall of JG.
8. The volunteers at the election table will have a list of all eligible voters, the candidate statements, and ballots.
9. Non-members can also join at the election table and thus become eligible voters.
10. Ballots will list alphabetically the candidates for each position. To vote, voters will rank their preference for each candidate for each position. Voters must rank each candidate, and cannot put the same ranking for more than one candidate.
11. The volunteers at the election table will accept completed ballots from eligible voters and keep track of those who have voted. (Each voter may fill out only one ballot.)
12. After lunch on Thursday, the 3L board members will tally the votes for positions in the following order (though candidate’s preferences will also be taken into account, see Step 14 below:
1. President
2. Vice President
3. Events Chair
4. External Relations Chair
5. Finance Chair
6. Media Chair
7. 3L Representatives (2)
13. In the case of a tie for a position, ballots that ranked neither candidate as the top available choice will be counted as a vote for whichever of the top two candidates is ranked more highly. Example:
1. A ballot ranks the preferences for President as follows: Monique is first, Ned is second, Ophelia is third.
2. On the initial counting, Ned and Ophelia are tied for the position because each is ranked more highly than any other eligible candidate, except each other.
3. The ballot will then count as a vote for Ned.
14. If at any time a candidate has the most votes for more than one position, the candidate will be elected to the position he or she has ranked more highly as a personal preference. Example:
1. Roger has run for both Vice President and for Media Chair and for no other positions. He has ranked Media Chair as his first choice and Vice President as his second.
2. When the votes for Vice President are tallied, Roger has the most votes for both Vice President and for Media Chair.
3. Roger will be elected Media Chair.
15. The results will be announced over email and on the blog by the 3L board members.
16. In the event that any of the elected positions are not filled after the election, the sitting board member will continue to fill that position until the new board meets first and resolves the problem.

Media Chair Tech Specs

The primary responsibility of the Media Chair is to manage and promote the online presence of Columbia ACS, first and foremost our blog, and to work toward making that presence robust and supplementary of our on-campus activities. In addition to managing our group’s online presence from a content perspective, you are the primary technical resource for the group.
The technical skills required to be an effective media chair are minimal. Since you’ll likely choose 1 or 2 assistant media chairs next year, you personally may not need all these skills.

Using HTML…

You Feel Generally Comfortable With Basic HTML: Unless the board decides that a significant redesign of the blog or website is in order, you’re not going to have to display a real mastery of HTML. Most of your duties will be executed using the Google application, Blogger, that is extremely user-friendly and requires the a very general knowledge of HTML. However, you should expect to be the go-to person for technical matters with the blog and the website. Maintaining both these assets demands fluency with rudimentary HTML.

Using SFTP…

You Can Figure Out How to Use an Graphical FTP Program: To upload and move files around on Columbia’s system, you’ll need to use a program that supports SFTP (like WinSCP). Nothing too technical here, and you’ll receive instructions from the outgoing media chair on how this works.

THIS WEEK @ ACS

3/24 - 3/28

THURSDAY March 27
12:30 PM; JG 107

Info Session on Running for the ACS Board

We are holding an info session to 1) explain what each of the board positions entails, 2) encourage you to run 3) explain how to do so.

EVERY DAY This Week

Dean's Cup Tickets on Sale

Tickets are on sale this week from 11-2 every day in the lobby. When you buy your ticket, please tell them you want your purchase credited to ACS.

Reclaiming Our Progressive Constitition

Today ACS welcomed Doug Kendall, executive director of the Community Rights Counsel, a DC-based public interest law firm that promotes constitutional principles to defend laws that make out communities environmentally sound and socially just. Kendall is working now to launch the Constitutional Accountability Center, a think tank, law firm and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution.

Kendall began his talk by reflecting upon the typical reaction of a progressive law student to their study of Constitutional law. Most progressive students, Kendall believes, conclude that the Constitution is a great, mysterious, flawed document and that the real heroes in the story of constitutional law are judges, not the Constitution itself. Progressive students believe that what we need are more judges like Marshall and Warren and leave law school thinking that the Constitution’s text and history is for conservatives. Kendall commented that he himself left law school with this belief.

Ten years ago he founded the Community Rights Counsel in response to a series of Supreme Court rulings that chipped away at environmental protection laws. Kendall used the text and history of the takings clause to combat this move by the conservative Court. In a 1992 case (Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council Inc. v. Tahoe Reg’l Planning Agency), the Counsel brought in John Roberts to argue the takings clause from a historical perspective and managed to sway some of the conservative justices; by 1995 even Scalia was ready to return the takings clause to its property place in history and thus permit environmental protection laws. Kendall realized that this technique of using text and history could combat the advance of conservatives and forward progressive legal goals.

Kendall believes that part of the reason this technique is not used more is the view of the Constitution adopted by progressives during law school, as described above. The problem for progressives, Kendall believes, is a series of rulings after the Civil War, like the Slaughterhouse Cases, that cut the heart out of the 14^th Amendment. These cases remain good law for the Court has never overruled them and they rear their heads in cases like U.S. v Morrison.

Because of this undercutting, the Court has used other methods, like the Commerce Clause, to stomp out discrimination when this would be the work intended for the 14^th Amendment. Thus, modern progressives on the Court have often gotten to the right answer but for the wrong reasons. As a result, progressives have been left defending positions that are largely indefensible. Progressives are then losing these arguments too often.

Kendall believes that it is time for progressives to take a different approach and embrace the constitutional text and history instead of running from it. This is the only way in which they will be able to connect successfully with the current Court. Kendall concluded by stating that if the differences between liberals and conservatives can be distilled to one points, it’s the meaning of the Reconstruction amendments. The text and history of these amendments must be made central to the progressive cause today and the Constitutional Accountability Center will work toward this end.

Is the Race (Problem in this Country) Over?

A Conversation with CLS Professor Olati Johnson and Dr. Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Professor Johnson began by reflecting upon the fact that 40 years ago, the year of her birth, the Civil Rights movement was only beginning to incorporate a focus on poverty issues, and that this focus was quickly dissipated following Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Now, thinking about race issues focuses more upon the intersection of race and poverty, as well as latent racism and the lingering effects of structural discrimination.

If race is less salient, it is only because it is now more complexly understood and manifested. Professor Johnson discussed the idea of "concentrated poverty" representing the intersection of poverty and race issues, noting that middle class black families are much more likely to reside in areas of concentrated poverty. These areas are ground zero for a confluence of educational, economic, racial and social problems and deficiencies.

Pointing to the recently publicized studies of incarceration rates in the U.S., Professor Johnson noted that the increase in incarceration was driven by enforcement of drug laws and that this enforcement was disproportionately aimed at minority populations. Even if this was driven by a higher rate of law-breaking among minority groups, that should not relieve of us of having to consider the conditions that create these trends.

Dr. Thernstrom disclaimed her remarks as a sort of brainstorming session, inviting the audience to help her more fully form her ideas. Beginning with points of agreement, Dr. Thernstrom pointed to the racial divide in many areas, but also pointed to trends decoupling the effects of race and poverty. Urban schools are unacceptable to people of all colors, and Dr. Thernstrom believes that they pose eminently redressible problems.

Turning to candidate Obama, Dr. Thernstrom analyzed the level of white male voting for Barack Obama. These numbers are very high, almost 50% in many states and over that mark in several. These results evidence a turning point for race relations in this country to Dr. Thernstrom. Obama's self-announced "post-racial" campaign belies the fact that black voters see him as a black candidate and are drawn to that. Dr. Thernstrom praised the 1965 Voting Rights Act at the time of passage, but blamed it, as interpreted, exclusively for the persistent pattern of black candidates only running in majority black settings. These safe districts are encouraging white Americans to think of African Americans as "others".

A lively question and answer session followed.

The Columbia Chapters of the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society would like to thank Professor Johnson and Dr. Thernstrom for the remarks and all for joining this valuable discussion.

This Week @ ACS

3/10 - 3/14

MONDAY March 10
12:20; JG 102

Is the Race (Problem in this Country) Over?

Professor Olati Johnson is a leader in the fields of educational opportunity, income inequality, and racial discrimination. Abigail Thernstrom is a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. They will discuss racial change in the near past and near future, with a focus on the impact that the Obama campaign has had.

Co-sponsored by the Federalist Society.

Lunch served.

MONDAY March 10
4:00 PM; JG 107

The Guantánamo Files

Andy Worthington, a historian and journalist, speaks about his book, The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison, the lead book about the lives of the detainees at Guantánamo. He will be joined by Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice; Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch; and Wells Dixon with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Sponsored by The Brennan Center, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Snacks served.

MONDAY March 10

6:10 PM; JG 501

ACS 1L Planning Dinner Meeting

Interested in getting involved in ACS next year?
Need to eat dinner on Monday?
Kill two birds with one stone and come to the ACS 1L Planning Committee Meeting.

Dinner served.

WEDNESDAY March 12
12:20 PM; JG 106

Reclaiming our Progressive Constitution: Why Progressives Need to Embrace, Rather Than Run From, Constitutional Text and History

Doug Kendall is launching a new organization, the Constitutional Accountability Center--a think tank, law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution. He is currently the Executive Director of the Community Rights Counsel (CRC), a Washington DC-based, non-profit law firm that promotes constitutional principles to defend laws that make our communities environmentally sound and socially just.

Lunch served.

Felon DisenfranchisementPanel

Today ACS joined IMPACT, CJAN, the ACLU and CRLS in hosting a panel discussion on felon disenfranchisement. The panel featured Professor Richard Briffault of CLS, an election law expert, Jenign Garrett, staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Glenn Martin, Associate Vice President of Policy and Advocacy of the Fortune Society.

Professor Briffault began the panel by outlining the dimensions of felon disenfranchisement. Felon exclusion currently constitutes the largest voting exclusion in the United States. About four million people, or 2% of the adult population, are currently denied the right to vote because of a felony. Briffault identified three major categories of individuals impacted by felon disenfranchisement. About one third of the individuals impacted are those currently incarcerated. 46 states currently disenfranchise those who are incarcerated. A second major category is comprised of individuals currently in the criminal justice system but not incarcerated, such as individuals on parole or probation. This represents a third of disenfranchised felons, as 32 states deny the right to vote to people on parole and 29 to people on probation. The final group of disenfranchised individuals are those who are currently free but were previously convicted of a felony. About 14 states prevent ex-felons from voting without going through extensive procedures to regain the right to vote. Briffault noted that in states like Alabama and Florida that have lifetime disenfranchisement these categories can represent as much as one third of African American male residents.

Briffault traced the laws denying the right to vote to felons to post-Reconstruction statutes that were designed to make it harder for African Americans to vote. Strangely, many states that deny felons the right to vote still count them in the apportionment of state and congressional seats – this explains why upstate New York (home to numerous prisons) is so well represented.

Garrett then spoke about the Voting Rights Act’s impact of felon disenfranchisement. Because the VRA was designed to prevent racial discrimination in voting regardless of its form, Garrett argues that Section 2 should apply to felon disenfranchisement laws as fellow laws in effect discriminate against minorities. Garrett discussed a recent case in which the District Court for Eastern Washington found that discrimination in the criminal justice system impeded the ability of minorities to vote because of felon disenfranchisement. Though minorities make up only 12% of the Washington population, they comprise 36% of those who have lost the right to vote due to felon disenfranchisement. However, the District Court held that this evidence of discrimination did not mean that the VRA was violated; instead, the District Court ruled that discrimination occuring today not rooted in historical discrimination does not violate the VRA. This case with go to the 9^th Circuit next month. Garrett also discussed the current challenge to Alabama’s felon voting laws, which disenfranchise individuals who commit crimes of moral turpitude, yet fail to define what crimes fall in this ambiguous category.

Finally, Glenn Martin discussed the dimensions of felon disenfranchisement in New York. Currently, about 100,000 New Yorkers are prevented from voting due to felon disenfranchisement. While New York law does not prevent those on probation from voting, many on probation are denied the right to vote due to the mistaken beliefs of local boards of elections. A previous survey by the Fortune Society found that 50% of the boards of elections in New York supplied the wrong response when asked questions about the impact of probation on an individual’s ability to vote. Following extensive efforts by the Fortune Society, a more recent survey found now 35% of the boards of elections in New York are still making such errors. The Fortune Society is continuing to address this issue and may elect to engage in litigation. Martin has also worked on efforts to pass state laws reducing or eliminating felon disenfranchisement. However, despite support in the state house, such bills have failed to get through the Republican-controlled state senate. The Fortune Society is now working on having Gov. Spitzer issue an executive order stating that anyone not incarcerated can register and vote. Martin noted that this method succeeded in Iowa and successfully stood up to legal challenges. Finally, there may be some efforts in the near future by Sen. Specter to push similar federal legislation through Congress.