Your weekly source for analysis and insight from experts at the Brennan Center for Justice
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The Briefing
Today was a big day at the Capitol.
Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, introduced the Freedom to Vote Act. The bill is a successor to the popular For the People Act, which passed the House in March but hit a Republican brick wall in the Senate. It is a strong bill that should be passed without hesitation by all members of Congress.
This bill has new momentum — real momentum. It’s our best chance for democracy reform in years. Sponsors with Klobuchar include several Democratic colleagues, including, yes, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He worked intensively on this over recent weeks. According to NBC News, President Biden has said he’ll work to change filibuster rules to pass this bill.
The stakes couldn’t be higher.
The legislation protects millions of Americans’ access to the ballot box and will make it easier for citizens to cast a ballot in a secure but convenient way. Every state would be required to have automatic voter registration. Election Day would become a federal holiday. Every eligible citizen could request a mail ballot and drop it off at a secure drop box if they so desire.
The Freedom to Vote Act also advances civil rights and racial justice. It restores federal voting rights to returning citizens who have been released from prison after serving their sentences. The bill includes targeted protections to ensure underserved and vulnerable communities, such as those with disabilities and Native Americans, aren’t disenfranchised through no fault of their own.
It addresses the flood of undisclosed “dark money” into the electoral process and creates the option for matching funds for House candidates when states opt in, modernizing and expanding federal campaign finance reforms passed in previous decades.
And — perhaps most time-sensitive of them all — as states begin to draw their voting maps for the next decade, the legislation bans partisan gerrymandering and makes it easier for judges to strike down maps that unfairly entrench one political party in power and deny communities of color fair representation.
I cannot express how critical this piece of legislation is. Legislatures in nearly half of the states have passed laws that make it harder for eligible voters to cast a ballot. The politicians claim it’s all about “election integrity.” In fact, it’s about preserving power as America diversifies and advancing Trump’s Big Lie of a stolen election. In the California recall election, for example, Republican candidates and operatives are already alleging voter fraud before all the votes have even been cast. Why wait?
Just last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed S.B. 1 into law. This dangerous and sweeping law makes it harder for voters with language barriers or who have disabilities to get the help they need to cast their ballot. It also threatens poll workers with criminal prosecution if they try to stop partisan poll watchers from harassing and intimidating voters. It’s the most extreme of the voting restrictions passed by legislatures this year.
Lawsuits like ours are important. But there’s no substitute for strong national standards.
Will Congress have the political will to act? Will the White House put its muscle behind Biden’s statement that this is the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War? The coming weeks will tell. But for right now, this is a breakthrough and a momentum boost — and we are closer than we have ever been to the most significant democracy reform bill in a half century.
Constitution
Police Social Media Surveillance
The Brennan Center has released a trove of internal LAPD documents, revealing a department of officers collecting social media account handles when conducting stops, allowing officers to create fake accounts to pursue cases, and purchasing new surveillance tools that track hashtags and harvest profile information. “Law enforcement should not have a free pass to broadly trawl the internet without accountability or oversight. Communities in Los Angeles and elsewhere must demand transparency in and limits around social media monitoring practices,” Mary Pat Dwyer writes. // Read More
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Democracy
Don’t Judge a District by Its Shape
Oddly shaped voting districts have become synonymous with anti-democratic and partisan gerrymandering. People are right to be wary, but that particular suspicion can prove misleading. As redistricting gets underway, Julia Boland and Yurij Rudensky present examples of congressional districts to encourage followers of redistricting not to judge a book by its cover. “Just because a district has neat and regular looking district lines doesn’t mean it isn’t a gerrymander. In fact, some of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps don’t have any odd-looking districts at all,” they write. // Read More
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Texas’s Unconstitutional Abortion Ban
The Supreme Court has created a rule-of-law crisis by refusing to block Texas’s extreme new abortion restrictions while the legislation is being litigated. Madiba Dennie discusses the implications of this radical turn by the Court, which abdicated its duty to protect constitutional rights. “By accepting the state’s blueprint, the Court has instructed legislative bodies across the country that they may infringe on bodily autonomy if they craft their laws just right,” she writes. // Read More
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Justice
The Daily Storm of Life at a Women’s Prison
The prison system as a whole suffers from problematic incentives and dehumanizing practices, but incarcerated people at women’s prisons often have to endure especially harsh conditions. In the latest essay in our Punitive Excess series
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, Brennan Center fellow and formerly incarcerated writer Asia Johnson shares her experiences and thoughts on the gender disparities in the criminal justice system. “America has a tragic obsession with vengeance and punishment. This infatuation continues to ruin the lives of both men and women all over the country,” she writes. // Read More
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Coming Up
VIRTUAL EVENT: The People’s Constitution
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Tuesday, September 21 // 5:30–6:30 p.m. ET
Who wrote the Constitution? That's obvious, we think: 55 men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of 27 amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. Join the Brennan Center’s Wilfred Codrington and John Kowal as they discuss their new book, The People’s Constitution: 200 Years, 27 Amendments, and the Promise of a More Perfect Union
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RSVP today
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Produced in partnership with the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy at Federal Hall
VIRTUAL EVENT: National Security, Personal Liberty, and 9/11
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Thursday, September 23 // 12–1 p.m. ET
Twenty years after the attack, learn about what’s lost, what’s won, and what threatens us now. How have the events of 9/11 permanently altered the political landscape, the military landscape, and our right to privacy? Join moderator John Avlon, senior political analyst at CNN, as he discusses these questions and more with panelists Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, and Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump
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RSVP today
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Produced in partnership with the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy at Federal Hall
Want to keep up with Brennan Center events? Subscribe to the events newsletter.
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News
Michael German on post-9/11 intelligence “fusion centers” // NBC NEWS
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Rachel Levinson-Waldman on police use of social media // GUARDIAN
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Lawrence Norden on Arizona’s new election laws // CNN
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Faiza Patel on NYPD abuse of post-9/11 surveillance tech // NEW YORK TIMES
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Yurij Rudensky on redistricting in Missouri // NPR
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Joanna Zdanys on reforming the NYC Board of Elections // NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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Have an issue you'd like us to cover? Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at
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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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