Candidate Statement: Matt Dunne

In addition to helping out in any capacity in which the board thinks I could be useful, I'd like to broaden the substantive focus of the ACS events to include the intersection of internet and technology issues with Constitutional liberties.

I'd love to see speakers or a panel to address issues like the First Amendment and the internet, Executive power and digital privacy, or even implications of new voting technology. In particular, I'd love to lure out some of the amazing talent from the left coast, like Professor Larry Lessig of Stanford or a representative of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (I think of them as the ACLU or LDF of the internet: the premier progressive impact litigation group in their field.) We also have some great folks here at CLS, like Professors Eben Moglen, Tim Wu, and Clarissa Long. Needless to say, I'd be happy to help put something like this together.

Candidate Statement: Whitney Russell

I am running for 3L rep because I love being on the ACS board. I will continue working to increase membership, hopefully breaking 100 by next year. I also look forward to working with speaker events, either by recruiting speakers or helping with logistics.

(Note: I am not running for VP; though I thoroughly enjoyed being VP, you know what they say: three times a bridesmaid, never a bride... happy, Andy?)

Candidate Statement: Jeff Penn

Members of the American Constitution Society,

My name is Jeffrey Penn and I would like to be considered for the position of 3L Representative to the board of ACS for the 2006-2007 school year. I have distinguished myself this year as the chairperson of the Black Law Students Association and as the Columbia Law School Coordinator for IMPACT, the law school’s voting rights advocacy organization. Because of these obligations, I was not as active with ACS as I intend to be next year. (For example, BLSA and ACS meetings ran concurrently with only one or two exceptions; thus my absence from most meetings.) I was able to attend this year’s ACS Convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts and found the experience to be inspiring.

Why should you choose me to represent a third of the law school when I was unable to attend all but one ACS meeting all year, and only a handful of the many lectures and panels held by ACS? I think the answer is that 3L year is the time when many students “check out” of on-campus activities, choosing instead to focus on their broader career goals or to get in some last minute recreation before the real work begins. ACS will need somebody who is connected to a broad cross-section of the 3L class in order to argue convincingly and personally that the organization’s programming is vital to understanding the changing legal landscape, that lectures and panels are frequently attended by practitioners that are valuable networking resources, regardless of whether your career trajectory includes academic, government, public interest, or private practice work, and that the time is past when lawyers can work without an ideological valence.

The Constitution is being interpreted in frighteningly undemocratic and retrogressive ways and it is important that law students be vigilant to these changes so that we will be prepared to reverse the process through our scholarship and our activism. I am committed to being the 3L interface from ACS to CLS and appreciate your consideration. Thank You.

"The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others." James Madison, Federalist 51

Candidate Statement: Jon Sherman

I am running for President, Vice President, and Events Chair, and I ask for your vote. Above all, I care about acting on the ideas developed below, and with a board of equals committed to collaboration and innovation, none of these projects lies beyond our reach. This year has been a phenomenal welcome to Columbia Law’s progressive community. With Mary Kelly at the helm, the chapter has taken great strides, with an exceptional moot court competition, numerous speaking events with some inspiring figures, and a steep rise in our membership. For the coming year, I think we should take a step back and begin with a question that dogs each of us privately and the lawyers and policymakers we admire publicly: what do progressives stand for today? ACS is a non-partisan organization, to be sure, but at day’s end, there is content to our creed. I watched hundreds of FedSoc members from all over the country cheer, applaud, boo, criticize, and fight all weekend at the symposium on international law to define themselves. What is our definition? What values will we fight for at law school and as legal and policy professionals? What issues and policies strike closest to our convictions?

These questions suggest the contours of the conversation we need to continue having and developing in this law school. My own personal definition of a progressive (and it’s rough) is someone who wakes up in the morning, reads the news, and concludes this is not the best of all possible worlds, that there is still much farther to travel in fulfilling constitutional promises of equality of opportunity and personal liberty. To that end, the programming of ACS needs to seek even higher ground next year. For starters, I propose that we match FedSoc with our own symposium. There has been talk of a co-sponsored symposium with CSIL, and Suehiko’s human rights symposium is still hanging in the balance. I think we owe it to this community and ACS chapters nationwide that do not have the numbers or the hunger we do to present a coherent vision of progressivism as illuminated by a focused topic with the potential to galvanize the greater ACS community and to come out in force as students and professionals. One initial proposal is to engage the law and policy governing state accountability, freedom of information, and government secrecy. This would exercise the breadth of constitutional law (and democratic theory) and the depth of complicated legislative analysis. It would also hopefully serve as a communal rededication to ACS-specific values. In addition, I propose we fulfill the unfulfilled promise of the first ACS Law Student Organizing Conference at HLS by co-organizing our own with NYU Law. I have been in touch with an ACS board member there, and we spoke tentatively about trying to bring more students together for a more substantive conversation in the future.

You also might have noticed that the lack of communication and collaboration between the law school and SIPA. This is symptomatic of a larger divide that persists in academia, in New York City, in D.C.: policy professionals and institutions do not know lawyers and the law and vice versa. As President or otherwise, I would hope to put desk lawyers, litigators, and law students in dialogue with policy professionals and students. In the NSA panel I planned this semester, I felt the conversation benefited tremendously from Professor Edgar’s knowledge of the intelligence community. Why can we not bring such interdisciplinary discipline to abortion, voting dilution, political asylum, counterterrorism, etc.? Along similar lines, I think we might better invest our members in the life of ACS, give them stakes in our community, by allowing them speaking time at our general meetings. I have in mind a “Faces of ACS” presentation with two people or so presenting on personal experience with complicated issues that implicate constitutional law, issues, and policies we wrestle with as an organization. Also, if we utilize committees, there may be some potential to better engage our new recruits and some of our old non-participating recruits.

A few more points, a story, and then I’ll quit. I’ve worked for a number of organizations over the last two years: the Dean campaign, Human Rights Watch, the Center for American Progress, the Control Arms Campaign, and will this summer, most likely be working at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan unless another Danish cartoonist decides to doodle with his racist hand. I’m in this thing for the long haul. Two items in full disclosure: (1) I am pretty competitive, like Churchill, “I fight for my corner, and I stay till the pub closes.” If elected, ACS will not be pushed around by FedSoc on my watch and will in all likelihood rapidly come to be recognized as a coequal (or a superior forum). I suspect that my friendship with at least three members of the FedSoc board, including their new President Amanda Steele, will prove an asset in collaborating on events. (2) Healthy, productive differences of opinion aside, I have limited tolerance for petty infighting and will work to minimize and eliminate it. I still feel the same as I did two and a half years ago on the campaign: too many people depend on our ideas and our actions to burn energy and time. We have none to spare. Enough gravity though. On style, we need even more informality and even more humor in our campus presence (the blog helps this along tremendously). I feel a number of organizations alienate 1Ls with typical law school rigidity and hyper-formality in those first months. We should be a formal forum when we need to be, but our default should be an informal home for new (and old) law students where all members and event attendees feel comfortable to express their beliefs, challenge us, and yes, joke around (law school is dark enough as it is). To that end, more member parties, potlucks, gatherings, something regularized so that we see each other more often outside JG106.

Sorry for the brevity. I am a more economical speaker. One story from my spring break, then I’ll quit. I worked in Atlanta on voting rights for New Orleans residents displaced by the hurricane. In one distant office complex in Decatur, at the Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA) office, a friend and I met a Sudanese refugee while sitting in the waiting room. At the time, there were no Katrina evacuees in house, though RRISA has assisted hundreds with housing and employment. As this man told us about fleeing Sudan to Ethiopia, I re-realized what I already knew, that American citizens share an office and a process with this man. That our government’s inaction has rendered New Orleans evacuees no better off than Sudanese refugees. That is not to suggest any inequality in tragedy or need, but at certain moments, it hits you with more force than usual, this deep, deep third world in our first world country that survives on our society’s will or lack thereof. We, as students today and as lawyers and policymakers tomorrow, will have a chance to right this.

Candidate Statement: Andy Bradley

This year, I've had an awful lot of fun serving as a 1L Rep on the ACS board and managing our blog and website. It's been a busy year for ACS, and my focus throughout the year has been to build an online presence befitting one of CLS's healthiest and most active groups.

Over the course of the year, we've revamped our blog and our website, but far more importantly we've starting writing in a regular way about the issues that affect ACS and each one of us. Through our blog posts and weekly Blog This! emails throughout the year, we've had to look at pressing and current issues for which there are no easy ACS Answers.

As this year draws to a close and next year starts, I hope to be part of a standing media committee for ACS, whereby those interested in blogging and hacking can play a more active role in our organization. During these next 12 months, my primary ACS aspiration is to continue challenging individual ACS members to write about and explore vexing, relevant issues and to continue supporting the online life of this exciting group.

Candidate Statement: Amos Blackman

We’ve all had to ask the Question. I had to ask the Question just seven months ago, at the Public Interest Mixer. Do you remember when you asked the Question? How often do you get asked the Question? Don’t tell me you don’t know the Question.

What is the American Constitution Society?

The Question is the reason I’m running for the ACS Board. I want more people asking the Question. I want more people answering the Question. And I want more answers to the Question.

The more people that ask the Question, the more we will grow. This year, the pool of potential members has been largely self-selecting, and I would like to see ACS diversify. We should start early, attracting new members with a couple high profile events in the fall, at least one social and one intellectual, establishing ACS’s position as the premiere, full-service student group. We should partner with a wider range of student organizations, particularly public interest and identity groups that have a particular interest in constitutional law, such as CLWA, BLSA, Impact, and Law Students for Choice, among others. Let’s bolster the internal and external mentorship programs to entice potential members through the benefits that membership can provide. 1Ls are always the richest source of new membership, so we should hold more events like this year’s exam prep session, such as a “Con Law at Columbia” panel, open con law sections in the spring, and advice panels on topics like summer positions, journals, and course selection. We can leverage the midterm elections, the docket of the Supreme Court, and the Moot Court. I want every student at Columbia to ask the Question – the sooner, the better.

But it’s not enough to get more people to ask the Question; we need more people answering it, too. We need a more active membership. This year, our membership numbers exploded, but the outside the Moot Court, there was a very small core of active members. First and foremost, we have to establish committees. Commitment and consistent involvement will deepen the ties members have to ACS. We can start with standing committees on events, 1L outreach, media (bloggers!), and public interest, and encourage members to form sub- and ad hoc committees around individual events, the election, advocacy and activism, partnerships with other groups, and anything else that seems like a good idea. Every new member would be encouraged to join a committee, and chair positions are an ideal way to involve a wider variety of student leaders. But we should also strengthen membership ties through more informal means. From the most basic – an unmoderated email group for just current members – to the slightly more elaborate – maintaining a calendar of upcoming events of particular interest – I think these simple efforts could greatly increase the sense of community around the entire ACS membership. And I’d like to see more unfunded events, like happy hours, potlucks, games, and the like – just for fun. How many of you are willing to answer the Question today? We can do better.

Is there an Answer to the Question? I am running for President (and Vice President and Events Chair – I think I could help implement these ideas in any of these positions) and was Communications Director for the Moot Court. but I think don’t think there is an Answer. There are many answers. ACS is committed to a progressive understanding of the Constitution. ACS consistently brings renowned and respected thinkers to campus. ACS started the largest moot court in constitutional law in the nation. ACS attracts some of the most intellectually powerful students and faculty on campus. ACS connects forward-thinking law students, legal professionals, and policy-makers. ACS guided me through a treacherous first year of law school. ACS is resource I trust. But I am always looking for more answers. To remain strong, ACS must be at least as dynamic as the document that brings us together. Every member should bring new answers to the Question. By reaching out further for membership and enabling more of those members to be involved, we can ensure that diversity.

The current Board took on the Question with incredible tenacity. Membership skyrocketed as new members were attracted by free drinks, good food, and better events. Members were convinced to leave Jerome Greene Hall, heading down Amsterdam Ave for free drinks and up I-95 for the Student Leadership Conference. But even more impressively, members were drawn to Columbia, as undergrads crossed the street for events co-sponsored with College Scholars and law students crossed the country for the Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law.

This year’s Board set the bar phenomenally high. Can we meet it? Good Question.

Candidate Statement: Zahra Egal

As an incoming 1L I was looking for an organization that would allow me to continue pursuing my longstanding interest in progressive politics and civil rights. More importantly, I was looking for an opportunity to learn more about social justice in the law. ACS fit the picture.

This year, I was impressed with the regular lectures, debates, blog activity and social events sponsored by ACS. The energy, enthusiasm and hospitality of the organization’s members helped make the law school a comfortable and inviting place for me.

I am running for the board because I have developed a strong commitment ACS over the school year. I attended nearly every event sponsored by the organization and served as logistics coordinator on the Moot Court Committee.

In my role on the Moot Court Committee, I developed an understanding of operations management, programming, finances and law school administration. I also arranged social events for the competition weekend, had regular contact with ACS National and developed close working relationships with other members of the committee through our weekly meetings. I believe all of these experiences would make me a good candidate for the ACS Board.

Moreover, I think that I can offer new ideas and approaches that would make me an asset to the organization. Although I was impressed with this year’s programming and events, I think there are clear areas where ACS can improve.

I believe that ACS should devote one meeting each month to a teach-in and discussion on a topic in constitutional law. As a 1L member, I would have appreciated more educational programming and believe that teaching meetings could make the organization’s members, as well as the law school community, more informed about developments in constitutional law. Such programming may also bolster our membership numbers.

I also believe that the mentorship program could be improved. Although I understand that there was a concerted effort this year, I think we could benefit from tapping into existing mentorship and alumni networks, such as the public interest community, to improve the process. Inviting practicing attorneys and judges to campus events and an increased focus on publicity could also achieve this result.

The position that I am most interested in is Vice President. Based on the project description, I have had experience with virtually all of the Vice President through my role on the Moot Court Committee. Similarly, my work as logistics coordinator and close work with the finance chair would make me a good candidate for finance and external relations chair if I am unable to serve as Vice President.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that what I don’t know I am willing and excited to learn. I look forward to the opportunity to serve ACS members.

Candidate Statement: Katie Brandes

This year’s inaugural ACS Moot Court Competition introduced me to ACS and the role it plays in creating discussion about important law and policy discussions at our school. I never had given much thought about felony disenfranchisement as a constitutional issue before joining ACS and taking part in the ACS Moot Court. Throughout the year I attended many ACS events because the topics immediately caught my eye amidst the many event emails. Many times an event caught my eye and then I would look at the sponsor list and ACS would be there. My experience participating in and volunteering at the competition as well as my experiences at ACS-sponsored events made me decide to run for an ACS Board position.

I would like to be the Finance Chair because of the role it serves on the Board. Finance Chair is the details person who ensures that money gets where it needs to go and the other board members have the funds they need to put on great ACS events. In college I ran the sailing team as a senior and was in charge of team finances and connections to the national organization as a junior. Because of this experience I understand the attention to detail and patience needed for a job that entails working closely with the administration and a national organization.

This Week at the ACS--Future of SCOTUS Edition!

Hi Columbia ACS,

Lots of great stuff coming up this week! Keep reading for more info, and send your comments and suggestions to acs@law.columbia.edu. See you soon--Mary Kelly

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE SUPREME COURT? TUESDAY AT 6, JG 106

With two new Justices on the Court and many pivotal issues on deck, we welcome Ted Shaw, Director-Counsel of the NAACP LDF; Tom Goldstein, founding partner of Goldstein & Howe and originator of scotusblog.com; and Mark Moller, senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the CATO Institute. Shaw just participated in the TX redistricting case and Goldstein will join us directly from the Hamdan arguments taking place on Tuesday--a case that will be tremendously influential to the future course of executive power in the war on terror. Audience Q & A will follow the panel. DON'T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY!!! Cosponsored with the Columbia Federalist Society.

HURRICANE KATRINA FUNDRAISER QUIZZO

This FRIDAY MARCH 31st 5:30-7:15PM Doors at 5pm. Before You Head to
Law Revue, Join Us For a Great Cause.
$8 Per Person If You Pre-Register Your Team (Maximum 6 People) By
E-mailing the Team Name and Member Names to andrew.amend@gmail.com.
The deadline for Pre-Registration is Friday 3/31 at 2pm.
$10 Per Person At the Door.
5 Rounds of 10 questions Each Plus 1 Music Round. Prizes for the
winning team. Pizza and Beer Will Be Served.
Many Thanks To Our Sponsors: ACS, ACLU, Rightslink, and the Columbia
Law Students' Katrina Coalition.
Come Show the Law School That They May Take Your Life, Your Sleep,
But They May Never Take Your Knowledge of The Breakfast Club.
Contact Jon Sherman js2842@columbia.edu with any questions.

BLSA PAUL ROBESON CONFERENCE FRIDAY

BLSA celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Critical Race Theory "big red book" at this year's Paul Robeson Conference, Friday March 31. Watch your inbox for more details.

CANDIDATE STATEMENTS DUE MARCH 28 BY MIDNIGHT

If you are running for the Board, be sure to submit your candidate statement by Tuesday, March 28 at midnight. Send to mp2331 and to ajb2135. Statements will be posted to the blog and published on this listserv. DON'T MISS ELECTIONS, APRIL 4 AT LUNCH.

HEY YOU! COME TO CONVENTION WITH US!!!

ACS National Convention will take place Thursday, June 15-Sunday, June 18, with the student leadership retreat on Thursday during the day and the moot court final round on Thursday night. Convention is a great experience--ask around! National will probably pay for your travel if you agree to volunteer during the weekend, and many Columbia ACSers will be in DC for the summer and have offered their floors (there's also a cheap hostel nearby). Plan NOW to go--don't miss the great panels, talks, parties, and networking opportunities! Contact Mary Kelly at mp2331 for more information.

...AND WHILE YOU'RE THERE, LEAD A DISCUSSION GROUP! (apply by March 31)

Here's a great invitation for you from National:

Dear ACS student,

As you know, the ACS National Student Leadership Retreat and National Convention are right around the corner. The retreat is on Thursday, June 15, 2006 followed by the Convention on Friday, June 16 - Sunday, June 18. Registration and the volunteer scholarship process will open in April. (For those not volunteering, student registration will be $100.) Retreat planning, however, has already begun. In addition to a plenary panel, keynote speaker and the final round of the ACS Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law, we will again feature Constitution in the 21st Century Student-lead Breakout Sessions. We invite you to apply to be a session leader.

Session leaders, grouped in 2-3 person teams, will prepare short memos in advance of the national conference (no more than 2-3 pages) to help frame the discussion. These memos will briefly survey the current state of the law in a given subject area and set up the key questions progressives need to resolve in order to lay out a cohesive progressive vision of that subject area for the 21st century. The memos should also identify some important literature that students might want to familiarize themselves with in advance of the national conference. These memos will be circulated in advance to students attending the national conference and their drafters will lead discussions groups of 20-30 students based on the memos at the retreat.

The retreat will feature five breakout discussions, plus one clerkship discussion run by non-students. Based on last year’s feedback, there will be two sets of three sessions so that each student can attend more than one session. This year’s suggested discussion topics are:

Access to Justice for Immigrants
Executive Power
ID & Voting Registration Requirements
Lessons from Katrina
Reproductive Rights
Right to Education
Workers' Rights

These topics are purposefully general to allow for greater flexibility. Session leader teams will narrow the discussion to a more focused topic. Although we will only have five sessions, we have listed seven topics from which to choose. We will select the five that receive the most interest. Feel free to suggest a topic that you do not see listed. If enough students also suggest this topic, it may be selected instead of one of the above topics.

If you are interested in volunteering, please e-mail campus@acslaw.org by Friday March 31, 2006. Please include your name, class year, chapter, and ranked topics of interest. Also attach your resume. Team selections will be made shortly thereafter. Given last year’s overwhelming interest, we will attempt to achieve both geographic and chapter diversity in our selection process.

NOTE: Although some discussion amongst team members will need to begin soon, all deadlines (outlines, drafts, final draft, calls etc.) will be made to accommodate study and exam schedules. Further, where needed, ACS will provide substantive guidance.

Leading a breakout session is not only a great way to engage in the substantive work of ACS, but it is also an opportunity to build your own substantive knowledge about a particular area of law and to share it with your fellow students. It may also help you develop a topic for an article or third-year paper. Again, the deadline for applying is Friday, March 31. We hope to hear from you!

See you in June!

Joi Chaney & Amelia Showalter
Office of Student Chapters

Bill Yeomans & Meera Trehan
Office of Programs

Candidate Statement: Tim Abbott

ACS at Columbia is already a well funded, hyper organized student group at Columbia, so I feel great about where our organization stands today. But, we face tremendous competition in the marketplace of ideas at the Law School, and so our challenge will be to continue to stand out in the din of liberal voices. We're competing for the time and attention of our fellow students against countless other progressive-leaning groups. As a result, we are not necessarily the standard-bearers for progressive thinking -- in contrast to our FedSoc friends.

For this reason, I envision a real focus on membership building among the future 1L class and community building among our existing members. Especially as ACS defines what ideas truly make it unique, it is vital that an esprit de corps resonates through our members. I would love to see an ACS intramural flag football team, an ACS trip to play laser tag, etc. Thanks to ACS national, we will always have the speakers, but I am convinced that relationships (as well as free food) will be what drives our membership.

As I understand the role, Vice President most clearly addresses about these membership- and community-building challenges, and I'd be glad to take up that challenge. However, essentially all of the board positions touch upon this topic, so I would be comfortable in any of them.

Illinois Senate Bill 2724: An Irrelevant Electoral College? (Part II)

(For Part I of this story and Andy's personal beef with the electoral college system, click here.)

Instead of personally characterizing Illinois Senate Bill 2724, I'll leave that task to Hendrik Hertzberg, who wrote about the bill for the New Yorker:

Here's how the plan would work. One by one, legislature by legislature, state law by state law, individual states would pledge themselves to an interstate compact under which they would agree to award their electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. The compact would take effect only when enough states had joined it to elect a President — that is, enough to cast a majority of the five hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes. (Theoretically, as few as eleven states could do the trick.) And then, presto! All of a sudden, the people of all fifty states plus the District of Columbia are empowered to elect their President the same way they elect their governors, mayors, senators, and congressmen. We still have the Electoral College, with its colorful eighteenth-century rituals, but it can no longer do any damage. It becomes a tourist attraction, like the British monarchy.

The effort is called National Popular Election, and it has the support of The Center for Voting & Democracy, the leader in US election reform.

As the Per Curiam opinion in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), notes, "the State legislature's power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution." If this 6-year old statement even remotely reflects the current sentiment on SCOTUS, the National Popular Election effort would easily withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Here's hoping that enough states exercise this plenary power in such manner as to give voice to the will of the national electorate. The Illinois bill is currently in committee. Keep your fingers crossed. Your vote for the President may count soon enough.

Illinois Senate Bill 2724: An Irrelevant Electoral College? (Part I)

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.
Article II § 1.2

Growing up the son of two Democrats in the blood red state of Nebraska, I quickly developed a disdain for our electoral college system. Since Nebraska's electoral college votes have gone to the Republican candidate in every presidential election since Nixon in 1968, my parents' Democratic votes have never actually contributed to a winning candidate's total (never, except for my father's inexplicable 1972 Nixon vote, a ballot that will forever live in family infamy).



High school civics course arguments in support of the oft-criticized electoral college system generally cite the need to prevent the more populous states from luring Presidential campaign attention entirely away from less peopled states. (A final Nebraska anecdote: No system can prevent a state from falling off the map of a sitting President. Having previously visited the other 49 states, Nebraska was the last state visited by Bill Clinton during his presidency. Even then, he had to be lured into the state through the erection of one of the nation's sillier museums.)

But does this argument hold water? Hendrik Hertzberg points out in the New Yorker that the Presidential game (if ever fought in the small states) has moved to the battleground "purple" states:

In 2004, there were thirteen such states, accounting for twenty-eight per cent of the population (and thirty-two per cent of the ultimate vote, since turnout increases with the uncertainty of the outcome). In the final month, the candidates spent $237 million on advertising, $229 million of it in those thirteen states. (In twenty-three states, they didn’t spend a dime.) At the same time, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Senator Kerry, and Senator Edwards attended a total of two hundred and ninety-one campaign events. Two hundred and sixty-eight of them were in the lucky thirteen.

Even if arguments in favor of maintaining the electoral college status quo are less than compelling, the strongest argument that the electoral college system is here to stay has always been the difficulty in changing our system of electors. Amending the US Constitution to enable the direct election of the President would require a 2/3^rd vote of both houses of Congress and then ratification by "three fourths of the several States."

As power shifts from party to party, neither side could be relied on to provide support consistent enough to clear this high hurdle for reform. As the New Yorker article notes, Bush may have been a big fan of the electoral college in 2000, when he became the first person since Benjamin Harrison to win the Presidency and lose the popular vote; however, he probably held the electoral college in considerably less esteem in 2004, when despite his clear margin in the popular vote, he nearly lost to John Kerry but for 60,000 votes in Ohio.

Of course, all of the above is old news to you.

The new news is that a bill was introduced in the Illinois Senate on January 20^th that could all but render the electoral college moot. The bill's chances of passage look strong, it appears constitutional, and it eliminates the electoral college's anti-democratic nature without requiring an amendment.

If Illinois Senate Bill 2724 is passed, and if companion bills pass in 10 other states (CA, TX, NY, FL, PA, OH, MI, GA, NJ, NC), then – without possibility of exception – the winner of the popular vote will be the winner of the presidential election.

(Read Part II of this story to learn about Illinois Senate Bill 2724)

Congratulations to CLS ACS Moot Court Participants!

On March 4^th and 5^th, Columbia Law School hosted the American Constitution Society’s inaugural Constance Baker Motley Moot Court in Constitutional Law. Four teams from CLS were among the over 30 competing this year, and CLSers swooped up a number of honors at the competition.

Best Brief, Respondent:
Cuauhtémoc Ortega & Leanne Wilson

Quarterfinalists:
Craig Boneau & Nina Yadava
Jim Doggett & Adam Pulver

Semifinalists:
Cuauhtémoc Ortega & Leanne Wilson



Some perspectives on the competition:

This past weekend's moot court competition was my most rewarding experience in law school thus far. I was privileged and honored to compete in front of some of the most qualified experts on this important Constitutional issue. While as a 1L, a little more knowledge of Constitutional law may have been helpful while competing in front of these ACS gurus, the competition was a great (and much needed!) reminder of my ultimate goals of eventually litigating for social change and the challenges, hard-work, and adrenaline that goes along with it.

Nina Yadava
Class of 2008
Competitor



Before arriving at Columbia as a transfer student last fall, I met several members of its ACS chapter during the summer's ACS national convention. They were a great group of people with whom I very much wanted to work, so I was more than happy to take on the job of ACS moot court coach. Initially, I was very surprised by the level of interest in the program and the number of students it attracted. What impressed me even more, though, was the enthusiasm and skill of the thirty-six competitors, most of whom were 1Ls. Despite being in law school for only a few weeks before signing up for the program, they all wrote excellent briefs and delivered powerful oral arguments. We were able to send five of the teams to the national competition and, ultimately, three of the eight national quarterfinalists were from Columbia (including two 1L teams), and one of our teams made it to the competition's final four. I couldn't be prouder of the great job done by all of the competitors and the student editors and judges, and thank them all for their hard work.

Adam Nagorski
Class of 2007
CLS ACS Moot Court Coach



It was cool. I’m glad I could help.

John Johnson
Class of 2008
Volunteer

Interview: Riddhi Dasgupta & Changing Face of the Law

Today, we’re profiling Riddhi Dasgupta, a 3^rd year undergraduate at Columbia studying Operations Research, History, and Economics. Rid has recently written and published Changing Face of the Law: A Global Perspective, a book highlighting legal changes in this globalized millenium. Dasgupta’s book is available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com.


What made you decide to write Changing Face of the Law?

Since a young age, I've been fascinated by the rule of law in every sphere, be that the legality of player-trading in this country or the courts/arbiters discussing issues like eminent domain. I divined it to be common sense that if the Law is around to solve the problems of our world here, now and for the future, it must be attuned to those realities. Can't really afford to live in a vacuum.


What's this book about?

I hope that the reader of Changing Face of the Law: A Global Perspective comes away feeling impassioned for what good legal globalization can bring. And how we should guard against the negatives.

I advocate 3 central ideas: (1) In the spirit of cautious globalization, the Law can no longer remain within the four corners of one country. It must expand its horizons to traditions and strategies beyond its own political borders. (2) Learn from other disciplines since it cannot survive in any vacuum. (3) Develop the Law by channeling a provocative discourse among society's various socioeconomic strata or groups. The book engages in something of an exhaustive ('enjoyable' too?) discussion of the US, India, and British commonwealth legal systems.

I definitely enjoyed experimenting with many different aspects of Law, for instance — drawing step-by-step analogies from technology & the rational unified process (RUP) or sports. Since this book is, one can hope, intended to develop the Common Person's appreciation of the rule of law, I wanted to include things from the real world.


You're under 21, yet you've written a 700⁺ page book. How did this book end up becoming a tome? (You're under 21, right?)

A few months short of 21, actually.

There are a lot of complexities in the world and the Law has got to be conscious of that. Can't evade the broad picture or the details. You try to stop one war and ten start; try to reallocate legal shareholder power and corruption sinks into the process. Capturing some of these variables, the book became a "tome." It occurred to me that if Holmes could revel in Law-Economics analogies (e.g., marketplace of ideas in Abrams v. United States (1919)), it behooved us in this generation to give it a concrete shape with respect to legal globalization. That face to globalization is a partner to its economic complement. We keep on talking about globalization as if the reforms will be self-effectuating. That, of course, is an illusion.

Globalization can elevate the quality of life of persons in the most remote places (as well as in the most accessible urban areas) only if the Law's informed dialogues and enforcements are vigilant. Why should people care that human dignity has a face in a "globalized" world? Should the Law's substance yield to rituals that leave victimized individuals or groups, whether in tort or human rights, "stateless"? The Law, whether in the east or the west, must be a genuine partner in convincing even the most disinterested people. Eloquent discourses will get the ball rolling. But it will take substantive changes. It may take time, but what choice do we have? Important to start discussing these ideas, I figured.


You're more interested by, concerned with, and focused on the law than most law school students whom I know — why are you so interested in the law? When and how did you develop this intense legal focus?

Can't really specify any particular day that I had a revelation! …but I've never looked at the Law just as a narrow opportunity. It's always been a way of life, a way of thinking.

Having lived in India for 12 years and then here for the last 9, I've developed something of a comparative perspective. I've seen what the Law, if it's substantive and tries to remove corruption, can stake out to accomplish. If there's education and infrastructure to reach those who need it most, perhaps relative poverty will still remain — but the quality of life can be uplifted. Before law school, I'd probably enjoy studying at LSE or some other institution abroad for a Masters, but we don't have to decide that right now. The Law as a profession seems to be the most effective way to channel that energy. I try to get as much exposure to different things, from interning in Congress – both Republicans and Democrats – to working in finance or IT. In college, apart from History, I chose to study Econ & Operations Research (something along the lines of Financial Engineering), so that there would be some technical exposure. Friends with different interests helped broaden this outlook.

Calvin Johnson - Monday, March 20, 11:55am, JG 103

Calvin Johnson

author of

Righteous Anger at the Wicked States:
The Meaning of the Founders’ Constitution

Monday, March 20
11:55 – 1:15
Jerome Greene 103

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