President Biden has signed an executive order to investigate the possible reform of the Supreme Court. Just to clarify this isn’t court packing in the slightest. For more information check today’s podcast episode of Blind Boys Politics. In the commission that was formed it has 36 members and we are going to give a brief background of all members including the two chair members Bob Bauer and Cristina Rodriguez
Cristina M. Rodríguez is a Co- Chair on the commission. Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School. The areas of research and teaching she covers are Constitutional law and theory, immigration law and policy, and administrative law. Rodríguez joined Yale Law School in 2013 after serving for two years as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. Rodriguez is also a past recipient of the Yale Law Women Award for Excellence in Teaching. After graduating law school Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bob Bauer is the other co-chair of the commission. He is Professor in Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the New York University School of Law and Co-Director of NYU Law’s Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. He served as White House Counsel to president Obama from 2009 to 2011. In 2013, the president named him to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He has also co-authored many articles and bipartisan reports regarding policy and legal reform over the last 7 years.
Michelle Adams is a Professor of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It is there that she teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and Federal Civil Rights. She is also a Director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy and was a Board Member for the Innocence Project. She has also been a Law Professor at the Seton Hall Law School and practiced law at the Legal Aid Society. Adams holds a B.A. from Brown University, a J.D. from City University of New York Law School, and an L.M. from Harvard University, where she was the first Charles Hamilton Houston Scholar. She was also a Law Clerk for Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV.
Kate Andrias is the Rapporteur of the commission. She is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Labor and Employment Law, and Administrative Law. Within these topics, she has a focus on problems of economic and political inequality. In 2016, Andrias received Michigan Law School’s L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has served previously as special assistant and associate counsel to President Obama, as well as the chief of staff of the White House Counsel’s Office. She has also clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and for the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Andrias has even had work published in several books and journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the Yale Law Journal.
Next up is Jack M. Balkin. He is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. He is the founder and director of Yale’s Information Society Project, as well as the director of the Knight Law and Media Program at Yale. He is also the director of the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression. He is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
William Baude is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School. It is here that he teaches Federal Courts, Constitutional Law, Conflicts of Law, and Elements of Law. He is also an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. He has also been a clerk for then-judge Michael McConnell and Chief Justice John Roberts. He is a graduate of both the University of Chicago, as well as of the Yale Law School.
Elise Boddie is a Professor of Law and Judge Robert L. Carter Scholar at Rutgers University, where she writes about Constitutional Law and Civil Rights. She has served on the national board of the American Constitution Society, as well as the board of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. She is also the founder and director of the Inclusion Project at Rutgers. She has previously been the Director of Litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. Just this year she was named the founding Newark Director of Rutgers University’s Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. She formerly clerked for Judge Robert L. Carter in the Southern District of New York. She is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Yale, and has a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Then we have Guy-Uriel E. Charles, who is the Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law at Duke Law School. He teaches a wide range of courses including civil procedure; election law; constitutional law; race and law; legislation and statutory interpretation; law, economics, and politics; and law, identity, and politics. He will become the inaugural Charles J. Ogletree Professor of Law at Harvard Law School on July 1 of this year. He clerked on the Sixth Circuit for the late Judge Damon J. Keith. He is also an author, having pieces featured in multiple law journals and being a co-author in several law-related books.
Andrew Manuel Crespo is a Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he teaches and writes about Criminal Law and Procedure. He has clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. He also previously served as a Staff Attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and was the first Latino to hold the position of president of the Harvard Law Review.
Next up is Walter Dellinger, who is the Douglas Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University and a Partner in the firm of O’Melveny & Myers. He served as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 1996. He also served as the acting Solicitor General for the 1996–1997 term of the Supreme Court. He has argued 25 times in front of the Supreme Court and testified over 30 times in front of committees of Congress. The National Law Journal has named him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the U.S. He served as clerk to Justice Hugo Black. He has published work in many major news publications and has lectured at universities all over the world. He graduated from the University of North Carolina and Yale Law School.
Justin Driver is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is a teacher and writer of things such as Constitutional Law, Education Law, and Prison Law. He has clerked for then Judge Merrick Garland, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Justice Stephen Breyer. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an editor of the Supreme Court Review. He also has a book, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, which has received numerous awards and honors, including the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law. He has received degrees from Brown, Oxford, Duke, and Harvard.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr., is the Story Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, as well as an Affiliate Professor in the Harvard University Government Department. In the past He has clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright and Justice Lewis F. Powell. He has also written several pieces surrounding Constitutional Law and Federal Courts Law. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute. He holds degrees from Yale University and Yale Law School. He also received a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. He has received many awards over the years, but perhaps most notable is the lifetime achievement award he received from the Federal Courts Section of the American Association of Law Schools.
Moving right along we have Caroline Fredrickson, who is a Distinguished Visiting Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law and a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. She has clerked for the Hon. James L. Oakes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but her career reaches out far past just that. She has served as Chief of Staff to Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Special Assistant to president Clinton for Legislative Affairs. Beyond that, she was the Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office before taking the position as President of the American Constitution Society in 2009, holding that position for 10 years. She has also been a key member in several other boards. She has a J.D. Degree from Columbia Law School with honors and B.A. from Yale University in Russian and Eastern European Studies.
Heather Gerken is the Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a founder of the Nationalist School of Federalism. She is considered to be one of the country’s leading experts on Constitutional Law and Election Law, with a focus on federalism, diversity, and dissent. While at Yale, she founded and still runs the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, which is considered to be the most innovative clinic of local government law in the country. She has been featured in several different regions of media, including the Yale Law Journal, the Boston Globe, and more. She has also won many awards for her teaching and is considered to be one of the best teachers of law across the nation.
Nancy Gertner is currently part of the faculty at Harvard Law School and a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School. In the past, she clerked for Justice Luther Swygert, Chief Judge Seventh Circuit. She was also a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer up until 1994, when she became a United States District Court Judge in Massachusetts, holding that position until 2011 when she decided to retire. She graduated Barnard College and then went on to get her M.A. in Political Science and her J.D. from Yale. She has also written her autobiography and is in the process of writing a memoir surrounding the men that she has sentenced. She has also received many awards over the years, some of these including the ABA’s Margaret Brent Award, the National Association of Women Lawyers’ Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, and the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association.
Jack Goldsmith is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches national security law, presidential power, cybersecurity, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and federal courts. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a co-founder of Lawfare. In the past he has served as Special Counsel to the Department of Defense, Assistant Attorney General, and in the Office of Legal Counsel.
Thomas B. Griffith is Special Counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth, a Senior Advisor to the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. He has served as Senate Legal Counsel and the nonpartisan chief legal officer of the U.S. Senate, as well as General Counsel of Brigham Young University. After that, he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, holding the position for 15 years. His tenure ended in 2020. During his time as judge, he served on the Judicial Conference’s Committee on the Judicial Branch, as well as on the Code of Conduct Committee. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute in Prague. He has graduated from both Brigham Young University and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Now we have Tara Leigh Grove, who is the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr., Endowed Chairholder of Law and Director of the Program in Constitutional Studies at the University of Alabama School of Law. She has also served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. She previously clerked for Judge Emilio Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She has also spent four years as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. It was here that she argued 15 cases in the Courts of Appeals. Grove has had several pieces featured in different law journals such as the Harvard Law Review and the Columbia Law Review surrounding judicial legitimacy and judicial independence. She graduated summa cum laude from Duke University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Bert I. Huang is Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia University. It is here where he created the Courts & Legal Process colloquium, where judges, students, and faculty come together to discuss new academic research about the judiciary. He even once served as vice dean at the university. He has also taught at Harvard, and served as the president of the Harvard Law Review. He has also been a part of the White House Counsel of Economic Advisors. He previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He received his J.D., A.B., and PHD from Harvard, and was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford.
Sherrilyn Ifill is the president and council director of NAACP. The NAACP is one of the oldest law organizations fighting for racial justice. At the start of career in 1993 she joined Maryland school of law teaching everything from constitutional law to civil procedure. Since rejoining the NAACP she has spent the majority of her time fighting for her clients in the Supreme Court, fighting for supression and racial discrimination.
Michael S. Kang is the William G. and Virginia K. Karnes Research Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Kang is nationally recognized as an expert in campaign finance, along with corporate governance. His research has been published in law journals and featured in New York Times and Forbes among others. Nowadays his research is focused on influences of a political party and so called “sore losers”. Kang received his BA and JD from university of Chicago. He also has a PhD in government from Harvard.
Olatunde Johnson is the Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where she teaches and writes about legislation. In the early months of 2020 she was appointed by the Department of Justice to the resolution committees. Johnson is an attorney for the NAACP. Professor Johnson graduated from Yale university. After graduation she was a district clerk for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. appeal courts for the D.C. circuit.
Alison L. LaCroix is a Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is also an Associate Member of the University of Chicago Department of History. Before joining the Chicago faculty in 2006, she practiced in the litigation department at Debevoise and Plimpton New York. Professor LaCroix received her BA and JD at Yale University and her PhD and A.M. at Harvard University.
Margaret H. Lemos is a professor of Law, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research. She is a scholar of constitutional law, legal institutions and procedure. The current research Lemos focuses on is interpretation and enforcement including both private and public lawyers. In 2013, she was awarded Duke’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Prior to joining the Duke Law faculty Lemos was an associate professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She worked as a clerk for Justice John Pail Stevens in the First district Court.
David F. Levi is the Levi Family Professor of Law and Judicial Studies and Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Prior to this he served as the Dean at Duke University for 11 years from 2008–2017. From 1986 to 1990 he was Califromia’s eatern judge. After graduating Stanford University he was a clerk in the Ninth district of the Court of Appeals for Justice Ben C. Duniway. Also from 2014 to 2016 he was chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the American Judicial System.
Trevor W. Morrison currently serves as the dean of NYU school of law. Prior to this he held faculty appointments at Cornell Law School and Columbia Law School as a professor. Much of his research focused on constitutional law and more specifically on the separation of powers. After graduating from Columbia Law School, he served as a law clerk to Judge Betty Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Morrison also served as associate counsel to President Barack Obama.
Caleb Nelson is the Emerson G. Spies Distinguished Professor of Law and the Caddell and Chapman Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Nelson earned his A.B from Harvard University and his J.D. from Yale law school. 1998. At the Virginia facility he taught Federal Courts, Civil Procedure, Legislation, and Constitutional Law. Nelson is a member of the American Law Institute and a past winner of the University of Virginia’s All-University Teaching Award. Nelson has visited Harvard University as well.
Professor Richard H. Pildes is Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and one of the country’s leading experts on the legal aspects of American democracy and government. Before working in the Supreme Court Pildes served as a law clerk at the Court to Justice Thurgood Marshall and to Judge Abner J. Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Pildes has testified several times in front of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In his early years of his career he worked at the University of Michigan Law School.
Michael D. Ramsey is Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. Ramsey has written several successful books while teaching. Before teaching and writing constitutional books Ramsey served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court. Ramsey has also practiced law for the firm Latham & Watkins.
Kermit Roosevelt is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches constitutional law and conflict of laws. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. Before joining the Penn faculty, he practiced appellate litigation with Mayer Brown in Chicago. Roosevelt also clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.
Bertrall Ross is the Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, election law, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. Ross’s research is driven by a concern about democratic responsiveness and accountability. Ross has been the recipient of the Berkeley Law Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin among many other rewards. Ross earned his law degree from Yale Law School and Masters degrees from the London School of Economic. After graduation Ross clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
David Strauss is the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic at the University of Chicago. Strauss has written many well known books and articles about constitutional law. Strauss has served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Strauss has also argued nineteen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University. Tribe has taught at Harvard since 1968 and was voted the best professor by the class of 2000. That award is not a very popular award; only 75 other professors in the college’s history have earned that award. Tribe was appointed in 2010 by President Obama and Attorney General Holder to serve as the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice.
Adam White is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Previously he practiced constitutional and administrative law in Washington, D.C. White also clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In 2005.
Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University and is currently the chair of the Academic Freedom Alliance. Whittington works on American constitutional history, politics and law, and on American political thought. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Texas School of Law. Whittington is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his PhD in political science at Yale University.
Michael Waldman is the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to strengthen the systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. Waldman has led the Center since 2005. Waldman served as director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995–1999, and special assistant to the president for policy coordination from 1993–1995. Waldman was responsible for writing or editing nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the Union and two inaugural addresses.
