American Democracy and the 2024 Election

Experience the Event

Presented by

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 12:00 pm

Join us for an insightful and dynamic panel discussion on the upcoming 2024 US election, featuring prominent voices in journalism and politics. This event will offer diverse perspectives on the key issues, candidates, and potential outcomes that will shape the future of the United States. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from esteemed experts as they dissect the 2024 election and its potential impact on the United States and the world.

The Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy thanks the Notre Dame Law School and the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative for co-sponsoring this event.

Moderator:

• Dean Marcus Cole, Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School

Panelists:

• Gerard Baker, Editor-at-Large, The Wall Street Journal: With decades of experience in political journalism, Baker will provide an in-depth analysis of the electoral landscape, drawing from his extensive knowledge of American and global politics.
• Carlos Lozada ’93, Opinion Writer, The New York Times: Lozada, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will bring his sharp analytical skills to the discussion, offering a critical examination of the candidates’ platforms and the broader political climate.
• Dianne Pinderhughes, Presidential Faculty Fellow, and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, The University of Notre Dame: Pinderhughes holds a concurrent faculty appointment in American Studies, is a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute, and is a Research Faculty member in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research addresses inequality with a focus on racial, ethnic, and gender politics and public policy in the Americas, explores the creation of American civil society institutions in the twentieth century, and analyzes their influence on the formation of voting rights policy.
• Francis Rooney, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See: Rooney, with his rich background in diplomacy and politics, will provide a unique perspective on the international implications of the US election and insights into the intersection of faith and politics.

The September 27, 2024 conversation was part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum that answers the question “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

Since its establishment in 2005, each year the Notre Dame Forum invites campus-wide dialogue about issues of importance to the University, the nation, and the larger world. This year’s theme, chosen by Father Dowd, invites reflection on our responsibilities to one another. In a world where ideological and cultural divisions seem to have deepened, the Forum aims to bring people together across differences to face the most pressing challenges of our time.

Meet the Moderator: Dean Marcus Cole

G. Marcus Cole is the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School.

He was appointed by University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and began his term on July 1, 2019. He is the 11th dean in the history of Notre Dame Law School.

Dean Cole is a leading scholar of the empirical law and economics of commerce and finance. He was a faculty member at Stanford Law School from 1997 until he came to Notre Dame. At Stanford, he held two endowed chairs and taught courses in the areas of bankruptcy, banking, contracts, and venture capital. In addition, he served for five years as associate dean for curriculum and academic affairs.

His research has explored questions such as why corporate bankruptcies are increasingly filed in Delaware and what drives the financial structure of firms backed by venture capital. His recent research has involved the ways in which the world’s poor are using technology to solve their own problems, often in the face of government restrictions hindering such solutions.

Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was an associate with the Chicago law firm of Mayer Brown. He clerked for Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Dean Cole’s extensive legal and scholarly background includes serving as a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, a fellow at the University of Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics, and a visiting professor at several institutions around the world, including the University of Amsterdam, the University of Vienna, Leiden University, Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany, Northwestern University, Korea University, and Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China.

He has served on the editorial board of the Cato Supreme Court Review, the academic advisory board of BARBRI, the advisory board of the Independent Institute’s Center on Culture and Civil Society, and as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s Bankruptcy Judicial Advisory Committee. He has served on the boards of several civic and charitable organizations, including those of the Central Pacific Region of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and Businesses United in Investing, Lending and Development (BUILD). He is the former president of the board of directors of Rocketship Education — a national, nonprofit charter school network operating California’s most successful charter schools for low-income children. He has also served on the board of trustees of Bellarmine College Preparatory, the oldest Jesuit secondary school on the West Coast.

Dean Cole earned his bachelor’s degree in applied economics from Cornell University and his juris doctor from Northwestern University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business.

Meet the Speaker: Gerard Baker

Gerry Baker is Editor at Large of The Wall Street Journal. His weekly column for the editorial page, “Free Expression,” appears in The Wall Street Journal each Tuesday. Mr. Baker is also host of “WSJ at Large with Gerry Baker,” a weekly news and current affairs interview show on the Fox Business Network, and the weekly WSJ Opinion podcast “Free Expression” where he speaks with some of the world’s leading writers, influencers and thinkers about a variety of subjects.

Mr. Baker previously served as Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones from 2013-2018. Prior to that, Mr. Baker was Deputy Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal from 2009-2013. He has been a journalist for more than 30 years, writing and broadcasting for some of the world’s most famous news organizations, including his tenure at The Financial Times, The Times of London, and The BBC.

He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, where he graduated in 1983 with a 1st Class Honors Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Meet the Speaker: Carlos Lozada '93

Carlos Lozada ’93 is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. His most recent book is “The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians,” published earlier this year by Simon & Schuster. Previously, he was a book critic and senior editor at the Washington Post and the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Lozada has been a Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University and is currently a visiting professor of the practice for public discourse at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.

Meet the Faculty: Dianne Pinderhughes

Dianne Pinderhughes is Notre Dame Presidential Faculty Fellow, and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science; she holds a concurrent faculty appointment in American Studies, is a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute, and is a Research Faculty member in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her research addresses inequality with a focus on racial, ethnic and gender politics and public policy in the Americas, explores the creation of American civil society institutions in the twentieth century, and analyzes their influence on the formation of voting rights policy.

Pinderhughes’s publications include Uneven Roads: An Introduction to US Racial and Ethnic Politics (co-author; 2014); Race and Ethnicity in Chicago Politics: A Reexamination of Pluralist Theory (1987); Black Politics After the Civil Rights Revolution: Collected Essays (forthcoming);  Race, Gender, and the Changing Face of Political Leadership in 21st Century America (co-author; forthcoming). She is a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program; she was a member of and then Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. She was President of the American Political Science Association 2007-08, and the APSA Task Force she appointed completed its report in 2009:  Political Science in the 21^st Century. Pinderhughes is 1^st Vice President of the International Political Science Association and Co-Chair of its 2016 Istanbul World Congress.  Pinderhughes has also been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2003-04).

Meet the Speaker: Francis Rooney

Ambassador Francis Rooney represented Florida’s 19th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 2017 to 2021.  From 2005 to 2008 he served as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See, appointed by President George W. Bush and subsequently wrote a book about diplomacy and the US-Holy See relationship titled The Global Vatican.

He is a successful businessman who brought decades of private sector experience to government. From 1984 to 2005 he served as CEO of Rooney Holdings, Inc., a diversified group of companies engaged in construction, energy, real estate development, finance and electronics manufacturing.

One of the company’s subsidiaries is Manhattan Construction Company, which was founded in 1896 and is in the fifth generation of Rooney family management and ownership. Significant projects the company has built  include the Presidential Libraries for both George H. W. Bush in College Station, Texas, and George W. Bush in Dallas, Texas; the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans football stadiums; the U. S. Capitol Visitor’s Center; the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research; and the International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. The company is currently completing one of the few biohazard level four medical and research facilities for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Ambassador Rooney has served on numerous public and private boards, including Naples Community Hospital, St. Francis Hospital (Tulsa), the Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation, the University of Oklahoma College of International Studies, the University of Tulsa, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, the Trust for the National Mall (DC), the Advisory Board of the Panama Canal Authority and the Young Presidents’ Organization (for which he served as the International President in 1997-1998). He has served as a director of several publically traded companies including Helmerich & Payne, Cimarex, Laredo Petroleum, Bank of Oklahoma, and Amarant (formerly Mercantil Commercebank).  

His a currently a member of the National Council of the American Enterprise Institute, the Advisory Board of the Partnership for Responsible Growth, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Inter-American Dialogue and the Council of American Ambassadors and is a director of the Forum Club of Southwest Florida, on which he also served 2013-2016. He is also a member of the Latin American Program Board of the Wilson Center.

A graduate of Georgetown University (A.B.1975) and Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.  1978), Rooney has honorary degrees from the University of Notre Dame (2006) and the University of Dallas (2010) and Seton Hall University (2021).  He is a former member of the Texas and District of Columbia Bars, and holds a U. S. Coast Guard 100 Ton Masters License (sailing endorsement).

In the 115th Congress, Rooney served as Vice-Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and as a member of the Joint Economic Committee.  In the 116th Congress, Rooney served as the ranking member of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee.  He was the Republican co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus and a member of the bi-partisan Everglades and Estuary caucuses, which focus on restoring Florida’s ecosystems. He was successful in accomplishing his primary  objectives in Congress: extending the 2006 moratorium on offshore drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and fully funding the projects contained in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), to protect and restore the Lake Okeechobee watershed.  He was considered the most bipartisan Republican member in Congress and  pushed for action on climate change.  He was one of two Republicans to introduce carbon tax bills in the 116th Congress.  He was the only Republican to vote for the $15 minimum wage and to oppose both of the administration’s emergency declarations to take DOD appropriations to build the border wall. He was one of several to oppose the Kirshner single state proposal for Israel-Palestine. He was the 1st, and nearly only, Republican Congressman to call on Trump to concede the election.

He has published over 150 op ed articles including Time to Concede- The Peaceful Transfer of Power is an American Tradition , The Hill 15 Nov 2020; Climate is on the Ballot in Florida This November, Naples Daily News and other Gannett Florida papers 29 Sept 2020;  Reactionary Populism Will Tear Us Apart If We Don’t Address Inequality, Real Clear Policy, with Cong. Ro Kanna, 27 January 2020; Saving the Oceans- One Place Where Congress Can Agree, Grist Fix, with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, 7 June 2019; Are We Done With China Now?, The National Review, 5 May 2020; Here’s How We Should Make Putin Pay for What Russia Has Done, Newsweek, 3 May 2018; Time To Pay Attention to Latin America in an Era of Change, The Hill, 12 March 2018.

He and his wife Kathleen live in Naples Florida, and Washington, DC, and have three children: Larry, married to Porscha; Michael, married to Frances; and Kathleen, married to Rob; one grandson, Beckett; and one granddaughter, Bergen.

Ambassador Rooney is fluent in Spanish and regularly gives talks and interviews in Spanish, and conversational in Italian.