Can Biden stop democracy’s backslide? Plus: DOJ sues Texas over gerrymandering, DC’s posse problem, and more.

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Tomorrow, President Biden will host a global summit on democracy. It is a pared-down version of the original planned gathering. Instead of a grand meeting hall, delegates will gather on Zoom. (Unmute yourself, Mr. Prime Minister.) Still, Biden’s core insight is right: the world is dividing into a camp of authoritarians facing a community of liberal democracies.

But it is more than a little awkward for the United States to host this summit right now. An assault on democracy is underway in our country, an assault every bit as unnerving as the rollbacks in places such as Hungary and Poland, Turkey and the Philippines. Indeed, according to Freedom House, our country is backsliding.

We all know the facts. The Big Lie pushed by the former president and his millions of followers. Laws to cut back on voting targeted at racial minorities. Gerrymandering designed, as the Justice Department just alleged

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in a lawsuit against Texas, to choke off the political voice of Latinos. A systematic drive to remove the obstacles to the theft of the 2024 presidential election. What would we say if this were happening in another country?

A group of 150 top scholars of American democracy issued an alarming call to action

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just before Thanksgiving. “Defenders of democracy in America still have a slim window of opportunity to act,” they wrote. “But time is ticking away, and midnight is approaching. To lose our democracy but preserve the filibuster in its current form — in which a minority can block popular legislation without even having to hold the [Senate] floor — would be a short-sighted blunder that future historians will forever puzzle over. The remarkable history of the American system of government is replete with critical, generational moments in which liberal democracy itself was under threat, and Congress asserted its central leadership role in proving that a system of free and fair elections can work.”

There’s no substitute for presidential leadership at a moment like this. The presidential bully pulpit can be overrated. Chief executives, especially ones with wobbly polling like Biden, cannot simply summon a torrent of public opinion for a preferred policy. But presidents can help set agendas and focus the attention of political and media elites. President Biden, despite his weakened political standing, can point his party and its lawmakers to the need to act.

Big legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act doesn’t pass without a champion to set the agenda and break the inertia. President Biden’s summit presents a golden opportunity to acknowledge that our democracy is in crisis. It’s time for everyone in Washington to declare which side they’re on. Unmute yourself, Mr. President.

This year's election sabotage scheme makes one thing clear: our democracy can’t wait. We’re facing a critical moment to protect free and fair elections. Donate now and join the fight for voting rights.

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Democracy

Breaking Down the Texas Gerrymander

The Department of Justice announced yesterday that it is suing Texas, alleging that the state’s redistricting plan violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Michael Li and Julia Boland describe just how Texas did it, their changes in strategy from the last redistricting round, and what it will take to ensure fair representation in the state. “While Texans wait on courts and Congress, Texas will have one of the least competitive maps in the nation, and its booming communities of color once again will be shut out of their fair share of power,” they write. Read more

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The Fight For Fair Maps Comes to Ohio

Tomorrow, the Ohio Supreme Court will hear arguments in Ohio Organizing Collaborative v. Ohio Redistricting Commission, a case brought by the Brennan Center and our partners challenging unfairly gerrymandered state legislative maps, which the commission adopted in violation of a 2015 constitutional amendment. Two new Brennan Center analyses feature the perspectives of two of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs — the Ohio Environmental Council

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and the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Ohio) — on why they’re fighting these unfair maps. “Ohioans, particularly members of religious and racial minority communities, deserve maps that work for the collective good rather than the interests of one political party. It is now up to the Ohio Supreme Court to ensure that this becomes reality,” CAIR-Ohio’s Tala Dahbour writes. Read more

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Constitution

DC Needs Control Over Its National Guard

Congress is expected to pass its annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as lawmakers work to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill. Elizabeth Goitein and Joseph Nunn explain how, in stark contrast to the other 53 National Guards in the United States, the DC National Guard is entirely under the president’s command. This raises serious concerns about opportunities for presidential abuse of military power and the limits to action in situations like the Capitol insurrection. The House version of the NDAA would grant the nation’s capital control over its own National Guard — lawmakers must pass a final version of the bill that does so as well. “If they do that, they will have performed a valuable service for our democracy and for the city in which it sits,” they write. Read more

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Fellows

Money in Politics, A Year in Review

2021 was an eventful year for the influence of money in politics. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy presents 21 lessons from the last year on the state of American campaign finance, from growing corporate influence to the risks posed to crucial regulations, and looks ahead to 2022. “Hopefully in the new year, corporations will back democracy more robustly, including by supporting the passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” she writes. Read more

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News

Michael Li on gerrymandering in the suburbs // NEW YORK TIMES

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Daniel Weiner on Trump’s “unusual” funding of Republican candidates // DAILY BEAST

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Wendy Weiser on unchecked power in state legislatures // WASHINGTON POST

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