The Briefing with Michael Waldman

Part 2 of Brennan Center Contributor Victoria Bassetti's new three-part podcast series, “The Line,” examining the problem of low voter turnout today and historically with Brennan Center president Michael Waldman.

Part 1 of Brennan Center Contributor Victoria Bassetti's new three-part podcast series, “The Line,” examining the false claims of election rigging, how to fix low voter turnout in America, and the continued fight over voter identification laws.

Control of the country is up for grabs  — and the integrity of our democracy is at stake this November. Nearly two dozen states passed new voting restrictions. Gerrymandering keeps partisans in power. And the Supreme Court gutted campaign finance laws and protections against voting discrimination. In The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on American Democracy, MSNBC reporter Zachary Roth reveals how this movement prevents progress and quiets the political voices of people of color, students, and disadvantaged communities. 

More info: http://www.brennancenter.org/event/great-suppression-book-talk-zachary-roth

A preview of Brennan Center Contributor Victoria Bassetti's new three-part podcast series, “The Line,” examining the false claims of election rigging, how to fix low voter turnout in America, and the continued fight over voter identification laws.

In conversation with:

Michael Li
Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice

David’s Daley’s Rat F**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy, is an explosive account of how political operatives undermined American democracy and fundamentally altered the electoral map through redistricting. Joined by the Brennan Center’s Michael Li, Daley will discuss how a tradition of dirty tricks – known to political insiders as “ratf**king” – was taken to an unprecedented level, and why this matters for the 2016 election.  

The Brennan Center held the first ever national conference on automatic voter registration. Part 2 includes the keynote speech delivered by former Attorney General Eric Holder. 

The Brennan Center held the first ever national conference on automatic voter registration. Part one includes a keynote speech from California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. 

Despite the success of last year’s surveillance reform legislation (the “USA FREEDOM Act”), the U.S. retains the ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a warrant—and without any oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court—under Executive Order 12333 (EO 12333). The order underlies the intelligence community’s most expansive surveillance authorities. It generally governs the interception of electronic communications overseas, but as a Brennan Center report shows, its broad scope has significant implications for Americans.

Just Security, the Brennan Center for Justice, and a panel of leading experts discussed a range of issues about the questions surrounding EO 12333 surveillance. 

Panelists included Neema Singh Guliani Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union; Deborah Pearlman, Associate Professor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; Rebecca Richards, Director, Office of Civil Liberties and Privacy, National Security Agency; Ames Toh, Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression; former Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice; and Harlan Yu, Principal, Upturn.

Listen to an engaging discussion with Samuel Issacharoff, one of the pioneers in the law of the political process and the author of Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts. 

In Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts, renowned professor and scholar Samuel Issacharoff examines the often-overlooked role of constitutional courts in transitional democracies around the world in the past 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Listen to an engaging discussion with Adam Cohen, author of Imbeciles, an exciting exposé of the American legal system. 

Imbeciles has been coined a "superb history of eugenics in America" by the New York Times,and the book's relevance to our current political state is highlighted in the New Yorker, stating "it's impossible ... to read 'Imbeciles' without thinking of the current election cycle."