Event Review: American Democracy and the 2024 Election | News | The law school

On September 27, 2024, Notre Dame Law School Dean G. Marcus Cole moderated a dynamic panel discussion entitled “American Democracy and the 2024 Election” about the upcoming U.S. elections, featuring prominent voices from journalism and politics. The audience heard insights into key issues, candidates and possible outcomes that could shape the future of the United States.

Dean Cole moderated an engaging dialogue and asked important questions to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of the election. Over the course of the discussion, panelists touched on a variety of topics ranging from regulating campaign spending to reducing the risk of voter fraud to the influence of abortion laws, immigration and foreign policy on voter behavior.

Panelists included Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Gerard Baker, who shared his decades of experience in political journalism to analyze the electoral landscape.

He also discussed recent Electoral College phenomena, noting that twice this century candidates have won the popular vote but failed to secure the necessary 270 electoral votes for the presidency.

Carlos Lozada, Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion writer for The New York Times, offered a critical examination of the candidates’ platforms, the current political climate and reforms to state voting procedures.

“What you see in Georgia is not just laws passed by the Legislature. “You see that more recently the state Board of Elections has put in place rules for how elections are conducted,” he said of Georgia’s new requirement that county-level officials conduct a manual count of all votes.

Dianne Pinderhughes, Notre Dame’s Presidential Faculty Fellow, and Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, CSC professor of Africana studies and political science, added their expertise in racial, ethnic and gender politics and emphasized the importance of these factors to the Shaping public policy and politics Voting rights.

During the discussion, she focused on recent efforts to restrict local governments’ ability to conduct elections. “There have been a number of things aimed at limiting the ability of elected officials to act impartially,” she said, pointing to reforms to the powers of state election boards and secretaries of state.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Francis Rooney offered a unique perspective on the international implications of the election and the intersection of faith and politics.

As a member of George W. Bush’s campaign finance team in 2004, Ambassador Rooney noted that their total budget was $164 million. “It’s in the paper this week that Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan will spend nearly $300 million on their Senate campaigns,” he said, citing the sharp increase in campaign spending over the past two decades. “Something is terribly wrong, and it is empowering lobbyists and special interests who wield inordinate amounts of influence over many of our lawmakers.”

The event was held in the Law School’s McCartan Courtroom and was co-sponsored by the Rooney Center, Notre Dame Law School and the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative.

Check out a recap of the event below.