Alumni Weekend 2007: 21st Century Democracy: Elections, Media, Politics
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Twenty-first Century Democracy was the topic of discussion at the Law School October 12–14 as hundreds of graduates from across the globe gathered for Alumni Weekend. Panel discussions focused on the role of media and technology in democracy and law, separation of powers, the Voting Rights Act, and money and politics. In addition to lively debates, graduates enjoyed time reconnecting with old friends and making new ones during several receptions, dinners, and the Alumni Luncheon at which New York Times Supreme Court Correspondent Linda Greenhouse ’78 MSL received the Yale Law School Association Award of Merit.
The following excerpted quotes give a flavor of the breadth and depth of the conversation. (To view videos of the panel discussions and photos of the weekend, visit www.law.yale.edu/alumniweekend.)
Emily C. Bazelon ’00
Senior Editor, Slate
Steve [Brill ’75] was talking about charging customers on the Internet. I see the economic rationale for that, I just don’t think that it flies culturally. I think we’ve all gotten so used to the Internet being this free place. As someone who only writes online, I love that about it. It has this kind of free-wheeling beauty to me. There’s so much response and so much give and take—I wouldn’t change that. But then if you decide we’re too far along the free Internet highway, then you really do need to come up with some kind of other ownership entity because, you know, right now we are relying on a few families, essentially—the Graham family, the Sulzbergers, we were relying on the Bancrofts, we no longer can—and that is not enough. That doesn’t seem like any long-term prescription for a healthy democracy.
from “The Next Generation of Law and Media” panel
Bruce Ackerman ’67
Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
We should have a new framework statute in which, after one of these events, not before, the President should go to Congress and ask for sixty days of emergency power… and after seven days, he gets it if there is a simple majority in Congress to support it. Then he has to come back after sixty days and ask for an extension for sixty days and he needs sixty percent of the vote, and then seventy percent, and then eighty percent, and then eighty percent for every sixty days after that....What we need… is a structure to prevent the normalization of emergency.
from “The New Separation of Powers: Parties, Politics, and the Presidency” panel
Charlie Savage ’03 MSL 
National Legal Affairs Correspondent, The Boston Globe
I’m going to be talking about what has been the single most competently and successfully implemented agenda and policy of the Bush administration. They’re beat up all the time for being incompetent when it comes to things like Katrina or how the Iraq occupation was run. There’s one thing in particular they’ve done magnificently well, ingeniously. And separate from whatever their policy merits, you have to admire just how well they’ve done it. And that is that they’ve set out from the very beginning, from the day after the inauguration, long before 9/11, to use their time in office to expand presidential power...
from “The New Separation of Powers: Parties, Politics, and the Presidency” panel
Jeff Greenfield ’67
Senior Political Correspondent, CBS News
If you are passionate about politics, there is more information, analysis, opinion out there than ever. The question is: ‘What does it mean that we have these tools?’… What does it mean, for instance, that candidates not only can talk about themselves but that, for instance, when Rudy Guiliani went to the NRA and took the cell phone call from his wife the Romney campaign within an hour or so had on YouTube [video of Romney] doing the same thing two months earlier? So clearly there’s stuff out there that’s going to hold candidates’ feet to the fire... What it means, I don’t know. Because I don’t know… how much of this is being consumed by people who will actually vote.
from “The Media Covering Elections: Heroes or Villains?” panel
Myron H. Thompson ’72, Judge
U.S. District Court, Middle District of Alabama
One of my first cases, and I have to admit, my most beloved voting rights cases, was Harris v. Graddick…The case had been brought to get blacks to come to vote and the lawyers had come up with this great idea of having the percentage of polling officials be the same as the percentage of blacks in the area. And that was probably the easiest opinion of all of the voting rights cases I have ever written because I wrote it from the heart. I remember I said that to me the purpose of Section 2 was to make sure that the electoral process was welcoming to all people. And I remember writing those words, and I was writing it because I had never felt welcome there.
from “Race, Politics, and the Voting Rights Act” panel
Beth Simone Noveck ’97
Professor of Law, New York Law School;
Director, Institute for Information Law and Policy; Director, Do Tank
Now is really the time to use the Net not simply to raise money for campaigns, but to raise ideas and awareness. To allow citizens to participate in the making of policy…Our institutions of democracy are fundamentally about power. They’re fundamentally about centralizing power and they have a very hard time adjusting to devolving power and changing the way they work because of a long-standing culture of professionalism... And I think what the new tools do for us is to help us open up our understanding of expertise, to open up our understanding of professionalism in order that we can move beyond representative and electoral conceptions of democracy towards a future of more collaborative, more participatory, and more open governance.
from “The New Tools: The Internet Influencing Democracy” panel
Norman J. Ornstein, Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
I have seen many instances of staffers who are approached by former colleagues saying ‘I’ve got this client I want you or your boss to sit down with.’ The normal reaction would be ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere near [that person]’ but now it’s, ‘you know, a couple of years from now I’m going to want to go out and maybe join your firm so that I can make it in this society,’ and you get those meetings actually taking place. And you get members of Congress who say, ‘I’m making a sacrifice for public service and I’m going to stick around and make that sacrifice even though I could make twenty times what I’m making now. But under those circumstances aren’t I entitled to a little bit? Aren’t I entitled to have one of my friends who may also be getting a great earmark from me do a little work on my house?’... What we’re finding is that money—which is always a problem—is becoming much, much worse in terms of the atmosphere and casual corruption in Washington, and that has nothing to do with the campaigns but everything to do with politics.
from “Money and Politics” panel
Read this article via PDF.
To view videos of the panel discussions and photos of the weekend, visit www.law.yale.edu/alumniweekend.