For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.”
-Margaret Heffernan
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
- Joseph Joubert
On Tuesday, November 3, 2020, the eyes of the world will be on the most important- and least understood- college in the world- the Electoral College.
We do not elect our President by a direct national popular vote. Rather, Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution provides that the Electoral College is the formal body which elects the President and Vice President of the United States. Since the nation’s founding, hundreds of proposals to reform or eliminate the Electoral College have aimed to change how Americans elect our President.
For a refresher on how it works, watch this brief video about the Electoral College.
This evening I will be participating in a virtual debate about the future of the Electoral College, sponsored by the City Club of Cleveland, The Cleveland Foundation, the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, the Ohio Debate Commission, and the national nonpartisan group, Braver Angels.
The title of the debate is “Should We Abolish the Electoral College?” Four people will argue in the affirmative, and four will argue in opposition to this proposition: “Resolved – The United States Should Abolish the Electoral College and Replace it with a National Popular Vote”.
The debate will be livestreamed this evening at 7:30pm by the City Club. See the invitation at this link: https://www.cityclub.org/forums/2020/10/19/braver-angels-city-club-debate-should-we-abolish-the-electoral-college Participation is free, but registration is required. To register, click here.
I will be on the side arguing in favor of abolishing the Electoral College, along with former Ohio Governors Dick Celeste and Ted Strickland and former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner.
Arguing in favor of keeping the Electoral College are Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Frank Sullivan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, RPM International Inc., Jose Feliciano ’75, C|M|LAW Leader-in-Residence, and former Ohio State Senator Jeff Jacobson. I know and respect all the debaters and am honored to participate.
This evening’s debate was conceived by Braver Angels, a grassroots citizen’s organization with some 15,000 members in all fifty states, uniting red and blue Americans in a working alliance to depolarize our nation. A Braver Angels Debate is a different kind of debate than those making national headlines. In this kind of debate, participants think together, listen carefully to one another, and allow their hearts to be touched and perhaps their minds changed by one another’s ideas.
The goal is that everyone leaves a little closer to the truth, more aware of the validity in opposing views, and with stronger community relationships. The parliamentary-style debate format is time-tested, respectful and modeled after the Oxford Union; it will be led by Braver Angels Director of Debates, April Lawson, who chaired the Yale Political Union during her student days.
Monday Moment: Please join our Black Law Students Association (BLSA) in their Push to the Polls!
Set a date and time to visit your Board of Elections in order to Early Vote this week. After casting your Early Vote, take a picture with your 2020 Sticker and email or tag BLSA on Instagram (#cmlawblsapushtothepolls) and be eligible for prizes!
Thanks.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay Committed to Living Justice. Vote early.
Have a great day. Have a great week.
For copies of past messages, please go to this link: Monday Morning Messages.
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My views in all my Monday Morning Messages are my personal views alone and do not reflect the views of our law school or our university.
My best,
Lee
Lee Fisher
Dean, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law | Cleveland State University
Joseph C. Hostetler-BakerHostetler Chair in Law