A new shot will be fired in the development of constitutional law this term when the U.S. Supreme Court decides the meaning of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller. Although the Court has only touched upon the Second Amendment in a few dozen cases, only once has the Court even begun to address its  meaning. But the question presented in Heller requires a clear statement about its meaning. The Court will have to choose between three competing interpretations of the Second Amendment, a task made more difficult by a profoundly disappointing brief filed by the Justice Department in the case. What it does, and does not, decide will likely forever shape the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence and gun rights in America....

The ERA is back—or, at least, so we are told. On March 27, 2007, a group of Congressional Democrats—including Senators Edward Kennedy and Barbara Boxer and Representatives Carolyn Maloney and James Leach—announced with great fanfare a renewed eff ort to pass the formerly-defunct proposal. “Elections have consequences, and isn’t it true those consequences are good right now?” Senator Boxer asked a cheering audience of ERA supporters at the Capitol Hill press conference....

This is the first issue following our twenty-fifth anniversary. Audio and video from the 25th National Lawyers Convention is online. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the transcripts of nearly all of the panel debates will be published in various law reviews this coming year, including The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law and Policy, The William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, The New York Journal of Law and Liberty, Ave Maria Law Review, Hofstra Law Review, Regent University Law Review, The Southern New England Roundtable Symposium Law Journal, The SMU Technology Law Review, The University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review, and The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Publication details appear on the individual webpage for each panel in our new Multimedia Archive. Consequently, we will not be publishing the transcripts as an issue of Engage this year; our next issue will be in June.

The proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (known as the "Akaka Bill") would set in motion a process under which ethnic Hawaiians living throughout the country could form themselves into an Indian tribe.  In doing so, they would become by far the largest such tribe in our nation's history-with as many as 400,000 members.  Supporters argue that the Akaka Bill is a matter of simple justice-that it partially restores ethnic Hawaiians to the sovereignty they held prior to the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893.  Opponents assert that the bill is less about Queen Liliuokalani and more about safeguarding various special benefits-from special schools to special business loans-currently enjoyed by ethnic Hawaiians, some of which are now under challenge in the courts on equal protection grounds.  If passed, would the Akaka Bill be constitutional?  Is it good policy?  What sort of precedent would it set for other groups that may wish to form Indian tribes in the future?  These and many other questions will be discussed by our panel of experts.