Yesterday, after several days of counting and verifying, a popular majority (and enough corresponding electoral votes) elected...

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Dear friends,

On Tuesday, millions of Americans across the country (who had safe access to a ballot or a polling place) exercised their constitutional right to vote. Yesterday, after several days of counting and verifying, a popular majority (and enough corresponding electoral votes) elected Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden as the 46th President of the United States. It was also a historic victory as Senator Kamala Harris broke through several barriers by becoming our nation's first female Vice President, our first Black Vice President, and our first South Asian Vice President. We are truly inspired by this important moment in history as well as the civic duty and actions of our fellow citizens who made sure that their voices were heard and their votes were counted.

Something else happened during this week’s election though: once again, responsibility for the fate of civil rights in our nation was disproportionately shouldered by BIPOC Americans. Once again, it was voters of color who swung the election in favor of Biden-Harris while the majority of white voters favored Trump. Voters in BIPOC communities steered this election: communities who are most impacted by the climate crisis, who are least protected - and often most harmed - by our judicial system, who are on the frontlines of both community mobilization and the fight for human rights and justice. Inspired by the civil rights movement, Our Children’s Trust has long fought for the rights of our youth plaintiffs, many from BIPOC communities, arguing in the courts that climate rights are human rights, and today we stand in solidarity and gratitude with the millions of BIPOC voters, community organizers, campaign staff, candidates, and volunteers who secured this week’s encouraging electoral
outcome.

However, while millions of American adults weighed in at the ballot box on Tuesday, most of our plaintiffs are children who are too young to vote. They must depend on the courts as their last line of defense to protect their rights, their lives, and their future. Therefore, just as we filed Juliana v. United States ([link removed]) against the Obama administration and continue to fight hard against the Trump administration, we will press forward to seek justice from the courts and ultimately from the Biden-Harris administration.

Despite clear evidence that their government is harming them by causing the rapidly worsening climate crisis, Trump’s DOJ argued the Constitution does not give youth access to the courts nor protect those rights, and placed Juliana first in a line of constitutional rights cases relegated to the “shadow docket”– a strategy for denying facts and truth. We hope that President Biden’s DOJ will choose justice and fairness in our courts and will shine a light on those cases, fighting alongside youth plaintiffs for fair and impartial trials of the evidence. A Biden-Harris DOJ can advocate for access to justice, re-opening the doors of our courthouses especially for the most disenfranchised: our children.

No president has ever taken the steps necessary to effectively combat climate change and even our Democrat presidents have continued to invest in fossil fuels that accelerate the climate crisis. We’d love to see the new Biden-Harris administration arrest this disastrous trend, beginning with how they defend the Juliana lawsuit. Our young plaintiffs deserve the right to a trial. We hope that the Biden-Harris administration will agree and reverse course on its defense of Juliana v. United States.

President-Elect Biden has a clear choice. He has repeatedly referred to climate change as an “existential threat” and has said that it is the “number one issue facing humanity.” We agree with those statements. Our nation’s children depend on those campaign trail promises becoming equally powerful actions by his administration to rectify the constitutional harm our government is causing. We are here to make sure that all three branches of our government uphold and protect the constitutional rights of the youngest among us and the generations yet to come.

This weekend, we celebrate the will of the people. Tomorrow we get back to work.

In solidarity,

The Team at Our Children’s Trust
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