Prof. Goldman: The Significance of The Electoral College

By Professor Stanley Goldman

This originally appeared on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2000 webnews edition of Fox News Channel.

We all remember the Electoral College, don't we? We learned in high school, and probably haven't thought about it since, that the people don't really vote for the President or the Vice President of the United States. Rather, we all vote for our own state's Electors, who in turn, cast their votes for the candidates who won that state's popular vote. Each state is given a number of Electors equal to the number of that state's Congressmen and Senators, with the District of Columbia being allocated three electors for purposes of presidential elections, for a grand total of 538. In order to be elected President or Vice President, a candidate must receive a majority of at least 270 votes. It is often said that if the Electoral College works the way it's supposed to, it's useless, and if it doesn't, it's dangerous.

This year could be the first time in a long time that those dangers may actually become legitimate issues. Several political experts believe that this could be the first time in a century and a quarter that one candidate, possibly Al Gore, could win the popular vote and yet a different presidential candidate, George W. Bush, might actually be elected President by winning the Electoral College. This could happen if Gore wins big states like California and New York by wide margins, but Bush wins more Electoral votes in closely contested smaller states. As unexpected a result as this may sound, there are even more startling possibilities thanks to the intricacies of the rules surrounding the Electoral College.

Prof. Goldman: Why House Resolution on Bigotry is Dangerous

Professor Stanley Goldman, director of the Center for the Study of Law & Genocide at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, writes the following in response to today’s House resolution on bigotry. Goldman, author of the critically acclaimed book, “Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Bargain that Broke Adolf Hitler & Saved My Mother,” is available for additional commentary. You are welcome to quote directly from the statement below.

Prof. Stanley Goldman statement:

I believe Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is dangerously mistaken in her conclusion that freshman Minnesota Congresswoman llhan Omar’s controversial remarks about Jewish influence and dual loyalties are not deserving of specific censure because the young Congresswoman did not realize they were anti-Semitic.

The history of anti-Semitism, not unlike other bigotry, unfortunately illustrates that adherents often do not see themselves and their beliefs as anti-Semitic. Therein lies the true danger. Anyone who has studied, even superficially, the history of the 19th and 20th centuries alone should understand that the well-meaning, and otherwise decent, who trade-in stereotypes of Jewish influence and motives can be groomed to accept ever harsher responses to correct the perceived Jewish problem. 

This danger ever lurks from, not only the political extremes, as the anti-bigotry resolution passed today by the House of Representatives seems to suggest, but also from those of the political center. Once they accept a few small innocent lies, they are predisposed to agree to ever more disturbing ones. Passivity in the face of such intolerance is not benign.

A Quest for Reparations

By Professor Stanley A. Goldman

This excerpt adapted from Prof. Goldman's new book, Left to the Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Bargain That Broke Adolf Hitler and Saved My Mother, originally appeared in the Nov. 30, 2018 edition of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal. It is available from Amazon and Potomac Books.

In the late 1950s, four decades before the better-known and more all- encompassing German slave labor reparations cases of the late 1990s, a legal brief authored by the Conference on Jewish War Material Claims arrived at the Krupp Corporation. The document included the following allegations: “The firm of Krupp [had] exploited the prisoners’ labor without ever paying them for it, nor did it ever attempt to compensate its forced laborers for the injuries to life, health, freedom, and honor which were sustained,” and demanded that the company provide a financial settlement.

In response, the corporation’s representatives were adamant that any discussions of settlement that they might agree to participate in could not involve possible payments to the heirs of those already deceased, nor would they consider making any charitable contributions on their behalf. Furthermore, perhaps fearing that it could involve tens of millions of dollars in additional payouts, the company took the position that a Conference on Jewish war claims was not empowered to negotiate on behalf of potential gentile, as opposed to Jewish, plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs’ pro bono counsel in the negotiations, Benjamin B. Ferencz, who had been the youngest of the Nuremberg lead prosecutors, was appalled by these pre-negotiation restrictions. Ferencz was particularly eager that formerly subjugated Jews and gentiles should remain unified whenever possible and detested the suggestion that the discussions be limited to only certain former slaves. However, sadly concluding that Krupp would never make payments to non-Jewish victims based on a claim asserted by a Jewish organization, Ferencz agreed to the demands.

Krupp had been quite generous when providing retroactive compensation to his former German employees. In 1953, once he had felt secure at the head of his family business again, he sold off some of his land in order to make good on back payments owed to the company’s pensioners, and Ferencz believed a quick settlement could be reached by requesting a relatively modest sum.

Unfortunately, the very thought of compensation to non-German forced laborers, even in such a minimal amount, was abhorrent to Krupp, and negotiations between his designated agents and the plaintiffs’ Jewish lawyers proved fierce and unpleasant. “Each session was marred by recriminations, accusations of bad faith,” and even with what Ferencz later described as “anti-Semitic remarks” from the corporation’s representatives.

Getting closer to justice for descendants of victims of Armenian Genocide

By Professor Stan Goldman

Director, Center for the Study of Law & Genocide

Recently, I appeared at second chair before an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in yet another installment of what has been an ongoing saga to obtain payment of insurance claims due to descendants of victims of the Armenian Genocide. The case, Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung, stems from unpaid policies sold in 1915 to ethnic Turkish Armenians in the prelude to what would become the Armenian Genocide. In my role as director of the Center for the Study of Law & Genocide (CSLG), I have worked on an amicus curae on behalf of the plaintiffs represented by attorneys including alumni Mark Geragos '84 and Brian Kabateck '89 against defendant insurance companies Victoria Versicherung AG, Ergo Versicherungsgruppe AG and parent company Munich Re.

First, a little back story: The side for which I was writing and appearing originally lost in the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel that had declared California's law unconstitutional as an interference with the federal government's exclusive control over foreign policy. The court then reversed itself, in significant part because of the historical argument we set forth in the CSLG's amicus I filed requesting a rehearing after the initial loss. The nation of Turkey, somewhat shaken by the court's reversal, then filed an amicus requesting yet another rehearing. In response to this, the court ordered a hearing en banc, at which time we filed an additional amicus, which included a reiteration of my earlier historical argument. That argument was that the United States had in fact recognized the genocidal nature of the Armenian massacres as a result of Congress's passage of various legislation in the 1980s and that hesitancy to reiterate that in recent times was insignificant. In other words, though you may not have chosen to renew your vows in the last few years, as long as you have not divorced in the interim you're still a married couple based on the original ceremony.

However, larger issues loom. An additional argument as to why California should be allowed to authorize civil lawsuits in order to redress losses during the Armenian Genocide is U.S. authorities are allowed to criminally prosecute the perpetrators of genocide if they come within U.S. borders. It would seem this is a right granted under the United Nations genocide convention to every signatory (of which the U.S. is one), and my interpretation of federal law is that it in turn allows state as well as federal prosecution. If this is in fact correct, then does that not, as a matter of logic, also authorize the lesser remedy of civil actions arising out of genocides including that of the Armenians? It should be additionally noted that while California's law may allow standing to sue, a total of 43 states acknowledge the Armenian massacre as having been a genocide. That is important because the U.S. Supreme Court recognizes as persuasive any overwhelming state support for a given proposition.

Though it may be historical in nature, the inclusion of the massacre of the Armenians as a genocide is a fitting project for Loyola's Genocide Center. In providing the potential for civil redress by these victims and their descendants, the ground is hopefully paved for claims based upon more contemporary mass atrocities.

Loyola's Center for the Study of Law and Genocide hosts forum on recovery of looted art

Loyola Law School's Center for the Study of Law and Genocide will host "Remnants of Genocide: Reclaiming Art and other Heirlooms Lost in Atrocities" from 10 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. on Friday, March 11 on its downtown L.A. campus. Top international experts in art retrieval will discuss the recovery of art confiscated by Nazis during World War II and the reacquiring of cultural treasures taken during the Armenian Genocide, as well as art restitution in general. Examples of reclaimed art will be on display.

The lunchtime keynote address will be delivered by Mark J. Geragos, Esq., principal, Geragos & Geragos, Los Angeles; and Brian S. Kabateck, Esq., managing partner, Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP, Los Angeles. The two attorneys have been involved in the recovery of artifacts confiscated during the Armenian Genocide.

The first panel, "Nazi Looted Art Recover," will feature speakers Donald S. Burris. Esq., partner, Burris, Schoenberg & Walden, LLP, Los Angeles; Monica Dugot, Esq., senior vice president and international director of restitution, Christie's, New York; and Thomas R. Kline, Esq., partner, Andrews Kurth LLP, Washington D.C. Professor Stan Goldman, director of Loyola's Center for the Study of Law and Genocide, will moderate.

The second panel, "The Armenian Genocide and Recovery of Looted Cultural Objects," will feature Jason Felch, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and co-author of Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum, which will be released in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Heghnar Watenpaugh, Ph.D., associate professor of art history, University of California, Davis. The panel will be moderated by Michael Bazyler, professor of law and "1939" Club Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies, Chapman University School of Law and Visiting Professor of Law, Loyola Law School.

The final panel will examine other issues in art restitution. It will feature speakers Sermid Al-Sarraf, Esq., executive director, International Institute for the Rule of Law, Baghdad, Iraq & Los Angeles, CA; Seth M. Gerber, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP, Los Angeles; MaryKate Cleary, manager of historic claims and research, Art Loss Register, London, UK; and Lucille A. Roussin, J.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor and director, Holocaust Restitution Claims Practicum, Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law, New York.

The day will end with a reception at the Fine Arts Building, 685 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017.

Co-sponsors of the event include the International Law Society, the Entertainment Law Review, the Jewish Law Students Association and the Armenian Law Students Association.