Your weekly source for analysis and insight from experts at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

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The Briefing

*Author’s Note: The Briefing will go on holiday vacation for the next two weeks, returning on Tuesday, January 7, 2020. On behalf of the Brennan Center, we wish you Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy new year!*

Approximately 140,000 Kentuckians got their voting rights restored last Thursday when Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order ending the state’s policy of permanently disenfranchising people with past convictions.

The existing system had crushing racial consequences. One out of four Black citizens were barred from voting before Beshear restored their rights. “It is an injustice,” the governor acknowledged. “It is a racial injustice. And this executive order helps get us on track to righting a lot of wrongs.”

The Brennan Center has fought for rights restoration in Kentucky for more than a decade. The move now leaves Iowa as the only state with a total ban on voting for residents with felonies in their past.

“This is a giant step forward, and I think the momentum gained by making Iowa the only one left is really going to fast-track normalizing this issue,” said ([link removed]) Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center. “The fewer states you have with permanent disenfranchisement, the easier it is to move the baseline.”

here’s also momentum for voting rights in New Jersey. On Monday, the state Senate passed a bill that will restore voting rights to up to 80,000 people living in New Jersey communities who have past convictions. The bill is set to go into effect once Gov. Phil Murphy signs it into law.

Democracy

Congress’ Spending Deal Includes Election Security Funding for States

The government-wide spending deal announced yesterday will include $425 million for states to protect U.S. elections against foreign interference and other cyberattacks and malfunctions. The House and Senate will likely vote on the final package this week.

“With this funding, Congress is taking an important and necessary step to protect the vote in 2020,” said Lawrence Norden, director of the electoral reform program at the Brennan Center. “State and local jurisdictions need this money to replace outdated election equipment, improve cybersecurity, and take other essential steps to prevent or recover from hacks and malfunctions in next year’s elections.”

What should states do with the money?

Here’s what the Brennan Center recommends: they should hire additional cybersecurity staff, replace paperless machines with equipment that uses paper ballots, upgrade voter registration systems, and conduct post-election audits. Finally, they should build robust resiliency plans so they can recover in the event of a cyberattack. // CNN ([link removed])

How Campaign Spending in Judicial Elections Subverts Justice

Over the last two decades, state supreme court elections have been transformed from sleepy contests into costly races awash in dark money. A new report ([link removed]) released last week by the Brennan Center found that from 2017 to 2018, $39.7 million went to elect state supreme court justices. Most of that money flowed into a handful of contests.

The ultimate solution: an end to elections for state high courts. In the short run, states can blunt the worst effects by strengthening ethics rules, adopting public financing, and reforming judicial selection processes, according to the report’s author, Douglas Keith. // READ MORE ([link removed])

Ensuring Fair Voting Maps for the Next Decade and Beyond

In 2021, all 50 states will redraw legislative and congressional maps for the next decade. The last round of redistricting saw unprecedented gerrymanders, often targeting communities of color. And in June, the Supreme Court ruled that extreme partisan gerrymandering, no matter how egregious, could not be addressed by federal courts.

But reform is possible: states can take redistricting out of the hands of politicians. Last year, voters in four states passed ballot measures to reform redistricting, and the House of Representatives passed legislation earlier this year to require redistricting reform nationwide.

To support such efforts, the Brennan Center’s Yurij Rudensky and Annie Lo have written a new guide for policymakers and advocates. It provides a road map for creating well-designed independent redistricting commissions that put community interests above partisan considerations, promote transparency, and bolster public accountability. // READ MORE ([link removed])

How Citizens United Reshaped Elections

This January will mark a decade since the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, which upended century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections. Big money always has played an outsized role, but that sway has dramatically expanded since Citizens United.

A new Brennan Center explainer details how Citizens United led to the creation of super PACs and a surge in spending by dark money groups. // READ MORE ([link removed])

Constitution

Review of Trump-Russia Investigation Reveals Privacy Abuses

Last week, the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the Trump-Russia investigation confirmed that it was not motivated by political bias against Donald Trump. The report, however, did find that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications for warrants covering former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page contained inaccuracies and omissions.

“If the Page FISA applications were handled just like any other — or perhaps even more cautiously, as some parts of the report suggest — that means this kind of sloppiness and application-padding is par for the course in the FISA process,” writes Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program. // READ MORE ([link removed])

Justice

Make Court Fees Affordable, Not a Debt Trap

The Austin American-Statesman editorial board cited a recent Brennan Center report in recommending that Texas courts set affordable fees and fines instead of trapping defendants in a cycle of debt and recurring court dates. “It’s an unjustifiable expense all around: Taxpayers are spending millions on unnecessary incarcerations instead of real public safety priorities,” wrote the editorial board.

The Brennan Center’s report found that the average court cost per defendant in Texas is $957 for felony-level cases in district court, $606 for serious misdemeanors in county court, and roughly $220 for traffic cases and other minor charges handled by municipal courts and justices of the peace. // AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN ([link removed])

Coming Up

- This week, the Brennan Center will release a contingency planning document to help election officials revise and expand their plans to counter cybersecurity risks.

News

- Michael German on the biases and extreme views present in police forces // THE GUARDIAN ([link removed])

- Elizabeth Goitein on the inspector general report on the Russian investigation // NEW YORK TIMES ([link removed]) // USA TODAY ([link removed]) // WASHINGTON POST ([link removed])

- Harsha Panduranga on why the Brennan Center is suing the Trump administration over its requirement for visa applicants to disclose their social media handles // CBS ([link removed])

- Faiza Patel on the use of invasive surveillance tools called StingRays by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection // WASHINGTON POST ([link removed])

- Thomas Wolf on the risk of a census undercount in New Jersey // NJ.COM ([link removed])

Have an issue you'd like us to cover? Feedback on this newsletter? Email us at [email protected]
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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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