Legal scholars from George Washington University assessed President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office in a virtual panel that was part of the school’s bicentennial events.
“Celebrating 200 Years: A Report Card on the Legal Issues in Biden’s First 100 Days” was moderated by journalist Dr. Jamal Watson. Panelists included: Christopher A. Bracey, GW vice provost for faculty affairs; Dr. Dayna Bowen Matthew, dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law; Kate Weisburd, GW associate professor of law; Renée Lettow Lerner, GW Law Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor; and LeRoy C. Paddock, former GW Law associate dean for environmental law studies.
In a wide-ranging discussion, the panelists covered matters including COVID-19, healthcare, police reform, the U.S. Supreme Court, executive orders, climate change, clemency and the federal death penalty.
The federalist system of the U.S. has certain weaknesses, one of which became prominent during the pandemic, Matthew said, namely a lack of a federal policy to address the pandemic. But the Biden administration’s use of executive orders to address the pandemic was a change, she added.
“This president, Biden’s administration, immediately went to work using the avenue or the vehicle of executive orders to address the coronavirus pandemic, to distribute, to mandate distribution, to set targets, to announce that the standards being set by the CDC and others would be the policy of the department,” Matthew said. “This was a pivot and it was change and it was a use of the federal government’s power to fight the pandemic that was a pivot away from the prior administration.”
On the matter of police reform, Weisburd said there were some challenges that have emerged in Biden’s first 100 days, such as pressure to respond to violent crimes over the past year and pressure to reform policing in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“And while these two pressures and forces appear to be in conflict, I don’t think they actually are and certainly don’t need to be,” Weisburd said. “To date, there hasn’t yet been meaningful police reform so the crime that we’re seeing today reflects policing as its always been. So perhaps the Biden administration will see the rise in crime as a call to take swift and bold action to address violence in new ways.”
