Coverage and Photos of ACS National Convention #ACS10

June 17th, 2011

I am liveblogging and livetweeting (#ACS10) the ACS National Convention in Washington. So far it has been a great conference, about 1,000 people in attendance. Here are some of the highlights.

  • Liveblog of Attorney General Holder’s Address: The address, which was rather short (about 15 minutes), focused almost exclusively on the trial of terrorists in civilian courts. No mention of DOMA. Holder, taking a rather broad view of executive power, opposed any efforts of Article I to tell Article II where to try terrorists. Prosecutors, and not legislators should make these determinations. The reception, in a fairly friendly crowd, was lukewarm.
  • Liveblog of Plenary Panel on Text, History, and Principle: This morning panel was the most interesting one so far. Joan Biskupic did a great job moderating a panel of Akhil Reed Amar, Pamela Karlan, Geoffrey Stone, Judge Wilkinson, and  Judge Wood. The panel was primarily an assault on originalism as a flawed method of constitutional interpretation that serves as a veneer for ideological views. Amar, in stressing the importance of the text of the Constitution, waved around a Cato pocket Constitution (pic below the jump).
  • Liveblog of Panel on the Independent Judiciary in Peril: The always-entertaining Judge Stephen Reinhardt led an interesting discussion about the threat to judicial independence from elections. Joining him on the panel were a number of former State Supreme Court Justices. Most salient was Chief Justice Ternus, who recently lost retention as a member of the Iowa Supreme Court.
  • Liveblog of Harold Koh Address– This lunchtime address was the highlight of the event so far. He delivered a wonderful talk about serving as an attorney, and following your principles. It was quite uplifting. One of my favorite lines was something to the effect of, life may be easier if you don’t have a paper trail, but life is too short to wait to say the truth. Goodwin Liu was in attendance, and a number of Koh’s points were directed at him.

I posted some pics of Attorney General Holder, Goodwin Liu chatting with Harold Koh, Akhil Amar holding onto a Cato Constitution, and more, below the jump. This is Page 6 for legal types, I suppose (Jack Balkin calls me the Perez Hilton of the legal blogosphere; it fits).

 

Attorney General Holder Address

 

Akhil Amar Stressing the Importance of Reading the Constitution. In this case, a Cato Constitution.

Harold Koh and Goodwin Liu

Linda Greenhouse Introducing Harold Koh

Harold Koh

Cross-Posted at ConcurringOpinions.com