Tonight’s presidential address will break sharply from our proudest traditions. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

[link removed]

Count me as one of the few who actually enjoys watching a presidential address to Congress. Years ago, when I was chief speechwriter for Bill Clinton, I would nervously hover backstage with the uniformed military officer who ran the teleprompter. For the last few minutes of the speech, though, I would slip away to the House floor. I would stand anonymously jammed into a throng of (usually) Republican congressmen. I loved the raw politics of it, the lawmakers cheering or braying or scowling, all the things that annoy most people.

It is a rare, enduring pageant of democracy. Viewership remains high. Citizens want to actually hear from their leaders directly. It is a chance, if nothing else, to see the three branches of government as people, not abstractions — checks and balances in the flesh.

All of which makes tonight’s address even more starkly, jarringly off. It comes days after the president essentially switched sides, aligning the United States with the aims of dictators.

For more than a century, ever since Woodrow Wilson began the practice of speaking to Congress and the country in person instead of in writing, presidents have used that pulpit to speak to our highest ideals. It has been a place, in particular, where presidents spoke to the country’s special role in the world — as a beacon of freedom, imperfect and hypocritical as that status often made us.

That podium is where Wilson set out his Fourteen Points for peace, speaking up against “force and selfish aggression.” Where Ronald Reagan proclaimed that “democracy is everywhere on the move.” Where Clinton called the United States the “indispensable nation” — to bipartisan applause.

Most apropos, Franklin Roosevelt stood there — and, yes, he stood, in 10 pounds of steel braces on his paralyzed legs — to proclaim that the United States stood for Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear. “Everywhere in the world.”

“That is no vision of a distant millennium,” Roosevelt said. “It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”

Roosevelt had surmounted the first “America First” movement, which had combined traditional isolationism with frank admiration for fascism.

Then there is the legislative branch. The Constitution requires the president to report to Congress on “the State of the Union.” This was actually one of many provisions designed to make clear that Congress — the subject of the document’s first article — was to be the preeminent branch of government. The framers emphatically did not want a king. In fact, Thomas Jefferson refused to give the speech in person not only because he was shy but because he thought it too closely resembled a British “speech from the throne.”

Decades of stagecraft have reduced the lawmakers to partisan cheering squads. When Donald Trump brags about supposed billions or trillions in waste found by Elon Musk and his colleagues, we can expect Republicans to roar. But will they be a little nervous? Do they want to cede their power on national television?

What Musk is doing is illegal. Congress has the power of the purse. Agencies such as USAID were created by statutes passed by Congress and signed into law by prior presidents. Chief executives cannot simply refuse to spend the money allocated to an agency or shut it down by firing its entire staff.

Then there is the Supreme Court, sitting berobed in the front row. The justices’ job is to remain silent. But previous addresses have reminded us how sharply politicized the Court has become. When Barack Obama (accurately) warned that the Citizens United decision, delivered only days earlier, would lead to a flood of corporate money in politics, Justice Samuel Alito mouthed (inaccurately) “Not true!” That misbegotten ruling gave us a government by Elon Musk.

Today, the Roberts Court’s credibility teeters. Its ruling last summer in Trump v. U.S. gave presidents vast immunity from accountability for legal wrongdoing. That decision, Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her scathing dissent, “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”

This term, the Court will face a test. A flotilla of cases is headed its way. Presumably, the justices will reject measures such as the purported end to birthright citizenship signed by the presidential Sharpie on the first day of Trump’s term. Will they do the harder work of making clear that presidents must follow the law and that Congress cannot be reduced to a mere advisory body? Will they embrace the radical version of a “unitary executive theory,” now pushed by the president’s lawyers, which says that the president has sole personal control over the entire executive branch, unconstrained by law?

By next year, we will know the answers to these questions. And we will know if the democratic experiment reflected in a constitutional requirement to report on the state of the union still stands.





“Show-Your-Papers” Rules Hurt Voters

In the 2024 election, Arizona was the only state to require Americans to show a birth certificate or passport when registering to vote. This requirement is currently illegal for federal elections. A Brennan Center analysis reveals that younger, nonwhite, independent voters in lower-income neighborhoods were the most likely to be excluded from state elections due to this rule. Arizona’s law mirrors a bill currently being pushed by House Republicans, although “the voter exclusion seen in Arizona likely understates the harm that could come from Congress passing the even harsher requirements proposed in the SAVE Act,” Kevin Morris and Arlyss Herzig write. Read more

[link removed]

North Carolina Voters Refuse to Be Silenced

Last week, the Brennan Center and co-counsel filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of overseas voters at risk of being disenfranchised by a North Carolina Supreme Court candidate. Jefferson Griffin is attempting to overturn his November 2024 election loss by asking the state to invalidate some 60,000 ballots, including those of military and overseas voters. Kendall Verhovek shares how voters are reacting to the case and the disastrous implications for democracy if Griffin’s challenge succeeds. READ MORE

[link removed]

DHS Intelligence Abuses Remain a Threat

The Department of Homeland Security has spent two years working to transform its lead intelligence unit, which has long been criticized for its targeted online surveillance of journalists and protesters. “This effort to break from a troubled past is commendable, but it ultimately does little to change the fundamental risk of abuse,” writes former DHS intelligence attorney Spencer Reynolds in Just Security. Given how easy it would be to reverse these modest internal reforms, Reynolds argues that it’s up to Congress to build a working intelligence oversight program into law. Read more

[link removed]

How Women Won the Right to Vote

Yesterday marked the 112th anniversary of the first national women’s suffrage procession, when thousands of women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to demand attention for their cause. This demonstration was a pivotal moment in the long, winding fight to enfranchise women. A new Brennan Center explainer takes a closer look at the history of the 19th Amendment, the key figures who helped secure its passage, and the decades of post-ratification struggles to ensure that all American women could exercise their hard-won right to vote. READ MORE

[link removed]

Judge Shopping, Explained

Three state attorneys general have revived a federal lawsuit seeking to ban medication abortion, and once again, the case will be heard in the courtroom of a self-proclaimed abortion opponent in the small town of Amarillo, Texas. But how did this case end up there, and how can one judge have the power to decide an issue with national consequences? Alice Clapman details the practice of judge shopping and its consequences for the legitimacy and impartiality of federal courts. READ MORE

[link removed]

A Call to Defend HBCUs

Sixty years ago this week, the brutal police assault on civil rights activists marching in Selma, Alabama, changed the course of the fight for voting rights. Historically Black colleges and universities (HCBUs) were central to these struggles. Today, HBCUs and other groups and institutions that built our modern multiracial democracy are facing serious threats from unstable funding, anti-voter policies, and executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Political attacks on their vitality should also be seen as attacks on the future of American democracy,” Chelsea Jones writes. READ MORE

[link removed]

Racial Turnout Gap Widens in Alabama

Our elections also appear to be reflecting the fallout of the assaults on voting rights. A new Brennan Center analysis shows that the gap between white and Black voter turnout hit a 16-year high in Alabama’s 2024 elections, and Black turnout in the state has dropped to the lowest point since before the Obama era. “The loss of voting protections and the growth of the racial turnout gap brings Alabama closer to an ignoble past rather than a democracy equally open to all citizens,” Coryn Grange writes. READ MORE

[link removed]

PODCAST: A Presidential Lawbreaking Spree

Our latest podcast episode breaks down Trump’s lawbreaking spree, how courts have responded, and what should happen next according to the rule of law. The panelists include Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center Liberty and National Security Program; Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center Voting Rights Program; Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center Elections and Government Program; Barton Gellman, a senior adviser at the Brennan Center; and Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center. Listen on Spotify

[link removed]

, Apple Podcasts

[link removed]

, or your favorite podcast platform

[link removed]

, or watch it on YouTube

[link removed]

.





News

Douglas Keith on the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election // AXIOS

[link removed]

Michael Li on attacks on the Voting Rights Act // DEMOCRACY DOCKET

[link removed]

Eliza Sweren-Becker on who could be impacted by the SAVE Act // CBS NEWS

[link removed]

Daniel Weiner on the risks of politicizing the National Archives // ASSOCIATED PRESS

[link removed]

Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]







[link removed]

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

120 Broadway, Suite 1750 New York, NY 10271

646-292-8310

tel:646-292-8310

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Support Brennan Center

[link removed]

View Online

[link removed]

Want to change how you receive these emails or unsubscribe? Click here

[link removed]

to update your preferences.

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]