Established 1995 President Michael Waldman Founded 1995 | Website www.brennancenter.org Budget 10.98 million USD (2014) | |
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Chairman Patricia Bauman, Robert A. Atkins Location New York, New York, Washington, D.C. Similar Justice at Stake, Common Cause, American Constitution Society, Lawyers' Committee for Civil R, American Civil Liberties Profiles | ||
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School is a nonpartisan, left-leaning law and public policy institute. The Brennan Center advocates for a number of progressive public policy positions, including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections. 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.
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The Center'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." The organization's president is Michael Waldman, former director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton.
History and mission
The Brennan Center for Justice was founded in 1995 by the family and former law clerks of Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, whom the Washington Post called "the progressive voice of the modern court." Justice Brennan’s idea of a living constitution figures largely into the center’s work.
The Brennan Center 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 advocating for redistricting reform and campaign finance reform. The organization is part think tank, part public interest law firm, and part advocacy group. George Soros is a major donor to the Brennan Center.
Activities
The Brennan Center's work is divided into three programs—Democracy, Justice, and Liberty & National Security. Past programs focused on criminal justice, poverty, and economic justice.
The Brennan Center opposes mass incarceration. 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. Attorneys from the Center challenged a U.S. President's authority to declare a prisoner to be an unlawful enemy combatant in the fight against terrorism. The Center has also challenged the U.S. Congress’s power to deny habeas corpus to such prisoners.
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 Center helped Senator Dick Durbin write the Fair Elections Now Act.
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. The Brennan Center advocates for the restoration of felon voting rights.
The Brennan Center represented plaintiffs Margarita López Torres, other unsuccessful judicial candidates, and Common Cause, in a court case 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, but in 2008 the court ruled for the state.
In 2015, the Brennan Center submitted an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, urging the state not to overturn its so-called John Doe law, which allows the state to conduct criminal investigations in secret.
The 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 law suits 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.