Hi John,

 

The work of Lawyers Defending American Democracy is focused on protecting our democratic institutions and the rule of law. A core part of that work is seeking to hold lawyers and public officials accountable for violating their oath to protect the Constitution of the United States. That is, after all, the bare minimum that should be expected.

 

Beyond that, however, we should also expect those who hold the keys to our justice and political systems to act with integrity and honor. Misleading the public, making false statements, and even creating controversies where none exists should be called out by all of us. That is a part of what LDAD works to accomplish.

 

Increasingly, the language of politics and government has become a mash-up of obfuscation and pitched emotion that misleads the public and thwarts reasoned conversation. For example, amid all the shouting about “critical race theory” in the recent elections, how many could define the term? And how did the fear-mongering manage to drown out the importance of learning about the history and continuing legacy of slavery?

And why is it that the terms “woke” and “cancel culture” have now become buzzwords used to resist governance?  Legislative or executive proposals about, for example, the role of government in ending the pandemic through vaccine requirements or in passing legislation to protect the right to vote, are met with angry tweets about “woke mobs” and then the invocation of something being “cancelled,” resulting in the substitution of hysteria for reasoned conversation.

 

The need for direct and open dialogue will never become obsolete. Yet the forces that exist today to foster negative emotions, deny reality, and change facts is as challenging as it has ever been in our history. 

We must push back on efforts to eliminate normative behaviors that have long stood the test of time. Our democracy – indeed, human decency – depends on our insistence that there are standards of behavior to which public officials and those in the legal profession must adhere. Insults and lies should never be dismissed as unimportant or, even worse, what one would expect from the person spreading the falsehood.

We hope you will join us in our efforts. 

This is our second LDAD newsletter, and it again includes a focus on Democracy Heroes and Democracy Threats, where we seek to recognize behaviors that should serve as role models and call out behaviors that endanger our democracy. 

We also hope you will donate to LDAD and join us on our journey as we seek to preserve our democracy for future generations. This is not a drill.

 

Lauren Stiller Rikleen

Interim Executive Director

 

 

Our democracy requires a spirit of decency, civility and unity with a common purpose for our common good, that we resolve our differences by seeking and speaking truth, and that we hold free and fair elections and respect their outcomes. 

 

Citizen Crusaders – Heroes of American Democracy 

 

A young Michigan woman’s effort to reach out on Facebook after the 2016 election led to the formation of a group of concerned citizens who challenged the partisan gerrymandering in Michigan that they felt needed to be changed. Their focused efforts led to the passage of Proposition 2, a ballot initiative that passed in 2018, creating an independent commission to undertake the usually highly politicized task of redistricting.  

 

The Independent Commission, comprised of 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans and 5 independents, was tasked with creating redistricting maps under criteria designed to promote fairness and transparency, focusing, for example, on:

• Compliance with all federal laws. 
• Geographically contiguous and reasonably compact boundaries.
• Reflecting the state’s diversity and communities of interest.
• No disproportionate advantage to either political party, incumbent, or candidate.

Experts have praised the draft maps for their effort to bring balance and competitiveness to the voting process. States that have created independent commissions designed to avoid the shockingly partisan gerrymandering currently taking place in several states should be supported and emulated for their efforts to protect the right to vote.

Threatening Death and Bodily Injury to Election Officials – Democracy Threats

 

An investigation of efforts to intimidate local election officials following the 2020 election revealed 102 instances where supporters of former President Trump in eight states threatened death or violence against state and local election officials, based on unfounded claims of election fraud. As a result of the threats, Republican and Democratic election officials are quitting, seeking police protection, and fleeing to safe havens to escape threats of violence to themselves, their spouses, their children and their elderly parents. 

 

To address these increased threats against election workers, the Department of Justice launched a law enforcement task force to investigate efforts to intimidate public officials and employees trying to do the difficult job of running a fair election process in a time of virulent partisan divide. 

As the investigations develop, experts have reported that the threats are credible and unprecedented in number. It is unconscionable that officials at the local level are at risk for simply carrying out their role in the election administration process. As more states pass laws that would politicize the oversight of elections, the most fundamental aspect of democracy – the right to vote – is at risk.

 

 

Lawyers Defending American Democracy
303 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210
United States

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