Brennan Center for Justice
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The Brennan Center for Justice was founded in 1995 as a non-partisan public policy and law institute, and is affiliated with the New York University School of Law. Its purpose follows the progressive ideals of Justice William Brennan.
It is listed as one of over 120 progressive-thinking groups at the Common Dreams News Center, and various staff members are contributing writers to the popular liberal media website The Huffington Post .[1][2]
Background
Founded in 1995 by the family and former clerks of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, the Brennan Center for Justice works toward Brennan's idea of a living constitution. The organization is part think tank, part public interest law firm, and part advocacy group. The organization is currently headed by Michael Waldman, who served as Director of Speech writing for President Bill Clinton from 1995-1999.[3]
The Center generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases. It employs 35 full-time staff, including attorneys, social scientists, researchers, and publicists. Former Amherst College president Tom Gerety became Executive Director of the Brennan Center in May 2003, succeeding Founding Director E. Joshua Rosenkranz. The Center's stated mission is to carry on the work of its namesake, former Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (1906 - 1997), who pioneered the modern practice of "legislating from the bench" and gave birth to the doctrine of the "living" Constitution whose relationship to the Founders' document is "evolving."[4]
Mission
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute. The Center's work ranges from voting rights, redistricting reform, access to the courts, and Executive power in the fight against terrorism. They consider themselves "a singular institution—part think tank, part public interest law firm, part advocacy group—the Brennan Center combines scholarship, legislative and legal advocacy, and communications to win meaningful, measurable change in the public sector."[5]
Board of Directors
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Program Advisory Board
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Advocacy
Because the Brennan Center has tasked itself with educating American citizens on how to best change their system of government, the Center produces a wide range of publications, databases and other resources in its work to develop an innovative, non-partisan agenda of scholarship, public education and legal action. For a complete list, visit Brennan Center for Justice: Resources.
The Brennan Center is active in the justice system as well.
Most recently, the Center was allowed to intervene on behalf of 2004 North Carolina Supreme Court candidate James R. Ansley, and Common Cause North Carolina, the defendants in Duke, et al. v. Leake, et al. who were fighting to keep the state's method of "voluntary public financing program for campaigns for its appellate judicial seats" after "two future potential candidates for seats on the North Carolina judiciary and two political committees filed a complaint in federal court" alleging that the method was in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In an unanimous decision, on May 1, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the challenge to North Carolina's public funding law. The paintiff's would later petition the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari and on September 26, 2008, the Brennan Center, as an Intervenor-Defendant filed opposition to the petition.[6]
To view a complete list of the court cases that it is intervening in, go to Brennan Center for Justice: Court Cases.
Democracy Program
The purpose of the Democracy Program is to change the way citizens participate by changing the systems of voting and allowing more competition. The three main goals of the program are universal voter registration, electoral redistricting system, and a campaign finance system. It is the view of the Brennan Center that creating a national system is better than the government of local cities and or states.[7]
Fair Courts Project
"Through its Fair Courts Project, the Center works to protect the judiciary from politicizing forces, including the undue influence of money on judicial elections."[8]
Justice Program
It is the belief of the Brennan Center that "the American justice system is in disrepair. More than ever before, our courts are in the province of the wealthy." To fix this, the effort of the Access to Justice Project is to repair the gap between those of low income and their reliance on the government to prevent harm. Additionally, the Liberty and National Security Project works to restore the checks and balances on the government.[9]
Living Constitution Project
In Justice Brennan's eyes, the "Living Constitution" implies that the constitution is a living, breathing document, and must change with the times in order to be effective. The Brennan Center believes that "the conservative movement rose, in part, because it relies on a pinched and narrow view of the role of law, the Constitution, and government." The project consists of a Public Conversation Series, Fellowship Program and a series of Brennan Center books.[10]
Press
Supreme Court Races Increasing in Cost
The median amount raised in judicial campaigns in 2006 was $243,910, up from $201,623 six years before. In 2006, five of the 10 states with private financing set spending records, including Alabama, which raised $13.4 million in five state Supreme Court races, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Outside groups have added to these amounts, spending 2½ times more on television ads in the 2004 and 2006 cycles than in the previous two. And increasingly, this money is coming from the business community, which represented 44 percent of all campaign money—twice the percentage of donations from lawyers, according to the Brennan Center. The article, from US News and World Report, cited the defeat of Louis Butler by Michael Gableman. Not in over 40 years has an incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court justice lost an election. An estimated $5 million was spent by the two parties.[11]
Brennan Challenges New York System of Selecting Judges
The Brennan Center for Justice, along with pro bono counsel Arnold & Porter LLP and Jenner & Block LLP, argued that the current method of judicial selection is unconstitutional because it doesn't allow the people to vote for who represents them, according to an article in the North Country Gazette. The controversy over judicial elections that led to the case, Lopez Torres v. New York State Board of Elections, started after the refusal of party officials to nominate Judge Margarita López Torres to the New York Supreme Court. In February 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case.[12]
In an article a year later, the New York Times reported that a federal appeals court decision declared New York State’s judicial nominating system unconstitutional. Judge López Torres said, “I wasn’t happy when the U.S. Supreme Court took the case, and after sitting through the oral arguments in October, I didn’t have the feeling that we were going to win. It was a disappointment, but I’m not a cynical person. Usually judicial elections are under the radar, so if there’s one thing my case has accomplished, it’s been to open a dialogue on an open secret.”[13]
Brennan and Justice at Stake Oppose Roberts Confirmation
"The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and the Justice at Stake Campaign are teaming up to provide regular snapshots of the television advertising campaigns for and against the confirmation of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Brennan Center and Justice at Stake regularly collaborate on analyses of interest group advertising in state Supreme Court elections."[14]
Ex-felons seeking voting rights get trial
A federal appellate court ruled Friday that Florida's 135-year-old ban on ex-felons' voting rights could be racially discriminatory, and ordered a Miami trial for over 600,000 former convicts seeking to restore those rights. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said the state must prove the 1968 Legislature did not discriminate against blacks when it slightly amended a post-Civil War law barring ex-felons from voting. "This is a fantastic win for a huge number of people," said attorney Jessie Allen, of the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, which brought the class-action lawsuit on behalf of roughly 613,000 former felons. "It's a great day for democracy in Florida."[15]
Brennan Research Questioned on McCain-Feingold
In their briefs in McConnell v. FEC, plaintiffs have dismissed the research as "politically biased, fundamentally flawed, riddled with errors and unreliable." Their expert witness, James Gibson, has accused the researchers of manipulating the data to produce the desired results. Columnist George Will opined about "the debasement of scholarship for partisan purposes." The Weekly Standard’s David Tell followed suit: "The empirical evidence McCain-Feingold proponents have offered as the constitutional justification for a key provision of the bill, empirical evidence for which Brennan Center ‘research’ is the source, appears to be fraudulent—deliberately faked."
Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institute, was an expert witness for the defendants in McConnell v. FEC. "I am appalled by the nature and ferocity of the attack on this body of research. I say this as someone who was present when this research was first conceived, served on a Brennan Center committee to explore its policy implications, and testified publicly on its quality and significance."[16]
Publications
The Living Constitution Project has produced these four books: The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again (Bloomsbury USA 2007), By Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes; Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (New Press, 2007), By Frederick A. O. "Fritz" Schwarz, Jr. and Aziz Huq; The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World (Academy Chicago Publishers, 2007), By Lawrence Norden and the Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security. Forthcoming: A Return to Common Sense (SourceBooks, Spring 2008), By Michael Waldman; Habeas Corpus (New York University Press, Winter 2008), By Jonathan Hafet .
The Brennan Center has published many pamphlets and articles that are available at The Brennan Center for Justice: Publications.
Funding
Individual Contributors
The heaviest funding for the Brennan Center for Justice comes from George Soros of the Open Society Institute.[17] Between 1999 and 2004, the Open Society Institute gave grants to the Brennan Center totaling $3,291,218.
Gail Furman, a child psychologist, wealthy Democratic party activist, and donor and board member for the Brennan Center, has collaborated on progressive efforts with George Soros, and at one meeting of the progressive Democracy Alliance, gave $25,000 to "remake Democratic politics." At the second meeting of Soros' Democracy Alliance in October 2005, Furman "demanded to know why the alliance wasn't creating a 'nerve center' that could book progressives on TV news shows".[18]
Institutional Funding
Other major supporters include:
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Between 2000 and 2003, these foundations gave over $8.5 million to the Brennan Center.[19]
See Also
Recommendations
Bai, Matt. The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. New York: Penguin Press. 2007.
External Links
- Adam Winkler at the Huffington Post: Justice Scalia & the Coarsening of American Culture
- Television Advertising in State Supreme Court Elections
References
- ↑ America's Progressive Community
- ↑ Brennan Center @ Huffington Post
- ↑ Wikipedia: Brennan Center for Justice
- ↑ Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left
- ↑ About: The Brennan Center for Justice
- ↑ Duke v. Leake
- ↑ Brennan Center for Justice
- ↑ Amicus Brief: Avery et al. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
- ↑ Brennan Center for Justice
- ↑ Brennan Center for Justice
- ↑ US News and World Report
- ↑ New York University News
- ↑ The New York Times
- ↑ News Unfiltered
- ↑ The Miami Herald
- ↑ The Brookings Institute, "No Merit in Brennan Center Smear Campaign
- ↑ Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left
- ↑ Wikipedia: Gail Furman
- ↑ Discover the Networks: A Guide to the Political Left
