Respected and very conservative retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig announced that he is endorsing Kamala Harris and will vote for a Democratic candidate for the first time.
CNN obtained Luttig’s statement:
In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.
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“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own. But I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.
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Because of the former president’s continued, knowingly false claims that he won the 2020 election, millions of Americans no longer have faith and confidence in our national elections, and many never will again. Many Americans – especially young Americans, tragically – have even begun to question whether constitutional democracy is the best form of self-government for America.
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The time for America’s choosing has come. It is time for all Americans to stand and affirm whether they believe in American Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, and want for America the same – or whether they do not.
There will be lots of time for policy differences after the election, but nothing is more important than democracy. Without democracy, there will be no more freedom. Without freedom, all other policy differences are irrelevant.
Trump is a threat that this country has never faced before. An anti-democracy candidate has taken over one of the two major political parties and warped most members of that party into supporting authoritarianism.
The way to defeat this threat is never to let them have power, and that means defeating the MAGAs at the ballot box over and over again until the Republican Party understands that it will never win again until it stops opposing democracy.
Luttig’s endorsement is significant because it signals to other democracy-concerned conservatives that it is fine to cast a ballot for Harris because freedom is bigger than party labels.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
