The Honorable Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States will speak at the Coolidge Center at Plymouth, VT on July 30 at 6:45 pm. Justice Breyer will deliver his remarks at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation’s Annual Dinner. He will speak about his new book Making our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View.
This is Justice Breyer’s first public appearance in Vermont since named to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Before joining the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer was special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General, and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Justice Breyer became a law professor at Harvard Law School in 1967. He was Judge and later Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
In 2005 Justice Breyer wrote about his judicial philosophy in Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. The New York Times described the book as ‘Provocative and well argued. . . What we need more of, Active Liberty insists, is not activist judges but activist citizens.’
According to American legal scholar Cass Sunstein, Justice Breyer's pragmatic approach to the law "will tend to make the law more sensible". . . . he looks more closely to the "purpose and consequences."
In his new book, Justice Breyer explains for the layman what the Supreme Court does, and how the Court is the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution’s meaning. In particular, the book explores the public’s willingness to accept the Court’s decisions as legitimate and how the Court can maintain the public’s trust, its confidence in the Constitution, and its commitment to the rule of law.
President Calvin Coolidge was a strong believer in the rule of law and of the importance of the Constitution. In his Autobiography, Coolidge wrote ‘The more I study [the Constitution], the more I have come to admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. The good it has wrought can never be measured.’
The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation has stewardship for the Coolidge legacy. The Foundation was established in 1960 by John Coolidge, the son of the President. The Foundation’s offices are located in Plymouth, Vermont, an historic hamlet in which Calvin Coolidge was born, raised and is now buried.
Please visit the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation’s Website at: http://www.calvin-coolidge.org
Source: calvin coolidge memorial foundation, 7-13-2011
Justice Breyer to address annual dinner at Coolidge Center
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