This month, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, pushing it over the threshold for constitutional amendments to take effect. But there are still hurdles in the ERA’s path. The ratification deadlines that Congress set after it approved the amendment have lapsed, and five states have acted to rescind their prior approval. “These raise important questions, and now it is up to Congress, the courts, and the American people to resolve them,” write the Brennan Center’s Alex Cohen and Wilfred U. Codrington III. // Read More

Ten years ago in Citizens United, the Supreme Court slashed long-standing limits on campaign cash. This Court is hardly likely to reverse the ruling. The most promising immediate answer: the public financing program in H.R.1 would multiply small contributions by matching donations of $200 at a rate of six to one. “Public campaign financing can reduce candidates’ demand for those big donations by amplifying support from regular people,” write the Brennan Center’s Ian Vandewalker and Kevin Morris. // Read More

Brennan Center Fellow Andrew Cohen examines the fight in New York over bail reform as well as the battles of reformist prosecutors around the country. “What’s new and encouraging this time around is that reformist voices — backed not just by hard evidence but by what they’ve experienced in their own lives and work — are pushing back, eloquently and effectively,” Cohen writes. “They don’t have to do it alone anymore, because local righteous causes quickly become national ones.” // Read More

• The Brennan Center is filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court this week in a case challenging Delaware’s requirement that no more than a bare majority of judges on its top courts come from the same political party and that the remaining judges come from the other major party. The Brennan Center supports the state’s constitutional provisions, which have minimized politicization and partisan abuse in the judicial selection process.

• Ángel Díaz on the use of computer programs to inform government decisions // WESA
• Douglas Keith on partisan efforts in Pennsylvania to change the composition of state courts // The Guardian
• Michael Li on gerrymandering and the 2020 Census // National Journal
• Derek Tisler and Daniel Weiner on how Citizens United paved the way for Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman // The Hill