Next week’s voting rights case before the Supreme Court could have broad implications for the fairness of our democracy.
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Brennan Center for Justice
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Photograph of the United States Supreme Court Building, surrounded by metal safety barriers with an officer standing guard in the foreground
Next Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a challenge to a pair of Arizona policies that make it harder for people to vote, especially in Black, Latino, and Native American communities. The case likely won’t just affect voters in Arizona — it could have broad implications for the fairness of our democracy across the country because of what the decision might mean for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This explainer breaks down what’s at stake and why the Brennan Center and other groups are urging the court to enforce and preserve the law’s protections.
TAKE ACTION: Next week, the House will vote on the For the People Act, the most broad and sweeping democracy reform and civil rights legislation our country has seen in 50 years. Learn more about how this historic bill could stop voter suppression, end partisan gerrymandering, and lift up the voices of everyday Americans.
It’s been a good week for the movement to restore voting rights to people who have been convicted of a crime. Legislative chambers in New York and Washington State both advanced bills that, if passed, would automatically restore voting rights to all people with criminal convictions who are on probation or parole. And a bill introduced in the Senate today would do the same for all federal elections. Laws that disenfranchise people with criminal convictions have racist origins, and codifying the right to vote for all people living in our communities is good policy and the right thing to do.
The Electoral College is an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes grants the presidency to the loser of the nationwide popular vote. It dilutes the political power of voters of color and incentivizes presidential campaigns to focus on a relatively small number of “swing states.” This explainer takes a deep dive into exactly how the Electoral College works, how it was shaped by slavery, and the potential pathways to reform.
In the wake of controversial pardons by Donald Trump, Brennan Center Fellow Caroline Fredrickson recently testified before a House panel for a hearing about how to prevent abuse of the clemency power. When used as intended, the presidential pardon is a powerful tool for justice. But it can also be a tool of greed and perversion if used inappropriately and contrary to its purpose. Congress is right to take up the task of restoring the pardon to its status as a benevolent power.
Some 45 million Americans now owe a total of $1.7 trillion in student loan debt, a figure that has doubled in the last 10 years. To really address the student debt crisis, we need to consider all the factors that have pushed our country to the edge of a student loan debt cliff — including the role of private money in politics. While financial institutions and for-profit colleges wield outsized influence in our elections and advance their agendas in Washington, it’s not a coincidence that meaningful action to address rapidly rising student indebtedness has been stalled in Congress.
As the Biden administration grapples with the menace of far-right violence, they will be tempted to turn to the counterterrorism template developed in response to the attacks of 9/11. But that template led to Muslims, minorities, and movements for justice bearing the brunt of the domestic “war on terror.” Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from the response to 9/11 is that overreach can be just as dangerous as underreach. It’s a lesson our lawmakers must heed, especially as some are poised to make it again.

 
This Week on Instagram
Illustration and text: THE VOTING RIGHTS ACTIVIST Fannie Lou Hamer above a drawn picture of Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer, born in 1917, was a passionate voting rights activist from Mississippi. When she went to register to vote in 1962, she was denied due to a discriminatory literacy test... Read more on Instagram >>
 

 
Virtual Events
Speaker portraits of Jamal Greene and Alicia Bannon
 
How Rights Went Wrong with Jamal Greene
Thursday, March 25 | 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. ET
How is it that corporations can spend unlimited sums in our elections, but a Black defendant has no right to a ruling free of racial bias? Why does a company have the right to sell private prescription data, but marginalized children don’t have the right to an adequate public education? In his new book, How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart, constitutional scholar Jamal Greene argues that courts should reconcile competing rights, not discriminate between them. In this conversation, he’ll discuss how the United States became so “rightsist,” and how we can shift this paradigm to truly ensure justice, once and for all. RSVP today.
 

 
What We’re Reading
Laura Hecht-Felella, Katz Fellow in the Brennan Center's Liberty & National Security Program, recommends “Treasury Watchdog Warns of Government’s Use of Cellphone Data Without Warrants.” The article looks at the way cell phone data is used by law enforcement, and raises questions about its legality.
 
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to reform, revitalize – and when necessary defend – our country’s systems of democracy and justice.

 
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