Tag: 2017 ACS National Convention

Our national debate over immigration policy is certainly not new, but with executive orders suspending refugee admissions and immigration from certain Muslim- majority nations, and sweeping DHS memoranda designed to make all undocumented immigrants fair game for deportation, the Trump Administration has generated a heated debate about the very nature of America. As its agenda continues to take shape, what responses are available legislatively, administratively, or in the courts? Topics include the executive orders, due process rights, detention, deportation, prosecutorial discretion, childhood arrivals and the legality of registration systems.

The past ten years have seen a deluge of state laws restricting the right to vote through voter ID requirements, limits to voter registration drives, cuts to early voting, and other restrictive measures. In 2013, many states were newly emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision devastating key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and the assault on voting rights intensified. Now that the administration has established an “election integrity” commission to investigate the president’s unsupported claim of millions of “illegally cast ballots,” advocates fear a new battle in the fight for voting rights may be approaching. How can we most effectively defend against restrictive measures in the states and at the federal level? What affirmative reforms are possible in this political environment? And can a new approach to voting rights foster a bipartisan agreement that our democracy is strongest when everyone participates?

Amid growing protest by Americans of all political persuasions in response to increasing economic inequality and a disappearing middle class, the current administration resembles a gathering of corporate tycoons, serving to highlight the intimate connection between economic power and political power. Despite a federal antitrust regime designed to prevent centralized corporate power, increasingly we see the consolidation of industry (retail, airlines, hospitals, etc.) due to what many experts believe is decades of under-enforced antitrust law. What does the concentration of corporate power and wealth portend for the health of our democratic society and individual liberties? Can antitrust laws be used to diffuse the concentration of wealth, improve the strength of the middle and working classes, and restore the democratic promise of America, particularly under a Trump Administration?

Reproductive rights have seen significant new and renewed protections during the past several years, as the Affordable Care Act guaranteed full coverage of all FDA-approved contraceptives for women and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt reaffirmed and strengthened the constitutional right to abortion. On the other hand, there have been some setbacks, as the contraceptive mandate has been limited by successful religious objections in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell and Congress threatens to repeal the Affordable Care Act and strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. This panel will discuss the current state of protections for reproductive rights and will consider existing and future threats to those rights. Will politicians continue to attack the right to abortion despite the Supreme Court’s recent rebuke? Will religious accommodations and exemptions swallow rules guaranteeing the provision of contraception, abortion, and other reproductive services? With the executive branch, both houses of Congress, and a majority of the states under Republican control, might anti-choice legislators make changes in the law for which they lack popular support? If so, how should pro-choice advocates most effectively respond both inside and outside of the courts? 

Across the country, federal, state and local governments have used “redlining” and other discriminatory policies with the explicit intent to segregate cities and towns. As a result, black communities have been hobbled by a lack of economic investment, depressed property values, underfunded schools, and violence. Perhaps more than any other single cause, state-sanctioned segregation has contributed to the crisis in policing, gun violence, the school-to-prison pipeline and a host of other devastating effects that an ascendant group of activists has mobilized to rectify. How does housing segregation’s role as a root cause of current racial disparities impact efforts to design effective solutions to these problems? 

An experienced bureaucracy is necessary to conduct the business of government and may be an effective bulwark against executive abuses of power. But at what point are the reasons to serve in an administration with whom one ideologically disagrees or that has an agenda contrary to the central mission of the very agency in which one serves sufficiently outweighed by the risks of serving? For many, the choice to stay may be motivated by the value of maintaining institutional memory, the likelihood of sycophantic replacements, and a hope that one can continue to advance the good work already begun. But when an administration has been demonstrably hostile to the rule of law, what legal or personal ethics guide lawyers in their decision to stay or go? And when should they blow the whistle on agency activities? The 2016 election is not the first time government lawyers have asked themselves some of these questions, but it has thrown them into high relief.