WHAT: A luncheon forum to launch the Constitutional Accountability Center and discuss the progressive “text and history” method on the Constitution and the courts, and what it means for the 2008 elections.

WHO: 

• Doug Kendall, the founder and President of the Constitutional Accountability Center
• Ronald Klain, former Chief of Staff for Vice President Al Gore, judge picker for President Clinton, and Chief Judiciary Counsel for Senator Joe Biden
• Akhil Amar, a leading constitutional historian, professor at Yale Law School and author of America’s Constitution: A Biography (via video conference)
• Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and Supreme Court correspondent for Slate and a regular contributor to Newsweek and NPR.

WHEN: June 3, 2008, 12:00pm

WHERE: National Press Club, Murrow-White-Lisagor Room, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC

DESCRIPTION: The nation is six months from an election that will set the direction of the federal courts for a generation. Conservatives have had the upper hand in the debate over the Constitution and judges for years. The Constitutional Accountability Center is launching the “text and history” approach to the Constitution and the courts that promises to shift the debate. Leaders in advocacy, scholarship, journalism and politics will discuss this approach, the important ways in which the Constitution in fact favors progressives, and how progressives can win on the campaign trail, in Congress and in the courts by embracing the Constitution’s text and history.

SPONSOR: This event marks the launch of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a new think tank, law firm and action center out to improve the way progressives fight conservatives over the direction of the Supreme Court, think and talk about the Constitution, and strategize to win legal victories — all by focusing on Constitutional text and history. The Constitutional Accountability Center has assembled a top-flight legal team, raised significant start-up funding, and will launch with this panel, a new website, a Text and History blog and by filing its first a legal brief in a pivotal environmental case.

R.S.V.P. Rachel@communityrights.org, or 202-296-6889 x 1

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