Latest news with #J.MichaelLuttig
Newsweek
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
This Century-Old Practice Could Break Political Polarization and Empower the Center
Two years ago, the American Bar Association (ABA) formed a Task Force for American Democracy, seeking to bolster voter confidence in the integrity of our elections, to reinforce the importance of the rule of law, and to suggest actionable ways to improve and strengthen our democratic system. We are privileged to be members of the ABA's task force. It is chaired by two distinguished jurists—Judge J. Michael Luttig and Jeh Charles Johnson—and includes a stellar cross-partisan array of lawyers, scholars, and community leaders. We held listening forums around the country and solicited expert advice on the key issues facing our democracy, including trust in elections, election worker safety, improving public dialogue, and reducing political polarization. It is clear that the ABA's concerns are warranted. According to Gallup, public satisfaction with "how democracy is working in this country" hit an all-time low in early 2025. Supermajorities regularly tell pollsters that they want major changes in the political system. Many appear open to giving up on the rule of law and letting a strongman run the country. Despite these worrisome signs, we remain optimistic about the democratic prospect in America. Democracy in America is not doomed. The ABA Task Force's forthcoming final report will offer many excellent suggestions on steps to bolster it. Among the recommendations under consideration, there is one that we especially wish to shine a light on: multi-party nomination, or "fusion" voting. Here's how it works. Imagine a new political party of "politically homeless" centrists. Call it the Common Sense Party—a combination of non-MAGA Republicans unhappy with the direction of their party, moderate-to-conservative Democrats not overly thrilled with their traditional political home, and unaffiliated voters who have been turned off by all the grandstanding and bickering. The Common Sense Party leadership wants to elevate a few key concerns: the rule of law, principled bargaining and compromise, and civility in public life. One thing it doesn't want to do is nominate traditional stand-alone third-party candidates. Common Sense folk aren't interested in wasting their votes or unintentionally being "spoilers." Instead, they interview the two major party candidates and nominate the one able and willing to make a credible, public commitment to the Common Sense Party's program (and its voters). NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 17: People vote in the New York Primary elections at the Brooklyn Museum on June 17, 2025 in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York... NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 17: People vote in the New York Primary elections at the Brooklyn Museum on June 17, 2025 in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City. More Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images That candidate would have two different party nominations, and thus appear on the ballot under two separate party labels: one major and one minor. On election night the candidate's votes are tallied separately by party and then added together to produce the final outcome. Hard to believe, but this idea is only legal in two states today. A citizen who likes what the Common Sense party stands for might well be persuaded to vote for a candidate under the Common Sense label because doing so packs a punch—it demonstrates not just who you support but why. A vote under the Common Sense label would signal support for a different kind of governance, for a more civil society. Sometimes, the votes on the fusion party line will make the difference in who wins, other times it won't. Either way the party is playing a constructive role. Again, there's no wasted vote and no spoiling when you vote for a fusion party. For nearly a century, fusion was legal and common in every state. It allowed new ideas, new leaders, and new parties to emerge. Abolitionists, farmers, emancipated Blacks, mechanics, prohibitionists, and populists all used fusion voting during the 19th century to make sure that their voices were heard by their fellow citizens as well as the leaders of this vast, diverse nation. But politics has changed, and not for the better. The vitality and flexibility of a multi-party system has been replaced by the brittleness and anger of a hyper-partisan, polarized two-party "doom loop." Until the 1990s, our two-party system was much less polarized and much more local. There were conservatives, moderates, and liberals in the Republican and Democratic parties, which facilitated cross-partisan cooperation and deal-making. Today, politics is deeply tribal and fully national, and it is very rare for a member of Congress to cross party lines. This hyper-polarization is not just a Congressional problem; it afflicts most state legislatures too. Today the incentives flow towards conflict rather than collaboration, stymying effective governance and making more Americans question whether democracy is working. Unfortunately, the more people get turned off by the choices served up by our two-party system, the more they may find strongmen and demagogues appealing. Ending the ban on fusion voting would enable people in the political center to build their own political home and to pull the other parties away from their extremes. In New York City, for example, centrist candidate Mike Bloomberg was able to get elected mayor in part because the Independence Party allowed voters a way to back him that did not rely on the two-party framework. We are heartened that the ABA Task Force's final report may encourage the states to reconsider the bans on fusion voting passed by the major parties a century ago. As we write, there is litigation underway in New Jersey, Kansas, and Wisconsin to have these bans declared unconstitutional under their respective state constitutions. The plaintiffs are the New Jersey Moderate, United Kansas, and United Wisconsin parties. Citizens and leaders who cherish self-government and the rule of law should welcome the forthcoming recommendations from the ABA Task Force. It's not too late to restore confidence in our democracy. William Kristol is editor at large at The Bulwark. Tom Rogers is executive chairman of Claigrid, Inc. (the cloud AI grid company), an editor-at-large for Newsweek and the founder of CNBC. Both are members of the American Bar Association Task Force For Democracy. The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Every day I have been shocked and disgusted': Judge Luttig on Trump weaponizing the Justice Dept
Former Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss the latest developments at the Justice Department with Ed Martin saying he will name and shame individuals who he and the Trump administration deem as people who have targeted Donald Trump by working on legal cases that he was implicated in.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge Luttig: No Question that Trump is 'of the school of constitutional denialism'
Dissent is fully baked into the foundations of America. The United States was founded as a protest; a protest against British tyranny. Political dissent led to the open rebellion that created the United States. And because of that, dissent is not only recognized in America–it is cherished. But today, dissent is being punished and checks and balances are under attack. Judge J. Michael Luttig, former federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, says 'there's no question
New York Times
15-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Harvard's Decision to Resist Trump is ‘of Momentous Significance'
Harvard University is 140 years older than the United States, has an endowment greater than the G.D.P. of nearly 100 countries and has educated eight American presidents. So if an institution was going to stand up to the Trump administration's war on academia, Harvard would be at the top of the list. Harvard did that forcefully on Monday in a way that injected energy into other universities across the country fearful of the president's wrath, rejecting the Trump administration's demands on hiring, admissions and curriculum. Some commentators went so far as to say that Harvard's decision would empower law firms, the courts, the media and other targets of the White House to push back as well. 'This is of momentous, momentous significance,' said J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals court judge revered by many conservatives. 'This should be the turning point in the president's rampage against American institutions.' Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan University and a rare critic of the White House among university administrators, welcomed Harvard's decision. 'What happens when institutions overreach is that they change course when they meet resistance,' he said. 'It's like when a bully is stopped in his tracks.' Within hours of Harvard's decision, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to the university, along with a $60 million contract. That is a fraction of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university's 11 affiliated hospitals in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., including Massachusetts General, Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The remaining $2 billion goes to research grants directly for Harvard, including for space exploration, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and tuberculosis. It was not immediately clear what programs the funding freeze would affect. Harvard, the nation's richest as well as oldest university, is the most prominent object of the administration's campaign to purge 'woke' ideology from America's college campuses. The administration's demands include sharing its hiring data with the government and bringing in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse.' Columbia University, which faced a loss of $400 million in federal funding, last month agreed to major concessions the government demanded, including that it install new oversight of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department. In a letter on Monday, Harvard's president, Alan M. Garber, refused to stand down. 'Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,' he wrote. The administration's fight with Harvard, which had an endowment of $53.2 billion in 2024, is one that President Trump and Stephen Miller, a powerful White House aide, want to have. In the administration's effort to break what it sees as liberalism's hold on higher education, Harvard is big game. A high-profile court battle would give the White House a platform to continue arguing that the left has become synonymous with antisemitism, elitism and suppression of free speech. Steven Pinker, a prominent Harvard psychologist who is also a president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, said on Monday that it was 'truly Orwellian' and self-contradictory to have the government force viewpoint diversity on the university. He said it would also lead to absurdities. 'Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists or the psychology department to hire Jungians or, for that matter, for the medical school to hire homeopaths or Native American healers?' he said. Harvard has not escaped the problems that roiled campuses nationwide after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In his letter, Dr. Garber said the university had taken steps to address antisemitism, support diverse viewpoints and protect free speech and dissent. Those same points were made in a letter to the administration from two lawyers representing Harvard, William A. Burck and Robert K. Hur. Mr. Burck is also an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization and represented the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal it recently reached with the Trump administration. Mr. Hur, who worked in the Justice Department in Mr. Trump's first term, was the special counsel who investigated President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s handling of classified documents and termed him 'an elderly man with a poor memory,' enraging Mr. Biden. Both lawyers understand the legal workings of the current administration, an expertise of benefit to Harvard. 'Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community,' Mr. Burck and Mr. Hur wrote in the letter, addressed to the acting general counsels of the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and to a commissioner within the General Services Administration. 'But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.' Representative Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican who held hearings last year investigating antisemitism on college campuses, including at Harvard, was withering in a social media post. 'Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education,' Ms. Stefanik, a Harvard graduate, wrote. She added that 'it is time to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution that has failed to live up to its founding motto Veritas. Defund Harvard.' It is unclear what other measure the Trump administration could take against Harvard for its resistance, although potential actions could include an investigation of its nonprofit status and further cancellations of the visas of international students. The president of the American Council of Education, Ted Mitchell, said that Harvard's action was essential. 'If Harvard had not taken this stand,' he said, 'it would have been nearly impossible for other institutions to do so.'
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Andrew Weissmann on Trump's deportations : ‘It is up to the Supreme Court to show some backbone'
Andrew Weissmann, former top prosecutor for the Justice Department and J. Michael Luttig, former federal judge join Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss what comes next for the American judicial system with the Trump Administration willfully defying court orders and if the Supreme Court is willing to step up and defend the constitution.
