In the aftermath of high-profile white supremacist attacks, new domestic terrorism bills would mistakenly give Attorney General William Barr broad discretion to lay domestic terrorism charges against anti-Trump protesters for conduct as inconsequential as vandalism.

As Brennan Center fellow and former undercover FBI agent Michael German explains, it’s easy for Congress to overreact in the face of tragedy, as it did by passing the Patriot Act after 9/11. But members of Congress should understand that federal prosecutors already have the authority to prosecute these cases of deadly white supremacist violence as terrorism, but rarely do. Congress should instead focus on finding out why the Justice Department chooses not to prioritize these cases rather than creating new laws that can be abused.

The Federal Election Commission — the agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws — has long been derided as dysfunctional. Last week, Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen announced his resignation, edging it closer to nonfunctional, too. With yet another vacancy, the FEC doesn’t even have enough people to implement key campaign finance reforms before the 2020 election, leaving our democracy vulnerable to foreign interference once again.

A U.S. appeals court ruled in our favor and rebuked a new Indiana law that sought to aggressively cancel voter registrations, agreeing with a lower court ruling that blocked the law last year. Indiana’s 2017 purge law comes as a part of a wave of similar laws nationwide that the Brennan Center is working to stop.

Does our Constitution have a breaking point? Join civil liberties lawyer Burt Neuborne and NYU Law professors Adam Samaha and Rachel Barkow for a discussion on the limits and resiliency of American democracy.

• September 12, 2019 at 6 PM
• Greenberg Lounge /Vanderbilt Hall
  NYU School of Law
  40 Washington Square South
  New York, NY 10012
• RSVP today!