Access Restricted to Northwestern Law Community1/12/01
| The Role of the Courts; The Role of the Media;
The Roll of the Dice The extraordinary 2000 presidential election poses urgent questions of the most fundamental sort for American democracy. Academic, legal, media, and other thoughtful commentators from across the country discussed some of the most pressing issues from election 2000 at a conference hosted by Northwestern University's School of Law, Medill School of Journalism, Institute for Policy Research, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the Joyce Foundation. Transcripts of the keynote address and all panel discussions can be found below. Washington Post national political correspondent David Broder
began the conference Thursday, January 11, with a keynote address titled
"Is America Ready for Representative Government?" which was
presented by Medill as part of the Crain G.D. Crain Jr. Lecture Series.
The conference continued with four panel discussions on Friday, January
12, at the Law School. Susan
Herbst, chair and professor of the Northwestern Department of Political
Science, arranged and moderated the first panel titled "Beyond Pregnant
Chads: Lessons from 2000 for the Conduct of Elections." The panel featured
Craig Donsanto, director of the Election Crimes Branch at the U.S. Department
of Justice; Ronnie Dugger, founding editor of The Texas Observer;
Craig Fox, associate professor of management at Duke University's Fuqua
School of Business; and Ken
Shotts, assistant professor of political science at Northwestern
University. Panelists discussed the use of out-of-date equipment and
the hard-to-understand butterfly ballots in several contested Florida
counties. Northwestern Law professor and former dean Robert
W. Bennett arranged and participated in the second panel titled
" Choosing the American President: Does the Electoral College Remain
Serviceable?" Political scientists including David Abbott, co-author
of Wrong Winner: The Coming Debacle in the Electoral College;
Judith Best, Distinguished Teaching Professor of political science at
the State University of New York; and Nelson Polsby, Heller Professor
of political science at the University of California at Berkeley, discussed
the continued viability of the Electoral College. Patricia
Conley, assistant professor of political science at Northwestern
University, moderated the panel.
The third panel discussion titled "The Media in the Eye of an
Electoral Storm" featured local and national news media including
(pictured above from left) Lucy Morgan, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter
and columnist of the St. Petersburg Times; Beth Fouhy, executive
producer of the Political Department of CNN; Laura Washington, editor
and publisher of The Chicago Reporter; and Marty Plissner, former
political director at CBS News. Ginny
Carroll, associate professor at Medill, arranged and moderated the
discussion about taking responsibility for announcing a winner too soon
on election night. Panelists also discussed the media's important role
in making sense of the chaos that ensued. |
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| The final panel, "The Courts and the Election of the President," arranged and moderated by James B. Speta, assistant professor of law at Northwestern, featured a discussion about the Supreme Court's role in the election process. |  |
| A crowd of more than 200 listened as panelists such as Steven
G. Calabresi, George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern;
(pictured above with Speta from left) Elizabeth Garrett, professor and
Deputy Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Chicago Law School;
Richard A. Posner, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Seventh
Circuit; and Thomas W.
Merrill, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern, discussed
the future implications of the Court's decision to become involved in
the disputed recount. Transcript of "The Courts and the Election of the the President" |
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