Michael Waldman stresses importance of protecting democracy in 2024 election – Iowa State Daily

Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, discussed securing the 2024 election and beyond at the Memorial Union on Tuesday evening.

His talk was part of the annual Manatt-Phelps Lecture, According to Political Science Department Chair Alex Tuckness, this is the “most outstanding lecture” the Political Science Department hosts each year.

“It allows us to bring in really high-caliber people who are able to speak at events that we think the campus is interested in and that we want to learn more about,” Tuckness said.

Director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Karen M. Kedrowski, added that the lecture brings together renowned speakers with expertise, including President Joe Biden in 2006.

“The Manatts and the Phelps are very concerned about American democracy and were really excited about the idea of ​​bringing in someone who could talk about the very rapidly changing landscape around election laws and their impact on voters,” Kedrowski said.

Waldman’s talk focused on election subversion, which involves attempts to disrupt or undermine elections, including manipulating vote counts or voter suppression.

“I think we are in a major battle right now over the future of American democracy,” Waldman said. “There really is so much at stake right now. There are stresses and strains of both kinds on our democratic system that we have not experienced for many years.”

Waldman began his talk with a look at the roots of American politics and highlighted historical struggles for democracy. He pointed out that Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence stated, “Government is legitimate only when it rests on the consent of the governed.”

Waldman pointed to his book “The Fight to Vote” and how many people fought for their voice in democracy while others resisted change to keep power for the privileged.

“I wrote a book called ‘The Fight to Vote’ about this history because it took a fight to get the right to vote,” Waldman said. “The first-ever major voting rights victory was won by angry working-class white men in the period known as the Jacksonian Democracy, when they abolished the property requirement for voting.”

Waldman noted that the fight for women’s suffrage was “as hard-fought a victory as any subsequent civil rights victory.”

“[Women] “Pioneered protest tactics, hunger strikes, the first-ever march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, ballot measures and all these other things,” Waldman said.

Black men’s fight for the right to vote lasted from the Civil War to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Waldman said that was the first time Americans had a “real, true multiracial democracy that included everyone.”

Waldman emphasized that all electoral victories were won “by people in the streets or by people passing laws.” However, he said there was a setback in 2013 due to a Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder.

He quoted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion: “Doing away with the Voting Rights Act is like standing in a rainstorm or holding an umbrella and not getting wet and saying you don’t need an umbrella because you won’t get wet.”

“In other words, these advances occurred because they were protected by federal legal protections under the Voting Rights Act,” Waldman said. “And within hours she was right in our states, across the country and particularly in the South, she was implementing laws to make it harder for people to vote, but especially to make it harder for people of color.”

Waldman discussed the 2020 election and how, despite the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, there was a bipartisan effort to ensure people could vote safely. Examples include general mail-in voting and early in-person voting.

“It was a citizen mobilization involving churches, businesses, workers and the government, and it was not pro-party,” Waldman said. “It wasn’t for a candidate. It was about holding an election. It was for democracy. And on election day, despite the pandemic, it was the highest voter turnout since 1900.”

Waldman then addressed the “false claims” about the 2020 election, the rise in misinformation, and what it could mean for the upcoming election.

Waldman said the question of how we conduct our elections and “whether they are real and fair” is the focus this year.

“How do we ensure that our system holds together in the face of this situation?” Waldman said. “What can we do to protect our system from this type of election subversion?”

Waldman’s first suggestion was to advocate for election officials – who are generally responsible for overseeing the election and voting process – to call them American heroes and say, “You want to run a fair election.”

He also suggested pushing back against disinformation and understanding that non-citizen voting in the United States is “vanishingly rare.”

Waldman emphasized fact-checking and proposed reforming the Supreme Court to introduce “binding ethics rules” and 18-year term limits for justices.

“We must once again find the ability to make bipartisan, bold reforms to fix our system, solve the problems so this doesn’t happen again, and continue this history and the expansion of American democracy,” Waldman said.

“We won’t suddenly have a time when people stop fighting over our democracy, but we can return to a point where the voice of the people is shown to be what matters to us,” Waldman said.