Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: The bar examiners assigned me to section "F" in the testing hall today. Also: Special happy hour evening with the Philadelphia Lawyers' chapter of the American Constitution Society.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Even the ACS figures I'm going to fail the bar exam

From the mailbox:

To: Glomarization
From: events@acslaw.org
Subject: ACS PHILADELPHIA ANNOUNCEMENT: Happy Hour, presented by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Constitution Society

The Philadelphia Chapter of the American Constitution Society and the
Center City Chapter of Drinking Liberally present a:

Happy Hour

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
6:00 p.m.
Triumph Brewing Company
117 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA

(Emphasis mine.) Tuesday 28 July is day 1 of the Pennsylvania bar exam.

Actually, to tell the truth, I'm making it a game-day decision whether I go to Driberally that night.

ACS event tonight: Bloggers as America's Watchdogs

At Penn's law school tonight, 5:30 - 7:00, a panel featuring political bloggers wondering what they'll do now that President Obama's in the White House and they don't have ol' George to kick around any more. Scheduled to appear:

John Aravosis
Editor, AMERICAblog

Christy Hardin Smith
Blogger, Firedoglake

Baratunde Thurston
Co-Founder, Jack & Jill Politics and
Blogger, The Huffington Post

Daniel Urevick-Ackelsberg
Founder, Young Philly Politics

Moderator: Adam Bonin, chairman of the Board of Directors, Netroots Nation

RSVP

Further ACS observation: Eric Holder as AG

President-elect Obama's choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, is a board member of the American Constitution Society. I was trying to figure out why he looked so familiar, and then I followed some bouncing links and remembered -- I'd seen him speak at the ACS national convention last summer in D.C.

Somebody's serious about putting DoJ back where it constitutionally belongs.

Planting living constitutionalism seeds in the federal judiciary

President-elect Obama has named Lisa Brown has his Staff Secretary. A lawyer who served as counsel to Vice President Gore in the late 1990s, Ms. Brown was most recently the Executive Director of the American Constitution Society.

ACS is a non-partisan educational organization that promotes a progressive view of the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental values it expresses. Although it shouldn't be described in simple terms of "not the Federalist Society," in truth it was formed to produce scholarship opposed to that produced by professors and judges writing from a constitutional originalist perspective. ACS seeks to challenge their conclusions at conferences and in the academy as flawed constitutional arguments. ACS's ultimate goal, as I see it, is two-fold: first, to maintain living constitutionalism scholarship in law school classrooms; and second, to train law students to get to be like-minded judges, and have them appointed as federal judges.

It's not a conspiracy; it's a long-term plan from people who sincerely believe that conservative and libertarian interpretation of the Constitution is deeply flawed from its initial precepts and has no place in our Republic. It's a plan to plant living constitutionalism seeds in the federal judiciary.

In the short term, it means we won't have to hear anyone suggest Robert Bork for the Supreme Court again.

On a related note, dig the Constitutional Accountability Center and its Text & History Blog.

What if you had a conference about the 14th Amendment but no black people showed up?

What if the American Constitution Society held a conference on the 14th Amendment and Reconstruction, and not 10 people of color attended?

Sakes.

I attended 2 panels Thursday afternoon, "Originalism and the Second Founding" and "Equal Citizenship and Alienage." I counted 5 people of color in an audience of about 40. Of those 5, 2 were ACS employees in town from D.C. At least 2 others appeared to be students at Penn Law, where the conference was held. Of Thursday's 9 panelists, 3 were women (1 of whom blamed the Slaughter-House Cases decision on Susan B. Anthony and the suffragettes).

I didn't attend yesterday evening's event, because I had another commitment. Didn't attend any of the panels today because I had other work to catch up on.

Sakes.

Apropos of what else was going through my mind during the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dialectic yesterday, you know who President-elect Obama should nominate to the Supreme Court? (I mean, not to hold anyone's funeral or anything.) Prof. Derrick Bell. The confirmation hearings would be a gas.

ACS conference Thursday and Friday

The American Constitution Society is presenting a conference this week at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The conference is free to attend, though you have to register, and includes an event at the National Constitution Center. Events will be taking place this Thursday and Friday, 13 and 14 November 2008.

The Second Founding And The Reconstruction Amendments: Toward A More Perfect Union

n current legal debates, many invoke "the founding" of the Constitution yet focus only on the eighteenth-century framing, and ignore the significant changes to our country and our Constitution wrought by the Civil War. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments profoundly altered, among other things, the rights of individuals, the power of the federal government and the meaning of citizenship. The Second Founding conference will bring together legal scholars, historians, practitioners and others to examine the history and substance of the Reconstruction Amendments, how those Amendments fundamentally changed the meaning of our governing document, and how their promise - largely forgotten even as originalism flourishes - can be fulfilled.

More information, including panel descriptions and directions to the venues. Also:

The Legacy of 1808: Deconstructing Reconstruction

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, popularly known as the "Reconstruction Amendments," profoundly altered–among other things–the rights of individuals, the power of the federal government and the meaning of citizenship. To address the history and substance of the Reconstruction Amendments, and what those changes mean in our democracy today, the National Constitution Center welcomes their 2008 Visiting Scholars Ted Shaw and Martha Jones, as well as special guest Steven Calabresi for a discussion titled "Deconstructing Reconstruction."

More information, including registration instructions (no admission charge to the discussion) and a completely gratuitous 3-D map of Independence Mall.