Today we’re sharing a “live” program that, because the Center is temporarily closed, was held virtually, over Zoom. National Constitution Center President Jeffrey Rosen brought together Jesse Wegman, Amel Amed, and William Ewald to discuss the Electoral College. They detailed how the founders envisioned the Electoral College, how it’s evolved over time, and whether the system should remain or be reformed or replaced. Jesse Wegman is a member of The New York Times editorial board and the author of the book Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. William Ewald is professor of philosophy and law at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on James Wilson, one of the Founders involved in the earliest debates about how the president should be elected. Amel Ahmed is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She’s the author of numerous books and articles including “In Defense of the Electoral College.”
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PARTICIPANTS
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Jesse Wegman is a member of The New York Times editorial board, and the author of the new book Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. He was previously a senior editor at The Daily Beast and Newsweek, a legal news editor at Reuters, and the managing editor of The New York Observer.
William Ewald is professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of an often-cited article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review on the philosophical foundations of comparative law, “What Was it Like to Try a Rat?” He is currently at work on a book, The Style of American Law, that examines, from a comparative perspective, the distinctive character of American law. Ewald has written two articles about James Wilson for the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.
Amel Ahmed is associate professor of political science and Associate Provost for Equity and Inclusion at the University of Massachussetts-Amherst. She is author of Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance and written for various journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, and the Journal of Politics. Ahmed has written about the Electoral College for popular outlets such as The American Prospect.
This episode was engineered by Kevin Kilbourne, Greg Scheckler, and Jackie McDermott and produced by Jackie McDermott and Tanaya Tauber.
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