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William Weld

Image Courtesy: https://www.mintz.com/our-people/william-f-weld

William Weld, Former Governor of Massachusetts

A More Perfect Union: Political and Electoral Reforms for Our Nation

Click here to watch the 118th Donahue Lecture.

William Weld is an attorney, businessman, and Republican politician who was the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991-1997.

Mr. Weld was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1990 and reelected in 1994 with 71% of the vote, when only 14% of the electorate shared his party registration.  As Governor, Mr. Weld cut taxes twenty-one times while never raising any, and appointed the judge whose opinion recognized marriage equality as a constitutional right for the first time in the United States.  Mr. Weld currently practices as a Principal at Mintz Levin, providing clients with counsel related to government strategies, litigation, and general business advice.

In February 2018 Mr. Weld filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging Massachusetts’s winner-take-all (WTA) system of selecting presidential Electors.  The complaint seeks two forms of relief.  First, a declaration that Massachusetts’s WTA method unconstitutionally violates the First Amendment’s right to free association and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause—most recently considered by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.  Second, to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing the WTA system.

On Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at Suffolk University Law School Mr. Weld discussed his recent—and continuing—legal and political efforts to bring change to how we elect our leaders, and in turn, how our leaders govern the country.