Established | 1995 |
---|---|
President | Michael Waldman |
Chair | Patricia Bauman and Robert A. Atkins |
Budget | $21,201,609 (2017) [1] |
Location | |
Website | brennancenter.org |
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is a liberal [2] [3] [4] or progressive [5] nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Center advocates for public policy positions including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections. [6] [7] The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC , which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofits. [8] [9]
The organization's stated mission is to "work to hold our political institutions and laws accountable to the twin American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all." [10] Its president is Michael Waldman, former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.
The Brennan Center for Justice was founded in 1995 by the family and former law clerks of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., whom The Washington Post called "the progressive voice of the modern court". [11] Justice Brennan's idea of a living constitution figures largely into the center's work. [12] The Brennan Center started with an initial grant by the Carnegie Corporation of New York of $25,000 in 1996. The Carnegie Corporation in years since has donated over $3,650,000. [13] During the selection process of what school to center operations from, the Brennan Center selected NYU Law out of a choice of three schools, with the other two being Harvard University and Georgetown University. [13]
The Brennan Center is part think tank, part public interest law firm, and part advocacy group. The organization is involved in issues such as opposing voter ID laws that it believes unduly restrict voter registration, and other barriers to registration and voting, and advocates for redistricting reform and campaign finance reform. [14] [15]
The Brennan Center's work is divided into three programs—Democracy, Justice, and Liberty & National Security. [16] Past programs focused on criminal justice, poverty, and economic justice. [17] The organization has focus on issues both at the national level in the United States but also at the state and local levels of government. [13]
The Brennan Center opposes mass incarceration and produces research on causes of violent crime in the United States. [18] [19] [20] The Brennan Center has represented several detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and also U.S. citizens or legal residents held as unlawful enemy combatants. [21] Attorneys from the Brennan Center challenged a U.S. President's authority to declare a prisoner to be an unlawful enemy combatant in the war on terror. They have also challenged the U.S. Congress's power to deny habeas corpus to such prisoners. [22]
The Brennan Center assisted in drafting and enacting the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The law banned soft money contributions to political campaigns. The organization helped Senator Dick Durbin write the Fair Elections Now Act. [23]
The Brennan Center advocated for the passage in 2010 of New York's law ending prison-based gerrymandering, and was part of a coalition of organizations that sought to defend that law from a court challenge. [24] The Brennan Center advocates for the restoration of felon voting rights. [25]
The Brennan Center represented plaintiffs Margarita López Torres, other unsuccessful judicial candidates, and Common Cause, in a lawsuit that challenged the way New York state trial judge candidates gain access to the ballot. They prevailed in the U.S. District Court and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. In 2007, attorneys from the Brennan Center argued N.Y. State Bd. of Elections v. Lopez Torres before the United States Supreme Court. In 2008, the court ruled for the state. [26]
In 2015, the Brennan Center submitted an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, urging the state not to overturn John Doe law, which allows the state to conduct criminal investigations in secret. [27] [28] [29]
The Brennan Center has been tracking states' legislation on voter ID laws and other barriers to voter registration and voting to determine whether there is undue burden carried by certain communities. Numerous lawsuits have been brought against states in such cases. By August 1, 2016, rulings in five cases: Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, overturned certain voter ID and other provisions, requiring states to make alternatives acceptable for the November 2016 election cycle. [30] [31] [32] The Brennan Center research has also indicated that instances of voter fraud by citizens and non-citizens are very rare. [33]
In 2023, the Brennan Center surveyed election administrators, finding many plan on retiring before the 2024 presidential election. [34]
The Brennan Center filed a friend of the court briefing in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Moore v. Harper. In oral arguments on December 7, 2022, the Brennan Center urged the United States Supreme Court to allow the North Carolina Supreme Court to strike down the state legislature’s congressional map for violating the North Carolina Constitution. [35]
The Brennan Center for Justice is a partner organization of VoteRiders. [36]
As of the Brennan Center's 2021 annual report, the organization has received funding from: [37]
Campaign finance laws in the United States have been a contentious political issue since the early days of the union. The most recent major federal law affecting campaign finance was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold". Key provisions of the law prohibited unregulated contributions to national political parties and limited the use of corporate and union money to fund ads discussing political issues within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election; However, provisions of BCRA limiting corporate and union expenditures for issue advertising were overturned by the Supreme Court in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 is the primary United States federal law regulating political campaign fundraising and spending. The law originally focused on creating limits for campaign spending on communication media, adding additional penalties to the criminal code for election law violations, and imposing disclosure requirements for federal political campaigns. The Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on February 7, 1972.
Voter suppression is a strategy used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting behavior by changing the opinions of potential voters through persuasion and organization, activating otherwise inactive voters, or registering new supporters. Voter suppression, instead, attempts to gain an advantage by reducing the turnout of certain voters. Suppression is an anti-democratic tactic associated with authoritarianism.
A publicly funded election is an election funded with money collected through income tax donations or taxes as opposed to private or corporate funded campaigns. It is a policy initially instituted after Nixon for candidates to opt into publicly funded presidential campaigns via optional donations from tax returns. It is an attempt to move toward a one voice, one vote democracy, and remove undue corporate and private entity dominance.
Matching funds are funds that are set to be paid in proportion to funds available from other sources. Matching fund payments usually arise in situations of charity or public good. The terms cost sharing, in-kind, and matching can be used interchangeably but refer to different types of donations.
FairVote, formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy, is a 501(c)(3) organization that advocates electoral reform in the United States.
The financing of electoral campaigns in the United States happens at the federal, state, and local levels by contributions from individuals, corporations, political action committees, and sometimes the government. Campaign spending has risen steadily at least since 1990.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the highest appellate court in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over original actions, appeals from lower courts, and regulation or administration of the practice of law in Wisconsin.
Electoral reform in the United States refers to efforts to change American elections and the electoral system used in the United States.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other associations.
The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act, or DISCLOSE Act, is a federal campaign finance reform bill that has been introduced in the United States Congress since 2010. The bill would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to provide for greater and faster public disclosure of campaign spending and to combat the use of so-called "dark money" in U.S. elections.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) government watchdog group in the United States. CLC supports strong enforcement of United States campaign finance laws. Trevor Potter, former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission, is CLC's founding president.
In politics, particularly the politics of the United States, dark money refers to spending to influence elections, public policy, and political discourse, where the source of the money is not disclosed to the public.
Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and Section 4(b), which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of discrimination in voting.
VoteRiders is an American non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to ensure that all US citizens over 18 years old are able to exercise their right to vote. Through resources and media exposure, one of its main focuses is assisting citizens who want to secure their voter ID, and it often collaborates with other organizations in these efforts.
Penda D. Hair is an American lawyer. She is the Legal Director of Forward Justice, a law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South. A frequent television and radio commentator, she speaks regularly on issues of race and democracy. Previously, she was a founding co-director of the civil rights group Advancement Project.
Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. After the American Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, but poll taxes or language tests were used to limit and suppress the ability to register or cast a ballot. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 improved voting access significantly. Since the beginning of voter suppression efforts, proponents of these laws have cited concerns over electoral integrity as a justification for various restrictions and requirements, while opponents argue that these constitute bad faith given the lack of voter fraud evidence in the United States.
The Freedom to Vote Act, introduced as H.R. 1, is a bill in the United States Congress intended to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, ban partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders.
Emma Greenman is an American politician who has served in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2021. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), Greenman represents District 63B, which includes parts of south Minneapolis in Hennepin County, Minnesota.