Recent battles show how far some will go to suppress the vote. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

[link removed]

This past week reminds us that history is rarely neat, often scary, and requires courage and determination to bend the universe toward justice.

About 30 colleagues represented the Brennan Center in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, to mark the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. That was the peaceful march led by young John Lewis, met with police and vigilante violence. The televised assault provoked national outrage, which led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[link removed]

“The visit to Montgomery was a meaningful one not just because of the 60th anniversary of the march, but because of the flood of new efforts seeking to erase and reverse the progress achieved by the people who crossed the bridge in 1965,” said Kareem Crayton, who led the Brennan Center’s group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge this past Sunday.

Today’s fight to vote does not involve police batons or snarling dogs. Rather, it is embodied in laws and legislation, court rulings, firings of election security officials, and attacks on voting advocates.

It unfolds in courtrooms, of course: Those working to suppress the vote are currently trying to convince federal courts that citizens are not allowed to seek redress under the Voting Rights Act when their freedom to vote is violated. One federal appeals court has already embraced that radical view.

We see it in firings: The new administration dismissed the entire set of officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who worked on protecting elections from attack, clearing a path for malevolent foreign or domestic actors to try to manipulate the voting system.

It even happens in job interviews. Candidates for top administration positions are asked whether they believe in the Big Lie that Donald Trump really won the 2020 election — the conspiracy theory used to justify voting restrictions.

The pace seems to be accelerating. This week, President Trump signed an executive order

[link removed]

aimed at a law firm, Perkins Coie. The order revokes the security clearance of its employees, bars them from federal buildings, and threatens investigations of companies that hire the firm. Among other justifications, the order cites Perkins Coie’s litigation to stop voter suppression.

It’s hard to think of a clearer application of inappropriate government power, plainly aiming to chill free speech and scare the legal community to force it to back off from defending the rule of law.

Today’s voter restrictions can come on the floor of Congress too. The House will soon vote on the SAVE Act, which would essentially require citizens to produce a passport or birth certificate to be able to register (or re-register) to vote. At least 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents. The measure would essentially eliminate registration online, by mail, or through registration drives. It would be the worst voting bill ever enacted by Congress.

Congress can provide a positive answer instead. Rep. Terry Sewell (D-AL) last week introduced an updated version of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This legislation would restore the full strength of that law after it was gutted by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder. It would apply current data to protect voting rights all over the country. That’s the right way for Congress to address voting: with facts, not fear.

Today’s fight to vote does not yet call on us to show the physical bravery displayed by the heroes on the Edmund Pettus Bridge 60 years ago. The barriers they faced were much more severe than those of today. But it summons each of us to action nevertheless.

At the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke before the Alabama State House. In a less-remembered part of that remarkable oration, King explained that the Jim Crow system was rooted not merely in racism but in raw political and economic calculus of the robber baron–dominated 1890s.

“The threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike resulted in the establishing of a segregated society,” King said. “They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; they segregated southern churches from Christianity; they segregated southern minds from honest thinking, and they segregated the Negro from everything.”

The fight to vote, King understood, went well beyond the technical matter of the franchise to the wider question of what kind of government we had and what kind of society we would live in. How long would progress take, he asked. “Not long, because no lie can live forever.”





How Redistricting Can Boost Black Representation

Since the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the gap in voter turnout between white and Black Americans has consistently widened. But a new Brennan Center analysis reveals that enforcing the law’s remaining protections can make a real difference in boosting Black voter participation. In Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, the creation of new Black-majority districts ahead of the 2024 elections increased Black voters’ participation by as much as 6 percentage points — highlighting just how crucial it is to uphold voting rights protections. Read more

[link removed]

State Supreme Court Races to Watch

Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are the only states holding races this year for seats on their supreme courts, and both are shaping up to be the most expensive and high-stakes judicial contests of all time, Douglas Keith writes in State Court Report. The elections, which could flip the ideological majorities on the high courts, could impact the fate of abortion rights and other hot-button issues. National donors are pouring millions into the races, including $6 million that groups affiliated with Elon Musk have spent in Wisconsin. Read more

[link removed]

The AI Threat to Elections

The 2024 elections demonstrated that artificial intelligence is already shaping the information ecosystem. Over time, the misuse of generative AI tools could undermine public trust in elections by making it harder to distinguish fact from fiction. “Without decisive action, AI-fueled deception could become an enduring feature of political campaigns,” Shanze Hasan and Abdiaziz Ahmed write. Read more

[link removed]

What’s Wrong with El Salvador’s Prison Proposal

El Salvador’s proposal to receive Americans currently held in the United States and incarcerate them in an El Salvadoran prison would be both unprecedented in modern history and flagrantly illegal — something President Donald Trump himself acknowledged to reporters. It would also almost certainly violate the Eighth Amendment. “In the best-case scenario, this offer goes down in history as a public performance of world leaders who are known for their populist and authoritarian tendencies, in addition to their belief that reducing or eliminating civil liberties will reduce crime,” Lauren-Brooke Eisen writes in Just Security. Read more

[link removed]





Coming Up

VIRTUAL PARTNER EVENT: Ethical Challenges Facing Government Lawyers

[link removed]

Wednesday, March 19, 6–7:30 p.m. ET



Recent weeks have seen a series of high-profile resignations of career federal government lawyers faced with demands from new supervisors that they believed would violate their ethical obligations. Many are now asking about how they can and should respond in such situations. This event will bring together legal ethics scholars and lawyers with government experience to address the ethical issues arising under the new Trump administration.



To protect the privacy of those attending, the names of audience members will not be displayed, and questions for the Q&A portion of the event can be submitted anonymously. RSVP today

[link removed]



Produced in partnership with New York City Bar Association

Want to keep up with Brennan Center Live events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.

[link removed]





News

Mike German on FBI overreach in New York City // THE AMERICAN PROSPECT

[link removed]

Hernandez Stroud on receivership proposals for NYC’s Rikers Island jail // THE NEW YORK TIMES

[link removed]

Eliza Sweren-Becker on the disputed North Carolina Supreme Court election // THE ATLANTIC

[link removed]

Derek Tisler on federal government support for election security // THE HILL

[link removed]

Michael Waldman on the unitary executive theory // THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

[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]