My time as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at CAC started and ended with Supreme Court docket circumstances with main penalties for our multiracial democracy. A number of months earlier than I began, voting rights litigators obtained vital victories on the Court docket that upheld bedrock protections for the best to vote. However threats to voting rights lingered, and two years later, on the final week of my fellowship, CAC filed an amicus temporary within the newest problem to the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and its potential to make sure equal alternative for voters of coloration. A lot can change in a couple of years, and I really feel exceptionally lucky that I’ve spent these years at CAC.
Two Supreme Court docket choices from June 2023 affected the course of my Fellowship. First, in Moore v. Harper, the Court docket soundly rejected the so-called unbiased state legislature concept (ISLT). On the similar time, nevertheless, the Court docket created a small potential opening for ISLT proponents, writing that, underneath the Elections Clause, the Court docket has the facility to evaluation state courtroom choices on state election regulation when these courts “transgress the abnormal bounds of judicial evaluation.” Through the first half of my fellowship, I delved into historic and authorized analysis to fight any future invocations of ISLT and reveal that federal courtroom evaluation of state courtroom choices on this space is just acceptable in extraordinarily uncommon and unlikely circumstances. This undertaking culminated in an article printed within the Boston School Legislation Overview in April 2025 that I co-authored with my colleagues David Gans and Brianne Gorod. As authorized scholarship performs a vital function in growing and selling pro-democracy arguments, I’m thrilled that CAC was in a position to contribute to the essential educational discourse on ISLT and help future litigation in opposition to the doctrine.
The second case was Allen v. Milligan. In that case, the Supreme Court docket upheld the longstanding authorized framework governing Part 2 of the VRA’s safety in opposition to vote dilution, which is vital to making sure that voters of coloration have an equal alternative to elect the candidates of their selection. After the Court docket’s choice in Milligan, a number of decrease courtroom vote dilution circumstances resumed, and new challenges to the VRA have been raised in courts of appeals. I labored on two amicus briefs within the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits defending the constitutionality of Part 2 of the VRA and one other amicus temporary within the Fifth Circuit arguing that Part 2 protects coalitions of voters of coloration who collectively deliver vote dilution claims.
These weren’t the one voting rights circumstances that I had the privilege to work on. CAC filed three amicus briefs in litigation difficult state election legal guidelines underneath the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits legal guidelines that disenfranchise voters for minor errors in voting paperwork. And in Florida state courts, I labored on briefs defending in opposition to efforts to weaken the Florida Structure’s voting rights protections.
Over the past yr of my fellowship, nevertheless, new threats to democracy emerged, together with a number of actions taken by the Trump Administration to weaken bedrock constitutional rights and ideas. And as case after case has been filed to problem the Trump administration’s lawlessness, CAC has been there defending democracy and the rule of regulation, and I’m grateful to have contributed to the battle as a Fellow. For instance, after President Trump presupposed to curtail birthright citizenship for the kids of immigrants, CAC filed a number of amicus briefs within the Supreme Court docket and federal courts of attraction on behalf of an ideologically numerous group of students of constitutional regulation and immigration wherein we clarify that the Fourteenth Modification means what it says: all youngsters born in the USA are residents of the USA, and no govt order can change that. I’ve additionally labored on amicus briefs CAC has filed in circumstances difficult the administration’s efforts to unilaterally dismantle govt departments and businesses, together with an amicus temporary filed on behalf of members of Congress in litigation difficult the administration’s try to dismantle the CFPB.
Now, as the subsequent Supreme Court docket Time period looms, the VRA is as soon as once more in danger. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court docket is contemplating a problem to a congressional map that the Louisiana Legislature handed to treatment a Part 2 violation. I labored on the amicus temporary CAC filed within the case in December 2024 and wrote a chunk in Slate in March 2025 recapping the oral argument. This summer season, nevertheless, the Court docket scheduled the case to be reargued this upcoming Time period and ordered supplemental briefing on the constitutionality of the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-Black district. Over the past week of my fellowship, I labored on one other amicus temporary that CAC filed within the case, arguing that the drawing of majority-minority districts to treatment vote dilution is according to the textual content and historical past of the Fifteenth Modification.
My fellowship began with vital wins for democracy and is ending with a case that would radically undermine the VRA’s potential to guard voters of coloration and advance the targets of the Fifteenth Modification. However whereas the threats to voting rights and democracy might have modified over the previous two years, CAC’s steadfast dedication to selling the progressive promise of the Structure has not. On the Supreme Court docket and decrease courts, CAC and our good staff of attorneys have been there to clarify to courts that the Structure’s sweeping protections for democracy and voting rights can’t be undermined, whether or not by states in search of to weaken the voting energy of voters of coloration or a President taking illegal unilateral govt motion. I really feel immensely privileged to have been a member of the CAC staff over these two years, and I’m very grateful for all of the alternatives I’ve had and the teachings I’ve realized. As I end my fellowship amidst unprecedented threats to the rule of regulation and democracy, I’m heartened by the truth that CAC can be right here to tackle these challenges within the months and years to return.
