Boston Globe Features ACS's The Constitution in the 21st Century Project
Sunday's Boston Globe Ideas page contains a substantial feature on ACS's The Constitution in the 21st Century project.
Nevertheless, at a conference at Yale last month, many of the nation's top left-leaning law professors met with more than 600 activists, lawyers, and law students to imagine the day when Democrats and liberals emerge from the wilderness. The Yale confab, organized under the (optimistic) title ''The Constitution in 2020,'' was sponsored by key elements in the not-so-vast left-wing conspiracy: the Yale Law School, the Center for American Progress, the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute, and the American Constitution Society (ACS), a fast-growing organization set up four years ago to counter the work of the influential Federalist Society, which has been at the forefront of the push for a more conservative judiciary since its launch in 1982.
The Yale event kicked off a multi-year ACS project on ''The Constitution in the 21st Century,'' which is intended to advance ''a progressive constitutional vision - though organizers admit they are a long way from full agreement on what that vision is. The brainstorming will continue in Washington in July at the ACS national convention, with three days of panels on such topics as ''The Future of Election Law,'' ''Interrogation, Torture, and the War on Terror,'' ''Moral Values and the Constitution,'' and whether there should be new limits on ''the commander-in-chief power.'' Former North Carolina senator and possible 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards is scheduled as a featured speaker.
Information on the 2005 ACS National Convention, including a schedule of events and online registration, and more about The Constitution in the 21st Century project, is available on the ACS website.