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Democracy Decoded

Democracy Decoded

著者： Campaign Legal Center
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Our system of government is rooted in the Constitution and designed to ensure that power is shared, not concentrated in any one branch. But what happens when the institutions that were meant to hold one another accountable are tested in new and unprecedented ways? Season 6 of Democracy Decoded examines some of the defining constitutional questions shaping American democracy today. From the separation of powers and the role of the Department of Justice, to presidential pardons, political dissent, citizenship, voting rights, and safeguarding our elections, each episode explores the legal principles, institutions, and people at the center of today's most consequential debates. Through conversations with leading legal experts, advocates and policymakers, we'll unpack what's happening, why it matters and what these developments could mean for the future of our democracy. Going beyond the headlines, we also examine the constitutional framework behind the news; the checks and balances designed to protect our freedoms; and the challenges facing the rule of law in a rapidly evolving political landscape. Whether you want to better understand the political events of the day or the Constitution itself, follow Democracy Decoded on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, to get the context, clarity, and insight required to make sense of this pivotal time for our country.2026 Campaign Legal Center 世界 政治・政府 政治学
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  • Is the Trump administration trying to undermine our elections?

    Is the Trump administration trying to undermine our elections?
    2026/10/13
    On this episode of Democracy Decoded, host Simone Leeper sits down with Campaign Legal Center’s Jonathan Diaz and Chad Dunn, head of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, to discuss the Department of Justice's escalating seizures of 2020 election materials in Georgia, Arizona, and beyond. They also unpack the executive orders President Trump has issued to reshape voter eligibility and mail-in voting, which have been repeatedly blocked by federal courts. Dunn goes on to detail his fight against the Riverside County sheriff's illegal ballot seizure and explains how election misinformation erodes public trust even when systems remain secure. As we get closer to the 2026 midterms, this episode explores what it will take to keep American elections safe, secure, and accurate — and who's responsible for making sure they stay that way.Episode Highlights:2:59 – Is the Trump administration laying groundwork to undermine the 2026 midterms?3:46 – Why does the president still refuse to accept his 2020 loss in Georgia?5:14 – How far has the DOJ's ballot subpoena campaign spread beyond Georgia?6:55 – What happens when a sheriff decides he can seize ballots from a special election?9:30 – Why are ballot seizures like this often self-defeating?12:00 – How does election misinformation spread even when systems remain secure?13:55 – Why does election misinformation make people lose faith in democracy itself?15:58 – Can the president legally nationalize elections or cancel the midterms?17:48 – Why have federal courts repeatedly blocked Trump's election executive orders?21:42 – Can the president legally nationalize elections?24:14 – What happens when election deniers are put in charge of federal agencies?26:45 – What can be done to protect the freedom to vote going forward?Host and Guests:Simone Leeper litigates a wide range of redistricting-related cases at Campaign Legal Center, challenging gerrymanders and advocating for election systems that guarantee all voters an equal opportunity to influence our democracy. Prior to arriving at CLC, Simone was a law clerk in the office of Senator Ed Markey and at the Library of Congress, Office of General Counsel. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2016.Jonathan Diaz manages CLC's work to protect election results and defend against election sabotage and works directly with CLC's litigation, communications, and policy teams to help set organizational strategy on voting rights and elections advocacy. He also works directly with election officials at the state and local level to improve election administration processes, and represents CLC in democracy reform coalitions to coordinate legal, advocacy, and messaging strategies with partner organizations across the country.Jonathan has also litigated voting rights cases in federal courts across the country, including LULAC v. Executive Office of the President (challenging the President's unconstitutional executive order on voting), LUCHA v. Fontes (challenging Arizona's burdensome and discriminatory proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration), VoteAmerica v. Raffensperger (challenging Georgia's restrictions on the distribution of absentee ballot applications) and Raysor v. Lee (challenging Florida's conditioning of rights restoration for voters with past felony convictions on the payment of legal financial obligations).Chad Dunn is a Lecturer in Law at UCLA School of Law for the Voting Rights and Law Practicum that proudly equips emerging lawyers to confidently serve as powerful courtroom civil rights advocates in any court in the country. His research lies in civil rights, with a specialization in voting rights. He also serves as the Legal Director of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, a joint project of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, the UCLA School of Law, and the UCLA School of Social Science, where he directs all litigation, appeals, and legal scholarship for the Voting Rights Project. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Dunn co-founded and is a partner of the law firm Brazil & Dunn, LLP, where he continues to try cases and handle appeals in numerous areas of civil rights including redistricting, race discrimination under Title VII, sex discrimination under Title IX, prison conditions, police conduct, and government ethics as well as other civil and criminal legal matters.Links:Are President Trump and His Allies Laying the Groundwork To Undermine Our Elections?What Role Does the Federal Government Play in Our Elections?There is No Role for the President in Our ElectionsDefending Against the Unlawful Seizure of Ballots (Cervantes v. Bianco)CLC Sues to Block Trump Administration’s Illegal Election Overreach Campaign Legal Center Sues Trump Administration Over Another Unconstitutional Voting Executive OrderDefending the Freedom to Vote from the Trump Administration’...
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    32 分
  • Who gets a pardon in Trump's America — and why?

    Who gets a pardon in Trump's America — and why?
    2026/10/06
    A crypto billionaire convicted of laundering money walks free after his company enriches the president's family by billions. A congressman expelled for defrauding voters gets his slate wiped clean for staying loyal. A tax fraudster owing investors $700 million never repays a dime before receiving clemency. These aren't isolated instances— they're a pattern. On this episode of Democracy Decoded, host Simone Leeper is joined by Liz Oyer, former head of the DOJ's Office of the Pardon Attorney, and Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations at Campaign Legal Center, to break down how President Trump has reshaped executive clemency into a marketplace. Oyer draws on her firsthand experience reviewing pardon applications to explain how the traditional, merit-based process has been sidelined, while Fischer lays out three distinct categories of abuse — reward pardons, corrupt pardons, and brokered pardons — each backed by real cases of donors, loyalists, and lobbyists cashing in. Together, they explore what recourse remains, from proposed legislation like the No Payoffs for Pardons Act to the limits of congressional oversight, including a sobering look at what's lost when clemency serves power instead of justice.Episode Highlights:2:46 – How have executive clemency powers been used by President Trump?3:11 – Can clemency give deserving people a real second chance?5:16 – How is a presidential pardon supposed to work?6:32 – Are there any legal limits on who a president can pardon?7:35 – How has President Trump turned pardon power into a reward system?9:17 – What is a reward pardon?12:59 – Did a $1 million donation really buy a nursing home executive's clemency?15:28 – Why did an expelled, unrepentant congressman get pardoned anyway?18:47 – How do wealthy individuals use brokers for pardons?23:14 – Could legislation actually stop this corruption?27:25 – Is America left with a two-tiered system of justice?28:01 – What effect does President Trump’s abuse of the pardon power have on applicants without money or connections?Host and Guests:Simone Leeper litigates a wide range of redistricting-related cases at Campaign Legal Center, challenging gerrymanders and advocating for election systems that guarantee all voters an equal opportunity to influence our democracy. Prior to arriving at CLC, Simone was a law clerk in the office of Senator Ed Markey and at the Library of Congress, Office of General Counsel. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2016.Liz Oyer is an experienced attorney and justice advocate. She most recently served in the Department of Justice as United States Pardon Attorney (April 2022 to March 2025), overseeing the Office of the Pardon Attorney. In that role, Liz was responsible for reviewing applications from individuals across the country seeking pardons and commutations of sentence and preparing recommendations for the President concerning the exercise of his constitutional clemency power.Liz’s tenure as Pardon Attorney was focused on making second chances through clemency available to all deserving Americans without consideration of status, resources, or politics. Liz and her team completely overhauled the clemency application process to make it more accessible, transparent, and user-friendly, including streamlining and improving the application forms for the first time in decades. Liz conducted extensive community outreach and education, including visits to federal prisons around the country. During her three years as Pardon Attorney, Liz and her team made recommendations to the President in over 15,000 clemency cases, prioritizing those involving overly harsh sentences imposed under outdated laws and policies.Brendan Fischer is Director of Strategic Investigations, working to support legal actions, policy reform and public accountability by exposing how money influences politics and providing stakeholders with the information needed to protect the freedom to vote.Brendan brings over a decade of experience at the intersection of law, investigative journalism and democracy reform. Prior to his current role, he served as Deputy Executive Director at the investigative watchdog group Documented, and before that, he built and ran Campaign Legal Center's Federal Reform program, where he directed legal strategies to address dark money, illegal coordination and foreign interference. He earned his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and he began his public service career as a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador. Brendan rejoined CLC in October 2025.Links:Inside the Pardon Playbook: An Analysis of President Trump’s Clemency AbusesAbuse of the Presidential Pardon PowerCLC Endorses Congressional Legislation to End the Pay-To-Play Pardon SystemSeeking Pardon, Foreign Billionaire Allegedly Funneled Millions to Trump Super PACA Stress ...
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    31 分
  • What happens when political dissent is suppressed?

    What happens when political dissent is suppressed?
    2026/09/29
    It was a dramatic scene that made headlines across the country; Senator Alex Padilla lying on the floor in handcuffs for simply trying to ask a question to the former head of the Department of Homeland Security. But it turns out dissent isn't a threat to democracy, it's actually the mechanism that makes democracy work. On this episode of Democracy Decoded, Host Simone Leeper sits down with Yale Law School professor Robert Post to trace how the printing press gave rise to public opinion — and why that history explains why losing an election doesn't mean losing your voice. Then Campaign Legal Center's Danielle Lang takes over with the receipts: law firms strong-armed into pro bono deals, ICE protesters flagged in retaliation databases, and federal employees' auto-reply emails hijacked for partisan messaging. Together, Post and Lang make the case that a government that punishes its critics isn't protecting order — it's undermining the very system it claims to defend.Episode Highlights:3:22 - Why does the First Amendment protect dissent as the foundation of self-government?5:12 - How did the printing press create the public opinion democracy now depends on?6:21 - Why does democracy make citizens accountable to the judgment of total strangers?8:49 - How does free political debate shape which candidates and coalitions voters choose?11:16 - Why is losing an election still compatible with governing yourself democratically?14:53 - How is the Trump administration infringing on Americans' First Amendment rights?17:16 - Why are universities and law firms being pressured to fall in line?17:47 - How have law firms been targeted by the Trump administration?26:05 - How did shutdown emails violate federal workers’ First Amendment rights?28:38 - What must Americans do now to defend their First Amendment rights?Host and Guests:Simone Leeper litigates a wide range of redistricting-related cases at Campaign Legal Center, challenging gerrymanders and advocating for election systems that guarantee all voters an equal opportunity to influence our democracy. Prior to arriving at CLC, Simone was a law clerk in the office of Senator Ed Markey and at the Library of Congress, Office of General Counsel. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2016.Robert Post is Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He served as the School's 16th dean from 2009 until 2017. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.Post specializes in constitutional law, with a particular emphasis on the First Amendment. Post has written and edited numerous books, including The Taft Court: Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921-1930 (1924), which is Volume 10 of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States; Citizens Divided: A Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform (2014), which was originally delivered as the Tanner Lectures at Harvard in 2013; Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2012), which was originally delivered as the Rosenthal Lectures at Northwestern University; For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew M. Finkin, 2009), which has become a standard reference for the meaning of academic freedom in the United States; and Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law (2001), which was originally delivered as the Brennan Lectures at Berkeley.Danielle Lang has worked as a civil rights litigator for her entire career and as a voting rights litigator for over a decade. At CLC, she has led dozens of case teams challenging state and federal laws and policies that unlawfully restrict access to the ballot. These matters include successful challenges to the second Trump administration's illegal executive order on elections; a last-minute error-ridden voter purge in Alabama in 2024; Arizona's burdensome registration documentation of citizenship requirements; North Dakota's voter ID law targeting Native communities; Texas's discriminatory voter ID law; and numerous successful challenges to signature match policies for absentee ballots.Under her leadership, CLC's Voting Rights team not only fights in court to protect voters, but also advances pro-voter policies at the local, state and federal level across the country. In 2018, alongside CLC’s Blair Bowie, she founded CLC's unique Restore Your Vote Project. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she co-teaches the Election Law Practicum with CLC's Jonathan Diaz.Links:Win for Nonpartisanship: Court Orders Department of Education to Remove Partisan Auto-Reply EmailsDefending Nonpartisanship in the Civil Service (American Federation of Government Employees v. U.S. Department of Education)Advocating for Government Transparency Regarding ...
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    33 分
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