The Counselors: Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?

In this edition of The Counselors, attorneys and Dole Institute Visiting Fellows Ed Duckers and Pedro Irigonegaray will debate whether the Electoral College—the means in which the United States elects a president—should be abolished. They’ll be joined a panel of expert witnesses to debate both sides of the issue.

This program will be moderated by Ava Levin, SAB member and Discussion Group Coordinator, who studies Political Science, English, and Spanish.

For the negative:

Ed Duckers is partner at Stoel Rives LLP and the head of the firm’s Litigation Practice in California and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. He is a past chair of Stoel Rives’ Food and Agribusiness Industry Team. Ed will be leading the argument for the negative.

Tara Ross is nationally recognized for her expertise on the Electoral College. She is the author of Why We Need the Electoral College (2019), along with multiple other books about the Electoral College. Her children’s books include We Elect A President: The Story of our Electoral College (2016), She Fought Too: Stories of Revolutionary War Heroines (2019), and We Fought for Freedom: The Story of Our American Revolution. Her Prager University video, Do You Understand the Electoral College?, is Prager’s most-viewed video ever, with more than 66 million views.

Trent England is the executive director and founder of Save Our States and has also served as the executive vice president at think tanks in Washington state and Oklahoma and as a legal policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Why We Must Defend the Electoral College and a producer of the feature-length documentary, Safeguard: An Electoral College Story. Trent earned a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law and a B.A. in government from Claremont McKenna College.

For the affirmative: 

Pedro Irigonegaray is an attorney and partner at Irigonegaray, Turney, & Revenaugh. A trial lawyer since 1973, Pedro is a former President of The Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, a Fellow in The American College of Trial Lawyers and a Fellow in The International Academy of Trial Lawyers. Pedro will be leading the argument for the affirmative.

Jeffrey D. Jackson is the James M. Concannon Dean and Professor of Law at Washburn University School of Law. Jackson received his B.B.A. in economics from Washburn University in 1989, his J.D. from Washburn Law in 1992, and his L.L.M. in Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center in 2003. He teaches Constitutional Law I & II as well as Constitutional History.

Linsey Moddelmog is a Professor of Political Science at Washburn University, where she has taught since 2009. She has done research in the area of electoral systems and representation in the U.S. and around the world. She is excited to return to the Dole Institute where she worked for several years while in graduate school at the University of Kansas.