Friday, 9th April Twenty One
President Biden to Sign Executive Order Creating the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
President Biden will today issue an executive order forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and the Court reform debate.
In addition to legal and other scholars, the Commissioners includes former federal judges and practitioners who have appeared before the Court, as well as advocates for the reform of democratic institutions and of the administration of justice.
The expertise represented on the Commission includes constitutional law, history and political science.
The Commission’s purpose is to provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals.
The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.
To ensure that the Commission’s report is comprehensive and informed by a diverse spectrum of views, it will hold public meetings to hear the views of other experts, and groups and interested individuals with varied perspectives on the issues it will be examining.
The Executive Order directs that the Commission complete its report within 180 days of its first public meeting.
This action is part of the Administration’s commitment to closely study measures to improve the federal judiciary, including those that would expand access the court system.
The two co-chairs of this Commission are Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law and a former White House Counsel, as well as Yale Law School Professor Cristina Rodriguez, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
COMMISSIONERS
Michelle Adams
Michelle Adams is a Professor of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and Federal Civil Rights.
At Cardozo, she is a Director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy and was a Board Member of the Innocence Project.
Kate Andrias (Rapporteur)
Kate Andrias is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.
She teaches and writes about constitutional law, labor and employment law, and administrative law, with a focus on problems of economic and political inequality.
Jack M. Balkin
Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School.
Bob Bauer (Co-Chair)
Bob Bauer is Professor of 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.
William Baude
William Baude is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, conflicts of law, and elements of the law.
Elise Boddie
Elise Boddie is a Professor of Law and Judge Robert L. Carter Scholar at Rutgers University.
Guy—Uriel E. Charles
Guy-Uriel E. Charles is the Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law at Duke Law School.
Andrew Manuel Crespo
Andrew Manuel Crespo is a Professor of Law at Harvard University where he teaches and writes about criminal law and procedure.
Walter Dellinger
Walter Dellinger is the Douglas Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University and a Partner in the firm of O’Melveny & Myers.
Justin Driver
Justin Driver is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
He teaches and writes in the area of constitutional law, education law, and prison law.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr., joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in 1982 and is currently Story Professor of Law.
Caroline Fredrickson
Caroline Fredrickson served as the President of the American Constitution Society from 2009—2019.
Heather Gerken
Heather Gerken is the Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School and one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional law and election law.
Nancy Gertner
Nancy Gertner was United States District Court Judge (D. Mass.) from 1994—2011.
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founder of Lawfare.
Thomas B. Griffith
Thomas B. Griffith served on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2005—2020.
Tara Leigh Grove
Tara Leigh Grove 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.Bert I. Huang
Bert I. Huang is Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia University, where he received the Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching from the law school’s graduating class.
Sherrilyn Ifill
Sherrilyn Ifill is the President & Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation’s oldest and premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality.
Ifill began her career as a Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, and then as an Assistant Counsel at LDF where she litigated voting rights cases in the South.
In 1993 Ifill joined the faculty at University of Maryland School of Law, where she taught civil procedure, constitutional law, and a broad range of civil rights and clinical offerings.
Her scholarship focused on the critical importance of a racially diverse judiciary to the integrity of judicial decision-making.
Ifill also studies and writes about racial violence.
Her critically acclaimed book, On The Courthouse Lawn: Confronting The Legacy Of Lynching In The 21st Century, is credited with inspiring contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation.
Since returning to LDF as its 7th President & Director-Counsel in 2013, Ifill has led the organization’s bold advocacy in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, on behalf of clients fighting voter suppression, racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, and a broad array of other urgent civil rights issues.
Ifill is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
She holds an undergraduate degree from Vassar College, a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and numerous honorary doctorates.
Michael S. Kang
Michael S. Kang is the William G. and Virginia K. Karnes Research Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and nationally recognized expert on campaign finance, voting rights, redistricting, judicial elections, and corporate governance.
Olatunde Johnson
Olatunde Johnson is the Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School where she teaches and writes about legislation, administrative law, antidiscrimination law, litigation, and inequality in the United States.
Alison L. LaCroix
Alison L. LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Margaret H. Lemos
Maggie Lemos is the Robert G. Seaks LL.B. ’34 Professor of Law, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, and faculty co-advisor for the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School.
David F. Levi
David F. Levi is the Levi Family Professor of Law and Judicial Studies and Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School.
Trevor W. Morrison
Trevor Morrison serves as Dean of NYU School of Law, where he is also the Eric M. and Laurie B. Roth Professor of Law.
Caleb Nelson
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.
Richard H. Pildes
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.
Michael D. Ramsey
Michael D. Ramsey is Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, foreign relations law, and international law.
Cristina M. Rodríguez (Co-Chair)
Cristina M. Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
Kermit Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches constitutional law and conflict of laws.
Bertrall Ross
Bertrall Ross is the Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
David A. Strauss
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.
Laurence H. Tribe
Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University.
Adam White
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, where he directs the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.
Keith E. Whittington
Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University and is currently the chair of Academic Freedom Alliance.
Michael Waldman
Michael Waldman is the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
