Dear John,
We are living through an all-hands-on-deck moment. LDAD is doing everything it can – and calling on the aid of many additional hands – to respond.
As we reported in August, LDAD filed an amicus brief in an important case challenging President Trump’s Executive Order that would have restricted the number of citizens who could register to vote in federal elections by requiring documentary proof of citizenship.
LDAD is pleased to report that the federal district court in DC recently agreed with the Plaintiffs, finding the Executive Order was an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers, as the Constitution gives only Congress the federal authority to regulate elections. LDAD’s brief argued that if the court found the documentary evidence requirement unconstitutional, the needed remedy - in order to provide complete relief - was to enjoin the implementation of the requirement nationwide. In its argument, LDAD distinguished this matter from the universal injunctions barred in the Supreme Court’s CASA decision.
Our advocacy work continues in a variety of other ways:
LDAD co-founder and board member Gershon (“Gary”) Ratner was one of several distinguished lawyers participating in a panel at the American Bar Association’s 50th National Conference on Professional Responsibility. The panel was entitled: How to Proceed? Addressing the Public’s Interest and the Profession’s Concern When Discipline Complaints are Based on Public Information. Gary’s remarks provide critically important context for LDAD’s pioneering work filing carefully researched ethics complaints against lawyers who may have committed significant ethics violations arising from matters that threaten our constitutional democracy and the rule of law. Please click here to read Gary’s presentation.
Barbara Jaffe, a volunteer for Lawyers Defending American Democracy and a retired justice of the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, wrote an important article that demonstrates why we need the voice of lawyers in defense of judges facing unprecedented attacks: Judges Face Rising Threats but are Barred from Responding (first published in Our Town, the local paper for the Upper East Side and republished in Staten Island’s Silive.com).
LDAD volunteer and former New York County Lawyers Association president James B. Kobak Jr. describes how the system of checks and balances, so carefully conceived by the nation’s founders, is in grave danger in this article published in the Fulcrum: Congress Dormant, Courts Undermined: Why America’s Checks and Balances Are in Crisis.
Colin E. Moriarty, a partner at Moriarty Underhill LLC and a volunteer with LDAD, described how George Washington continues to teach leadership lessons that have stood the test of time: What Washington’s Humble Grave Reveals About American Exceptionalism and the Rule of Law.
If you have not already done so, please sign in support of the federal court judges who continue to do their jobs, despite the barrage of threats and insults they face daily, and notwithstanding Supreme Court Justices who use the Shadow Docket to overrule their detailed findings, acting without transparency, without briefing, and without oral argument. The names of signers will not be released, but we hope to report that thousands of you took a moment to recognize how these federal court judges and court support personnel are standing up for the rule of law.
Thank you,
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
P.S. We are grateful for your support of our efforts and hope you will consider donating to LDAD’s important work.
