Recognizing the importance of swift action on key legislation, the Senate last week created a workaround to the chamber’s rules and raised the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, both the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act are awaiting passage in the Senate but have found themselves repeatedly blocked by Republican obstruction. These bills are essential to stopping a nationwide assault on our democracy. From voter suppression, to brazen partisan gerrymandering, to outright election sabotage, these threats have advocates asking: where’s the workaround for voting rights? Defaulting on the national debt would be a catastrophe. But so would losing our democracy, and it’s far past time for the Senate to realize this simple truth.

The Brennan Center has released more internal documents from the Los Angeles Police Department regarding its social media surveillance practices. The documents, obtained through a freedom of information lawsuit, detail a tryout the LAPD conducted last year of ABTShield, a social media monitoring tool. In just two months, the trial software collected millions of tweets — 200 million in total, of which 2 million were sent to the LAPD. A large portion of the posts collected were about police reform protests, raising serious First Amendment concerns. The reckless use of such bulk collection tools underscores the urgent need for reform of social media surveillance by police.

Congress passed the annual defense policy and spending bill yesterday. It leaves out a critical provision that would have granted Washington, DC, control over its own national guard. Presidential control over the DC National Guard leaves considerable opportunities for abuse of this power. One example is improper use of the DC Guard during racial justice protests in June 2020, and another is the failure to swiftly deploy the DC Guard in response to the attack on the Capitol.

Last week, the Biden administration hosted a two-day virtual Summit for Democracy, intended to fight the rising global tide of authoritarianism. It has struck many as ironic timing for the United States to be promoting democracy abroad in light of how democratic values are so visibly under threat at home. With rampant partisan gerrymandering underway, new state legislation aiming to undermine election administration and state courts, and the first primaries of the 2022 midterms less than three months away, the window to enact necessary reforms is closing fast.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently announced that he wants to bring back the Florida State Guard, which hasn’t existed since 1947. The news sparked worries that he would be able to create what amounts to a private army answering only to him, with no potential for federal control as with the National Guard. Although the move signals a worrying escalation of red-state hostility toward Washington, it doesn’t pose the threat that opponents fear.

The Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments from the Brennan Center and Reed Smith LLP last week on behalf of community groups and civic leaders seeking to block Ohio's gerrymandered General Assembly maps. Read more on Instagram >>