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Archibald Cox Memorial Lecture Series
In his formal statement after being fired, Cox stated, "Whether we shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for the Congress and, ultimately, the American people to decide." Cox went on to serve as Chairman of the Common Cause National Governing Board.
2008 Lectures
The first Archibald Cox Memorial Lecture of 2008 focused on the campaign to elect U.S. Presidents by national popular vote, and include these panelists:
The event was hosted on January 22, 2008 at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
Past Archibald Cox Memorial Lectures
The 2007 lecture featured New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and author and political analyst Kevin Phillips, and was co-sponsored by the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at NYU. Krugman and Phillips discussed the issues raised in Phillips's latest book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.
Phillips knows the Republican Party from the inside - nearly 40 years ago he wrote the seminal The Emerging Republican Majority. That book predicted that the movement of people and resources from the old Northern industrial states into the South and the West would produce a new Republican majority that would dominate American politics for decades. Phillips saw these developments as positive, and he joined the Nixon administration to help advance the changes he foresaw.
Phillips latest book presents a stark critique of the very party dominance he helped to construct. He no longer sees Republican government as a source of stability and order. Instead, American Theocracy accuses the party of ideological extremism, fiscal irresponsibility, greed and dangerous shortsightedness.
Krugman, a heavyweight political commentator and critic in his own right, will moderate a discussion about both Phillips's ideas and the author's radcial political transformation.
2006
The 2006 lecture, co-sponsored by Demos, featured Spencer Overton, law professor of George Washington University, former commissioner of the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform and author of STEALING DEMOCRACY: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.
2005
Please stay tuned for more information on upcoming lectures in this series.
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The Archibald Cox Memorial Lecture Series honors the legacy of 
In STEALING DEMOCRACY, Overton exposes how incumbent politicians maintain thousands of election practices and bureaucratic hurdles that determine who votes and how votes are counted. Using real-life stories, Overton demonstrates how the seemingly insignificant practices--such as of election district boundaries, long lines at urban polling places and English-only ballots--channel political power and determine policies on war, schools, clean air and other issues that shape our lives. To read an excerpt from STEALING DEMOCRACY, visit 
In the first lecture in the series, Mario Cuomo delivered an address entitled, "E Pluribus Unum? - Toward a Stronger More United America ThroughPositive Values." Mr. Cuomo, attorney, author, lecturer and former three-term Governor of New York State, has often been called upon to discuss and debate the subject of "values" in today's political dialogue. Now he suggested how those values can operate to enhance - instead of paralyze - the government of laws that leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Archibald Cox envisioned. His recent book, Why Lincoln Matters Today More Than Ever, was discussed.