AALS Hot Topic Program

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Session Type: AALS Hot Topic Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

Room: Thurgood Marshall West

Floor: Mezzanine Level

Our constitutional republic struggles to vindicate majority-rule. For example, the Supreme Court ruled this past summer that while gerrymandering can be “incompatible with democratic principles,” it presents a political question. Scholars suggest that the legal definition of our political system encourages efforts to stir up racial and other social divisions. An impeachment inquiry threatens to displace an elected president to restrict the use of foreign policy as a purely political tool of partisan warfare. A variety of issues from mass incarceration and felony disenfranchisement, to voting rights and reproductive rights defy democratic negotiation and simply suffer as collateral damage to partisanship. Each issue subordinates individual rights to power politics. Our partisan divide puts power ahead of the rule of law and transcendent principles give way to partisan advantage. Lawlessness begets lawlessness, and democratic institutions are not immune. To repair our democracy we must recommit to the rule of law.