Project Description
Roosevelt House hosts the inaugural event of fall speaker series, “Filling the Court: From Midnight Judges to Court Packing to Garland, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh,” a talk by Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, and one of America’s pre-eminent constitutional scholars. In his talk, Professor Amar will discuss the long and always fiercely political history of Supreme Court vacancies and replenishment, from the earliest days of the Republic to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1937 “court-packing” plan, to more recent nomination controversies, including those surrounding Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Merrick Garland, and Neil Gorsuch—and Brett Kavanaugh, nominated to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy and whose confirmation hearings will soon be underway. Professor Amar, author of such books as America’s Constitution: A Biography and The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era, has taught at Yale Law School for more than 30 years. Among his distinguished students are Senators Chris Coons and Cory Booker—as well as Brett Kavanaugh. Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer. Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, September 20, 2018.