During his lecture, Max Stearns, Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law, will discuss his forthcoming book, “Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy.”

Our constitutional system is in crisis. Commentators increasingly recognize the warning signs, and many offer prescriptions intended to produce a well-functioning democracy. Professor Stearns agrees with those who are deeply concerned, but he’s persuaded that the vast majority of reform proposals are misguided in the sense that they cannot repair our democracy, cannot be implemented, or both. In his forthcoming book, Professor Stearns offers a new approach. He argues that repairing our constitutional democracy requires changing our electoral system to embrace carefully selected features of parliamentary design, and he explains how and why this can be accomplished.

Stearns conveys his insights using a variety of familiar childhood games, explained with the benefit of insights from game theory and other economics tools, along with the history of our two-party system and our changing media landscape. Laced with familiar cultural references, the book culminates in a virtual world tour that explains how and why some electoral systems thrive and others risk or even succumb to existential threats.

Stearns proposes three constitutional amendments that will let us benefit from the experience of nations across the globe that have struggled to become, or to remain, democratic. Although Stearns’s proposal is radical, as the subtitle states, it’s the least radical means of radically repairing our broken democracy. The goal is a truly thriving democratic system for us and future generations.

This program has been approved for 1.0 continuing legal education credit in Nebraska.

To register, visit https://go.unl.edu/stearns.

Provided by generous support from Barb and Ron Schaefer.