Democracy at 250: Is You Midterm Vote at Risk?

OUR PANELISTS

MODERATOR E.J. DIONNE '73

Journalist, Political Commentator

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute

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E.J. Dionne, Jr. is a senior fellow and the W. Averell Harriman Chair in American Governance in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. He is also a Distinguished University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University, affiliated with the McCourt School of Public Policy, and a contributing columnist to the New York Times. Dionne began his career with New York Times, where he spent 14 years reporting on state and local government, national politics, and from around the world, including stints in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. The Los Angeles Times praised his coverage of the Vatican as the best in two decades. In 1990, Dionne joined the Washington Post as a reporter covering national politics, and was a columnist for The Post from 1993 to 2025, when he became a Times contributor. He was an NPR commentator for two decades.

His best-selling book, “Why Americans Hate Politics” (Simon & Schuster), was published in 1991. The book, which Newsday called “a classic in American political history,” won the Los Angeles Times book prize, and was a National Book Award nominee. He is the author or co-author of eight other books, edited or co-edited six volumes published by the Brookings Institution Press, and co-edited a collection of the speeches of Barack Obama. His books include “Why Americans Hate Politics,” “Our Divided Political Heart,” “Why the Right Went Wrong,” and “100% Democracy” (with Miles Rapoport). Among his edited volumes are “Community Works,” “United We Serve,” and “Sacred Places, Civic Purposes.”

Dionne has received numerous awards, including the American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award to honor a major journalistic contribution to the understanding of politics. He has been named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by the National Journal and among the capital city’s top 50 journalists by the Washingtonian magazine. He was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2002, he received the Empathy Award from the Volunteers of America, and in 2004 he won the National Human Services Assembly’s Award for Excellence by a Member of the Media. The Sidney Hillman Foundation presented him with the Hillman Award for Career Achievement in 2011. Dionne grew up in Fall River, Mass. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from Harvard University in 1973 and received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

SHERRILYN IFILL

Endowed Chair in Civil Rights, Howard University

Former President & Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

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Sherrilyn Ifill is a civil rights lawyer and founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy at the Howard University School of Law. From 2013-2022, she served as the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. She recently served as a Ford Foundation Fellow and as the Klinsky Visiting Professor for Leadership & Progress at Harvard Law School, and as a fellow at the Museum of Modern Art. Ifill is currently the Vernon Jordan Distinguished Professor in Civil Rights at Howard Law School Ifill where she founded the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy.

Ifill’s tenure at the helm of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund was widely praised for elevating the profile, voice and influence of the organization, and for expanding and deepening its work across multiple areas of civil rights law. Ifill’s voice and analysis played a prominent role in shaping our national conversation about race and civil rights during a tumultuous period of racial reckoning in our country. Her strategic vision and counsel remain highly sought-after by leaders in government, business, law, grassroots organizations, and academia.

Ifill began her legal career as a Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, before joining the staff of the LDF as an Assistant Counsel, where she litigated voting rights cases in the south. In 1993 Ifill left LDF to join the faculty at University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore where she taught for twenty years before rejoining LDF in 2013 as its President & Director-Counsel.

Ifill is a scholar whose work has appeared in leading law journals, periodicals, and the nation’s leading newspapers. Her book ON THE COURTHOUSE LAWN: CONFRONTING THE LEGACY OF LYNCHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY, was highly acclaimed, and is credited with laying the foundation for contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation. She is currently completing a new book about race and the current crisis in American democracy entitled, “Is This America?” which will be published by Penguin Press.

Ifill is a graduate of Vassar College and earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and many of the most prestigious medals in the legal profession including, the Radcliffe Medal, the Brandeis Medal, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, and The Gold Medal from the New York State Bar Association. Ifill was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019, and was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2021.

SETH WAXMAN '73

Attorney, 41st Solicitor General of the U.S.

Universally considered to be among the country's premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates, Seth Waxman served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1997 through January 2001. In addition to leading the firm's appellate practice, Mr. Waxman engages in a broad litigation and counseling practice, with particular emphasis on complex challenges involving governments or public policy, intellectual property, regulatory, criminal and commercial issues.

A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Mr. Waxman also is a widely respected trial litigator. In a December 2020 article, The Hill stated, "[T]here is no more respected lawyer in Washington." The American Lawyer named him Litigation - First Amendment "Lawyer of the Year" for 2020, Appellate/Litigation "Lawyer of the Year" for 2018, and "Litigator of the Year" and Litigation - Intellectual Property "Lawyer of the Year" for 2016. Mr. Waxman was also named Litigation - First Amendment Law and Regulatory Enforcement Law "Lawyer of the Year" for 2015 by Best Lawyers in America, and, in 2014, Super Lawyers deemed him the "number one" lawyer in Washington DC. Mr. Waxman has been accorded both "star" rating by Chambers USA and "leading lawyer" ranking in PLC's Global Counsel Handbook.

Mr. Waxman's practice spans both federal and state trial and appellate courts. He has delivered 90 oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court and many more in the lower federal and state courts. Mr. Waxman's clients range from financial institutions to technology, consumer, industrial and media companies, universities and Indian tribes, and he leads the firm's efforts to counsel tribal governments. He also represents a number of local, state and national governments and prominent business and government executives and professionals. The recipient of numerous professional awards and honors, Mr. Waxman is among a small handful of practicing attorneys elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds several honorary degrees, as well as the Jefferson Medal in Law, an honor awarded once a year and only rarely to an attorney in private practice. In recognition of exceptional service to law enforcement, Mr. Waxman holds the extraordinary status of permanent honorary Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

WENDY WEISER

Vice President of Democracy,

Brennan Center for Justice

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Wendy Weiser is Vice President for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, a non-partisan think tank and public interest law center that works to revitalize, reform and defend our systems of democracy and justice. She oversees the Center’s work on voting rights and elections, redistricting and representation, federal reform, abuse of power, and the courts. A strategic nonprofit leader, Weiser directs research and policy development, litigation and legal strategy, legislative advocacy and public education strategies to strengthen democracy so that it works for all Americans. She has launched multiple successful programs, including a voting rights and elections program that has helped increase voter access and participation across the country and was the first to combine a focus on voting rights with a deep engagement with election administration; a judiciary program that works to reform the Supreme Court and to strengthen state constitutionalism as a source of protecting rights and freedoms; and an initiative to strengthen the guardrails against the abuse of executive power that included a bipartisan National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy, among others. Her work and the work she oversees is grounded in thorough research.

A constitutional lawyer and an expert on a range of democracy issues, Weiser has authored multiple publications and articles on democracy issues, litigated ground-breaking lawsuits, authored dozens of U.S. Supreme Court briefs, testified on multiple occasions before both houses of Congress and in state legislatures, and provided legislative drafting assistance to legislators and administrators nationwide. She has crafted and advanced a number of successful policy initiatives, including automatic voter registration, which is now used in roughly half the states, and she helped lead the national push for the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, among others. She is a frequent public speaker and media contributor on democracy issues, appearing regularly on major television and radio networks. Her commentary has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, Slate, and elsewhere.

Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Weiser was a senior attorney at NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund; a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and a law clerk to Judge Eugene H. Nickerson in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She received her BA from Yale College and her JD from Yale Law School.