Whose Constitution Is It, Anyway?
The Supreme Court is actively rewriting our Constitution in ways that are curtailing our rights and expanding executive power. The Justices claim they are following the historical meaning of the Constitution’s text. But the document that is emerging would be unrecognizable to the Founders. This talk will focus on the ways the constitutional terrain is shifting – with special attention to the Court’s practice of originalism – and lay out some ways that lawyers can, and have, fought back effectively.
Samuel Breidbart is counsel with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Initiatives project. He works on constitutional law initiatives for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, with a focus on constitutional interpretation, structural democracy matters, and issues at the intersection of law and history. He regularly works on friend-of-the-court briefs involving the separation of powers, constitutional structure, and individual rights and advises historians, attorneys, and others on the use of history in lawsuits. He holds a BA from Yale College, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a JD from Yale Law School. Earlier in his career, he worked in New York City government. He has also worked as a litigation associate with a boutique law firm and as a federal appellate law clerk.
In person at 38 Old Country Road, Garden City or on Zoom.
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Meeting ID: 871 9982 1900
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