In the News

Heymann and Fried on the U.S. Attorney Controversy

Author: Sean McDonnell

Published on April 19, 2007

Professors Philip Heymann and Charles Fried wrote competing assessments of the dismissals which appeared on Harvard's website earlier this month. In a lecture sponsored by the HLS Democrats on April 8, Heymann told the roughly 50 students in attendance at Pound Hall that Gonzalez had much to answer for. Read more...

HLS Democrats Host Campaign Training Series

Author: Pamela Foohey

Published on April 12, 2007

Think you might want to run for office or run a campaign? Over the past few weeks, the HLS Democrats have hosted a series of campaign trainings designed to put into context all types of campaign work and roles. The last of the series is scheduled for Monday, April 23. Providing the candidate's perspective, Rhode Island State Representative David Segal will relate his own experiences of being a young candidate and the process of running for office. Read more...

The Dems Go To Washington

Author: Richard Eisenberg

Published on March 8, 2007

About 20 members of the HLS Democrats traveled to Washington, D.C. last week, as the group made its third annual trip to the nation's capitol. The trip took place from February 28 through March 2. Read more...

Behind the Federal Abortion Ban

Author: Rebecca Agule

Published on February 1, 2007

On Tuesday, January 31, Priscilla Smith, former director of the Domestic Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, spoke to a predominately female and overwhelmingly supportive audience in Austin East about the status and impact of the recent court cases dealing with reproductive rights.Read more...

Abortion Rights Advocate Speaks at HLS

Author: Jan Zilinsky

Published on January 31, 2007

Fifteen years ago, the abortion rights lobby thought there was little work to do in protecting reproductive rights. But after a decade of Republican control of Congress, many of the protections have been eroded, an abortion rights advocate told a packed auditorium at Harvard Law School yesterday. Read more...

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Who's The One? Shaheen?

Author: The Hotline

Published on December 1, 2006

On 11/27, "an eager crowd gathered" in Harvard's Pound Hall to hear Kennedy School prof./ex-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) and Rep.-elect John Hall (D-NY) "share their views on the midterm elections" in a discussion entitled "What Should Democrats Do Next?" Shaheen "said that with all the focus on the House and Senate changing hands, the stories about Democratic victories in governorships and state legislatures -- giving them the majority in both areas -- were lost."

"One audience member asked, more pointedly, whether the Democrats could find a candidate to win" Sen. John Sununu's (R) seat. "Shaheen coyly replied that it had not escaped her notice that Sununu is one of the few senators whose approval rating is less than 50%." In closing, Shaheen declared that "one of the best things about Election Day was... that I felt like it was not just a victory for Democrats, but for democracy." Read more...

What's Next for Democrats?

Author: Pam Mueller

Published on November 30, 2006

On Monday, an eager crowd gathered in Pound Hall to hear former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and Congressman-elect John Hall share their views on the midterm elections and how the Democratic Party can best capitalize on their national, state, and local victories. The discussion, entitled "What Should Democrats Do Next?" drew over 80 people, many of whom had volunteered on various House and Senate races in the recent campaign cycle. Read more...

Democratic Victory Signals a Sorely-Needed Sea Change

Author: Pam Mueller

Published on November 9, 2006

For the past five years, the three branches of government have all been under Republican control. These years have shown what happens under right-wing rule without checks and balances: executive incompetence combined with a lack of an opposing viewpoint in government has made America weaker, both at home and abroad. Read more...

HLS Dems Campaign, Celebrate Victories

Author: Jon Berkon

Published on November 9, 2006

In early September, nearly fifty students from the Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School convened in Hauser Hall to hear from Patrick Murphy, a then-obscure Democratic challenger for Congress. The 33-year old Iraq war veteran, competing for a congressional seat in the Philadelphia suburbs, won a lot of fans that fall evening. He told an awed audience about his experiences in Iraq, remembering his friends who never came home and lamenting the mishaps that doomed the rebuilding effort. One of the first Democratic candidates to author his own Iraq plan, Murphy argued that his military experience was desperately needed in a Congress bereft of representatives who had served in combat. Murphy continued his discussion with students at Grafton over some beers. Read more...

HLS Democrats Hit the Campaign Trail in RI

Author: Tyler Rosen

Published on October 19, 2006

With the mid-term elections less than one month away, the HLS Democrats have been stepping up their involvement in campaigns. On Saturday, October 14, more than a dozen members of the organization traveled to Rhode Island to join the Yale Law School Democrats in campaigning for Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate challenging Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Read more...

HLS Alum Triumphs in Gubernatorial Primary

Author: Kelly Lynn Brown

Published on September 21, 2006

Deval Patrick, a 1982 graduate of Harvard Law School, is now one step closer to being the next governor of Massachusetts. Patrick won the Democratic primary for Massachusetts governor Tuesday night with 50% of the vote, defeating Boston venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli and Attorney General Tom Reilly.... "Deval has shown that he knows how to form coalitions and engage the community behind innovative and exciting ideas," said HLS Democrats President Dan Geldon Tuesday evening. "He's done HLS proud through the course of the campaign, and he's surely going to do us proud as Governor." Read more...

Iraq Vet Stirs Up Campaign Support

Author: Pam Mueller

Published on September 14, 2006

More than 30 HLS and KSG students turned out last Thursday to meet with Patrick Murphy, the Democratic candidate in one of this campaign season's most hotly contested Congressional races. Murphy's nomination in Pennsylvania's 8th district has excited his party's leaders, who have targeted this race both with financial support and with Democratic star power, including Mark Warner, Barack Obama, and the Clintons. Murphy is a political neophyte, but his background is built for broad voter appeal: he is an Iraq war veteran, a former West Point professor, and a former criminal prosecutor. Read more...

HLS Democrats Visit Washington, D.C.

Author: Dan Geldon

Published on February 23, 2006

A group of about 20 students traveled to Washington D.C. from February 15-17 as part of an annual trip organized by the HLS Democrats. "While in DC, the HLS Democrats aim to meet with elected officials, government lawyers, campaign operatives, and lobbyists," said David Burd, a Co-President of the organization. "By picking speakers that represent a wide range of career paths at the intersection of law, politics, and policy, we try to showcase ways that HLS alumni can use their law degree to have an impact in government and politics." Read more...

A Party with Everyday People: Progressive Senate Candidate from Ohio Encourages Students to Campaign for Social Justice

Author: Angela Wu

Published on January 19, 2006

Congressman Sherrod Brown of Ohio, social justice advocate and candidate for U.S. Senate, visited Harvard Law School last month for an event hosted by the HLS Democrats. After conversing with him and twenty-five other students about his progressive political agenda, I read the following on an internet blog: "Sherrod Brown campaigns among the elites at Harvard. . . . Party of the people?" For the first time I stopped to consider how we, by virtue of our Harvard affiliation, may be seen as incapable of embodying the populist values at the heart of Sherrod's campaign. If we know this perception is false, how do we demonstrate that our elite education does not prevent us from effectively advocating for the population at large? Read more...

Jefferson Smith and Progressives on the Rise

Author: Jon Berkon

Published on November 17, 2005

When Americans get disillusioned with politics, they often turn to Jefferson Smith, the idealistic Jimmy Stewart title character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. For progressives who are disheartened by the state of affairs in Washington, the idea of Jefferson Smith might seem whimsical. It shouldn't. Read more...

Senator Edwards Visits Harvard Campus

Author: Lauren Popper

Published on November 3, 2005

After six years in the Senate, former senator John Edwards is now trying to change our country from outside Washington. Calling poverty "the great moral issue of today," Edwards visited Harvard on October 20th seeking to engage Harvard students in a grassroots national movement against poverty. Addressing an unexpectedly large crowd on the grass outside the Kennedy school, Edwards put responsibility on every Harvard student listening to his speech to help start such a national movement: "Without you," Edwards said, "nothing will happen." Read more...

Former Representative and Current KSG Fellow Addresses HLS Students

Author: Jon Berkon

Published on October 13, 2005

Last Wednesday, the HLS Democrats hosted former Representative and current Kennedy School Fellow Martin Frost (D-TX). Frost, who served thirteen terms in Congress and chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the mid 1990s, encouraged the crowd of students to get involved in campaigns and run for public office. While attending Georgetown Law, Frost worked on the presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey. Wanting to run for office himself, Frost returned to Texas and threw himself into any campaign he could find, impressing local activists and politicians with his work ethic and willingness to do any role asked of him. In 1974, Frost challenged the incumbent Congressman and surprised observers by winning 42 percent of the vote. Four years later, he captured 55 percent of the vote and went to Congress, where he would remain for 26 years. Read more...