Democracy & Justice | Collected Writings, 2008
Publications
Download PDF of annual.
Introduction from Executive Director.
About Democracy & Justice: Collected Writings, 2008.
Compiled at the end of 2008, the following annual includes excerpts from reports, policy proposals, and issue briefs, as well as excerpted material from public remarks, legal briefs, Congressional testimony, and op-ed pieces written by Brennan Center staff. It is arranged in five sections: Democracy in Transition, Restoring Our Faith in Democracy, Justice & The Courts, Liberty & National Security, and Campaign Finance Reform. The end note, America 101, was authored by Eric Lane.
Click here for the 2007 annual.
Click here for 10: Celebrating Our First Decade, published in 2006.
Introduction from the Executive Director
2008 was a remarkable year for our democracy, with an explosion of civic engagement and participation. It is a time of thrilling hope and sobering challenges.
This volume offers a sample of the Brennan Center’s work on all fronts—in Congress, in federal and state courtrooms, as well as in the court of public opinion. Our work protected the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of citizens in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and across the country. We won key court victories, from the Supreme Court down, in cases on habeas corpus, campaign finance reform, and voting rights. Our reports garnered wide media attention and respect. The Boston Globe called us “indispensible,” and Time magazine published a cover story based on our presentation on voting. Never before have we had such impact—and now we are poised to do even more.
We at the Brennan Center believe that this is a rare and fleeting opportunity to make deep, lasting change in the way our government works. We are committed to making sure that the surge of citizen engagement we see now is translated into new laws—for voter registration modernization that would add up to 65 million to the rolls, for campaign finance laws that boost the power of small donors, for a restoration of core checks and balances in the fight against terrorism, for a justice system that serves all Americans.
To translate the civic energy of 2008 into lasting change in 2018, we need more than discrete policy victories, no matter how vital. Our country can meet its challenges only if we renew the institutions of democracy and return to the enduring values of our Constitution. In times of turmoil, it is our duty to think big again. There is much work to be done.
Michael Waldman
Executive Director
Democracy in Transition
American Democracy: Repair Needed
Michael Waldman
Legal Aid: Let's Make it Work
Rebekah Diller
Change Comes to Washington
Bob Herbert, Nina Totenberg, Eric Alterman, Stephen Carter, Richard Thompson Ford, Theodore Sorensen, Elizabeth Kolbert, Michael Massing, Katha Pollitt and Geoffrey R. Stone
Restoring Our Faith in Democracy
Fixing the Vote
Michael Waldman
Barriers to the Vote
Wendy Weiser
Disenfranchisement by Typo
Adam Skaggs
A Citizen's Guide to Redistricting
Justin Levitt
Voter Purges
Myrna Pérez
De Facto Disenfranchisement
Erika Wood & Rachel Bloom
Who's Defrauding Whom?
Justin Levitt
Better Ballots
Lawrence Norden, David Kimball, Whitney Quesenbery and Margaret Chen
Swing State Verges on Bad Law
Amicus Brief in Ohio Republican Party v. Sec. Jennifer Brunner
Registration for the 21st Century
Wendy Weiser, Michael Waldman and Renée Paradis
Justice & the Courts
Justice for Sale
James Sample
Due Process Under Attack
Amicus brief in Caperton v. Massey
Subprime Justice
Laura Abel
Court Fees as Revenue?
Rebekah Diller
Eligible for Justice
The Access to Justice Project
Liberty & National Security
Restoring the Rule of Law
Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr.
Controlling Executive Privilege
Amicus brief in House Judiciary Committee v. Harriet Miers, et al.
Dismantling the Imperial Presidency
Aziz Z. Huq
Campaign Finance Reform
Money in Politics: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
Then-Governor Janet Napolitano, AZ
Let's Get This Straight: Money is Not Speech
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
Barack Obama and the Small Donor Revolution
Laura MacCleery
About Democracy & Justice: Collected Writings, 2008.
The material in this volume is excerpted from Brennan Center reports, policy proposals, and issue briefs; we’ve also excerpted material from public remarks, legal briefs, Congressional testimony, and op-ed pieces written by Brennan Center staff in 2008. For a full version of any material printed herein, complete with footnotes, please contact: Susan Lehman, Director of Communications and Strategy, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, susan.lehman@nyu.edu.