Occasionally congress kicks out a beautiful law. Whether they will ever again do so is a matter of debate.
What is a beautiful law? It is simple. It changes the course of history. It's not a Christmas tree.
The the Civil Rights Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Another is the Endangered Species Act created by president Richard Nixon in 1973. It was upheld by the Supreme Court in TVA v Hill. The majority opinion was written by conservative chief justice Warren Burger.
"As we homogenize the habitats in which these plants and animals evolved, and as we increase the pressure for products that they are in a position to supply (usually unwillingly) we threaten their - and our own - genetic heritage.
The value of this genetic heritage is, quite literally, incalculable...
From the most narrow possible point of view, it is in the best interests of mankind to minimize the losses of genetic variations. The reason is simple: they are potential resources. They are keys to puzzles which we cannot solve, and may provide answers to questions which we have not yet learned to ask."
Justice Berger closes poetically: "The lines ascribed to Sir Thomas More by [playwright] Robert Bolt are not without relevance here:
'The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.... I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain-sailing, I can't navigate, I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh there I'm a forester.... What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - Man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down ... d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow them? ... Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.'"
That case was over a fish, the snail darter. Tonight Zygmunt Plater, who has focused his career on the Endangered Species Act and environmental law, speaks. In "The Curious Case of the Endangered Snail Darter", he relates the experience of successfully arguing the case before the Court.
Politics in a post-Luntz-Rove world are different. The Court is also qualitatively different. Thinkers like Lessig are hopeful.
But we are looking at significant extinctions in future years by climate change. Plater offers an optimistic story of the case in the 1970's. We hope he will contextualize that story to today, and to tomorrow, befitting beautiful law.
Endangered species at Reed College Vollum Lecture Hall, www.reed.edu 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd Map 7PM Free
