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A panel discussion hosted by the Northwestern Republican and Democrat Law Societies on Nov. 28 at the Law School highlighted how the uncertain results of the 2000 presidential election have turned the legal and political world on its head.

Law School faculty members Martin Redish, Robert Bennett, Steven Calabresi and James Speta discussed the Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments concerning Florida's vote recounts. They contemplated a few bizarre outcomes, including one that ended with Strom Thumond in the oval office and another that ended with a presidential team of Bush and Lieberman.

Redish, the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, is an acclaimed scholar on issues of federal jurisdiction, free expression and civil procedure, and is an excellent source on the election case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bennett, professor of law and former dean at the Law School, is a constitutional law scholar who teaches a seminar on the Law of American Democracy.

He has given great thought to the ways the Electoral College could play out, given the bizarre circumstances of this election, and to the raging debate concerning statutory interpretation that is at the heart of the case to be argued at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Calabresi, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law and a distinguished specialist on the presidency, served in the Reagan and Bush administrations from 1985 to 1990. He is the co-author of a Wall Street Journal op-ed on a survey of presidential scholars that ranked the 39 presidents who served more than a few months in office.

Speta, assistant professor of law, is interested in how the courts review Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' implementation of election statutes. Speta, who teaches administrative law, says the issue presents a classic problem of administrative law.

Opened to the public, the event was moderated by Northwestern law students Mary Graf and Paul Chadha.

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