Your weekly source for analysis and insight from experts at the Brennan Center for Justice
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The Briefing
The fight for voting rights got a major boost yesterday. In a speech commemorating the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, President Biden announced that Vice President Harris will lead the administration’s efforts to protect the vote — including its fight for vital reform legislation.
Recent events made clear the stakes.
On Friday, Republican senators blocked the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 assault on the Capitol. In February, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had declared of the rioters, “They’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election.” The measure to create the commission won 54 votes. But because of a Senate filibuster which McConnell orchestrated, it failed.
Then, over the weekend, the Texas Legislature hurtled toward the enactment of its own voter suppression law. The bill would impose penalties, for example, on local officials who took steps to make it easier for citizens to vote. It would cut back on voting the Sunday before the election, the day that Black churches organize “souls to the polls” drives. (A typo, sponsors claimed.) Then, at the last minute, sponsors inserted language that would let partisan judges reverse the result of an election without any proof of fraud.
In Austin, the Democrats fought back. Early Sunday morning, they slipped out of the chamber, denying a quorum and killing the bill, for now at least. The governor has vowed to call a special session to pass voting restrictions — not a good look.
Donald Trump’s Big Lie rolls on. According to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Trump tells acquaintances he will be “reinstated” by August. (And I am the Emperor Napoleon. But I digress.)
Driven by that lie, voter suppression bills are becoming voter suppression laws. According to a new Brennan Center analysis
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, lawmakers have enacted more than 20 laws in 14 states that will make it harder for Americans to vote. At least 61 more bills with restrictive provisions are moving through 18 state legislatures. All told, lawmakers have introduced at least 389 restrictive bills in 48 states this year.
After their dramatic maneuver, Texas Democrats pleaded for help from the nation’s capital. “Mr. President, we need a national response to federal voting rights,” said State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer. The Democrats in Texas took a stand and upended their legislature to fight for voting rights. But will Democrats in DC show the same resolve and panache?
The weekend’s drama seems to have concentrated minds in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer announced that the Senate will vote later this month on S. 1, the For the People Act. The bill would roll back or block many of the voting restrictions passed by state legislatures across the country and create a national baseline for voting rights.
In Tulsa, Biden set out the urgent moral stakes. By tasking Harris with protecting voting rights, he summoned the most senior official in decades to take on the job of protecting democracy. His move should put any wavering Senate Democrat on notice that it is past time to get on board with these critical voting rights protections. She is the right person at the right level for the task at hand. And with S. 1 headed for a vote in just a few weeks, there’s no time to waste.
Democracy
Arizona Bill Would Refer Mismatched Mail Ballot Signatures to Prosecutors
Arizona legislators are pushing a bill that would turn allegedly mismatched signatures on mail ballots into potential criminal cases. Variation in signatures — a common and generally harmless occurrence — should not subject voters to the threat of prosecution. “This bill takes the Republican obsession with imagined election fraud to the next level, and the resulting fear of prosecution will deter people from exercising their right to vote,” writes Marian K. Schneider. // Read More
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The GOP’s Resistance to Campaign Finance Reforms
At a recent Senate hearing on the For the People Act, opponents of the landmark democracy reform bill repeatedly attacked provisions that would overhaul the Federal Election Commission, the nation’s troubled campaign finance regulator. “In reality, the bill’s changes are fairly modest, and unlikely to result in the commission being weaponized against either party,” writes Daniel I. Weiner. “But they will make it a more functional body capable of enforcing the law as written.” // Read More
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Justice
What Did You Call Me?
Dehumanizing language has played a role in the rise of mass incarceration. The term “inmate,” for example, helped balloon the country’s prison population to more than 2.3 million, writes Rahsaan “New York” Thomas in the latest essay in the Brennan Center’s Punitive Excess
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series. “I believe we allowed mass incarceration to happen right in front of our faces because we lost sight that prisons contain people,” says Thomas, who is currently incarcerated. “We didn’t care about ‘inmates,’ because we forgot they’re human beings.” // Read More
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Constitution
The Postal Service’s Covert Internet Surveillance Program
Last week, the House Oversight Committee submitted a bipartisan request asking for an investigation into the Postal Service’s surveillance of Americans’ social media posts about protests. Constitutional law experts have raised questions about whether the Postal Service has the jurisdiction to conduct this sort of sweeping surveillance. “Whether they think they have authority or not, it’s wholly inappropriate for the post office to be monitoring protests, it falls so far beyond their mandate,” said Faiza Patel. // Yahoo News
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Coming Up
VIRTUAL EVENT: After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made
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Monday, June 7, 2021 // 12:00 p.m.–12:45 p.m. ET
In his new memoir, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made
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, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor under President Obama, shares insights from politicians, activists, and dissidents around the world who have been on the frontlines of the fight against authoritarianism and ethnonationalism. While clear-eyed about how the United States has contributed to these global trends, he offers a vision of how the country can usher in a brighter future. RSVP today
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This event is produced in partnership with New York University's John Brademas Center.
VIRTUAL EVENT: Racism and the American Promise: Theodore R. Johnson with Leah Wright Rigueur
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Wednesday, June 9, 2021 // 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. ET
In his new book, When the Stars Begin to Fall
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, Brennan Center Senior Fellow Theodore R. Johnson lays out the case that national solidarity is the path toward diminishing racism and that a blueprint for national solidarity can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. In this virtual book talk, Johnson will discuss his faith in the American project and an urgent call to overcome what has long seemed intractable. RSVP today
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This event is produced in partnership with The New York Public Library.
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News
Alicia Bannon on the lack of diversity on state supreme courts // NowThis
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Elizabeth Goitein on efforts to block the release of a 2019 DOJ memo relating to Trump and the Mueller investigation // The Hill
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Ames Grawert on potential factors behind the recent rise in homicides in large cities // New Republic
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Myrna Pérez on the link between the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act // Huffington Post
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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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