Your weekly source for analysis and insight from experts at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

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The Briefing

In the two weeks since he was acquitted by the Senate, Donald Trump has shown what a presidency looks like without the curbs of law or self-restraint. He asserted the right to personally interfere in criminal prosecutions, even of his own dirty trickster Roger Stone. Officials who lawfully testified were demoted, with demands that they now be investigated. Attorney General William Barr personally wrested control of all political probes. It’s a slow-rolling “Saturday Night Massacre,” this time without a “firestorm” of outrage from an exhausted public.

Less noticed, also ominous: Last Thursday, Trump extended the one-year-old sham emergency declared at the southern border to build his “big, beautiful” wall. He renewed the “emergency” despite federal judges declaring the original move illegal, and Congress voting twice to terminate it, only to face a presidential veto.

All this is due to a gaping hole in the National Emergencies Act, which authorizes the president to declare a national emergency. The statute gives presidents special powers more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy.

Despite sharp polarization, lawmakers from both parties recognize the system isn’t working. Pending legislation would terminate presidentially declared emergencies after 30 days unless Congress votes to approve them. The bill won bipartisan support in committee, but it was stalled by impeachment. It would be unwise to wait much longer.

As my colleague Elizabeth Goitein, codirector of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program writes

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in The New York Times, “Without sufficient checks, emergency powers have the potential to undermine democracy and core civil liberties.”

Democracy

The Attack on Michigan’s Independent Redistricting Commission

In 2018, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission. Previously, legislators drew some of the country’s most aggressive gerrymanders. The new commission builds on successful reforms in other states. It is comprised of members of each party and independents, with strong conflict-of-interest rules. Now the state’s Republican Party has asked a federal court to declare it unconstitutional. The rather flimsy argument: these rules violate the First Amendment.

If the Michigan Republican Party “has its way, this would greatly expand and constitutionalize the role of political parties in redistricting, transforming commissioners from government officials to mere agents of parties,” writes the Brennan Center’s Michael Li and Kelly Percival. // Read More

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Justice

William Barr’s Hypocrisy

Attorney General Barr harshly criticizes district attorneys who seek to reduce prison populations. Those reformers, he said, are “anti-law enforcement.” Yet the same day as his most recent speech on the subject, Barr found a defendant so deserving that he deserves a lighter sentence, well below federal guidelines: of course, Roger Stone. It’s enough to give hypocrisy a bad name.

Barr’s attacks on criminal justice reform place him outside the main trend in both parties. “The attorney general’s statements are dangerous,” writes Lauren-Brooke Eisen, director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program. “We must fight for a justice system that is fair and just for all Americans, not just those in proximity to wealth and power. // Read More

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Constitution

Why Is the FBI Making Up Pro-Choice Terrorism?

Among four broad categories of domestic terrorism the FBI confronts, one is “abortion violent extremism.” But the focus isn’t only on anti-abortion terrorists who have bombed clinics or intimidated doctors — it’s on “pro-choice” terrorism, an imaginary threat. The FBI’s false equivalence is reminiscent of when it concocted the threat of “Black Identity Extremists” during the rising threat of white supremacist terrorism.

The bureau “seems to be grasping a tiny number of unrelated incidents that are not part of any organized effort to falsely imply that such a ‘domestic terrorist’ movement exists,” Brennan Center Fellow Michael German tells The Daily Beast. “This is a misleading analysis of dubious purpose, apparently to satisfy some political constituency.” // Read More

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News

Walter Shapiro, from the campaign trail, on how the media’s lousy election analysis is damaging discourse // New republic

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Faiza Patel on Instagram’s removal of posts by Iranian journalists about the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani and what that says about Facebook’s new oversight board // Just security

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Theodore R. Johnson on how Black voters hold Biden and Buttegieg’s fate in their hands // guardian

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Yurij Rudensky on political parties’ fundraising to take control of 2021 redistricting // open secrets

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Gowri Ramachandran with Susannah Goodman of Common Cause on the lessons to take from the Iowa Caucus // just security

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Chisun Lee and Lawrence Norden ask why Gov. Andrew Cuomo is undermining the campaign reform he championed // ny daily news

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Jennifer Weiss-Wolf urges an end to a discriminatory “tampon tax” in Washington State. // seattle times

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Ángel Díaz on the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act before the New York City Council, which would bring transparency to the NYPD’s use of surveillance tools // city & state

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Have an issue you'd like us to cover? Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at [email protected]

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The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to reform, revitalize – and when necessary defend – our country’s systems of democracy and justice.



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