In two programs from our 2017 "Freedom Day" symposium exploring the relationship between the Constitution and freedom, leading commentators explore what the "father of the Constitution" James Madison might think of American government today. First, Mickey Edwards and Norm Ornstein sit down with Jeffrey Rosen to detail the state of Congress, which Ornstein has dubbed "the broken branch." Next, journalist and commentator George F. Will delivers a keynote address on the Madisonian Constitution and the future of freedom.
This podcast is presented as part of the National Constitution Center’s A Madisonian Constitution for All initiative and made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.
PARTICIPANTS
Hon. Mickey Edwards is Vice President and Program Director of Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership at the Aspen Institute. He is also a board member of both the Constitution Project and the Project on Government Oversight, and was a member of Congress for 16 years. He is the author of Reclaiming Conservatism (2008) and The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans (2013) among other works.
Dr. Norm Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a cohost of AEI’s Election Watch series, a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal and The Atlantic, a BBC News election analyst, and the chairman of the Campaign Legal Center. His books include One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported with E. J. Dionne and Thomas E. Mann (2017); “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism;” “The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track,” with Thomas E. Mann (2006); and “The Permanent Campaign and Its Future” (2000).
Dr. George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs for The Washington Post, where he has been a columnist since 1974. He received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. In addition to The Conservative Sensibility, his other works include: One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation (2008) and Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy (1992).
Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, the only institution in America chartered by Congress “to disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.”
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