Join us on Zoom on October 6 at 5:30PM for a panel discussion.
The first Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 at Federal Hall, and George Washington appointed all the federal judges, including the Supreme Court. But the role of the Court was originally quite limited. That all changed following the case of Marbury vs Madison in 1803, which established that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution and override both Congressional legislation and executive orders. For almost 200 years, that decision has made the issue of who sits on the Court extremely consequential. Now, with a Supreme Court nominee named only weeks away from the presidential election, our panelists will look at the battle over the nomination of a new Supreme Court judge through the lens of history and consider cases on the Court’s current docket that a new ideological composition of the Court could effect.
Moderator: Jami Floyd
Well-known as the local host of “All Things Considered” and Legal Editor in the WNYC Newsroom, Jami Floyd is now leading WNYC’s new Race& Justice unit that covers news through the prism of race, class, and social justice. With a degree from Berkeley Law School, Ms. Floyd taught law at Stanford Law School before embarking on a journalism career that spans two decades and has included stints at ABC News, CBS News, and Court TV. She has appeared as a legal and political analyst on many news outlets including CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, and PBS.
Panelists:
Trevor Morrison is Dean of NYU School of Law and Co-Director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU Law. He is particularly well-known for his expertise in constitutional law as practiced in the executive branch and his research on the separation of powers, federalism and the federal courts. Dean Morrison spent 2009 in the White House, where he served as associate counsel to President Barack Obama. He was a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court from 2002-03, and he has also worked in the US Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and Office of the Solicitor General.
Ilya Shapiro is the Director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. He is publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review and has edited eleven volumes. His latest book, Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court, was published in September. Mr. Shapiro has filed more than 300 amicus curiae “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. Before entering private practice, he clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Janai S. Nelson is Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and works with the President and Director-Counsel to determine and execute LDF’s strategic vision and oversee the operation of its programs. She is also a member of LDF’s litigation and policy teams and was one of the lead counsel in a federal challenge to Texas’s voter ID law. Formerly a law professor, she has testified before Congress on voter suppression, algorithmic bias, and in support of the Voting Rights Advancement Act.
DEBATE DEFENDS DEMOCRACY is presented by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy at Federal Hall in partnership with New York University and the National Park Service. For more details on DEBATE DEFENDS DEMOCRACY, and to see video of past programs, visit federalhall.org.