The Wisconsin Law Reviewhttp://wisconsinlawreview.org/ Symposium will be held October 24, 25, 2019 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. The symposium is entitled “Rationing the Constitution: How Judicial Capacity Shapes Supreme Decision-Making“.
The Symposium will explore the structural organization of the judiciary, the constraints of the Supreme Court, and the implications on U.S. Constitutional Law. Compared with the vast machinery surrounding Congress and the president, the Supreme Court is a tiny institution that can resolve only a small fraction of the constitutional issues that arise in any given year. Due to the structural organization of the judiciary and certain widely shared professional norms, the capacity of the Supreme Court to review lower-court decisions is severely limited. In deciding cases, the Court must therefore not invite more litigation than it can handle. On many of the most important constitutional questions—touching on federalism, the separation of powers, and individual rights—this constraint creates a strong pressure to adopt hard-edged categorical rules, or defer to the political process, or both. The implications for U.S. constitutional law are profound. Lawyers, academics, and social activists pursuing social reform through the courts must consider whether their goals can be accomplished within the constraints of judicial capacity.
A tentative schedule and additional information are available on the website.
