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Earlier this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court's Republican majority held an Arizona election law did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, because it discriminatorily abridged the voting rights of only a few thousand voters of color. Prior to Brnovich, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom PAC v. Bennett, its Republican majority found Arizona's campaign finance law did violate the First Amendment, because it enabled candidates relying on public campaign funding to spend as much on their campaigns as their privately financed opponents.
Taken together these cases show the Court's Republican majority understands the right to purchase an election warrants considerably more protection than the right to vote in one, at least more than the right to vote of people of color.
In Brnovich the plaintiffs' challenged two provisions of an election law, one which mandated that otherwise lawfully cast ballots be discarded if deposited in the wrong precinct and a second, which criminalized the delivery of mail-in ballots by any person other than a voter or her immediate family or caregiver. It was undisputed the former provision disproportionately caused the discarding of ballots cast by voters of color, in large part, because the state more often moved the polling places of voters of color, thereby increasing the frequency of their voting in the wrong precinct. Similarly undisputed was that the latter provision likely affected Native American voters disproportionately, since they had far less access to mail service than white voters. The most recent statistics indicated that thousands more voters of color than white voters would be disenfranchised by these provisions.
The plaintiffs maintained that this disparate impact on voters of color violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had been enacted to end "discrimination in voting in America." The Act prohibits any "standard, practice or procedure" whose effect is to deny or abridge the right to vote based on race, because, under the circumstances, including the continuing effects of race discrimination, it provides voters of color less opportunity to vote. This prohibition does not apply in cases in which such unequal voting opportunities are substantially unavoidable in order to advance an important state interest, such as preventing voter fraud.
The six member Republican majority cited several reasons to hold the discriminatory impact of the provisions in issue in Brnovich lawful. First, it found the vast majority of voters of color would not be affected, and therefore the law did not "seriously hinder" their voting. Furthermore, while there was no evidence these provisions were needed to protect any important state interest, the majority opined that close scrutiny of state election laws by federal courts was inappropriate, and not reflective of democratic norms. The majority also claimed its conclusion was supported by the fact that at the time the statute in issue was enacted, similarly discriminatory state election laws already were in operation.
Writing for the three Democratic justices on the Court, Justice Kagan's dissent pointed out that the Voting Rights Act applied to all laws that resulted in voters of color having less opportunity to vote than other voters--there was no exception for laws that disparately burdened only some, say a few thousand, voters of color. Noting the majority's disdain for federal courts closely scrutinizing the justifications offered by states for discriminatory election laws, Kagan pointed out that by enacting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Congress had mandated such scrutiny--a mandate Congress had ample constitutional authority to issue. Kagan agreed that at the time of its enactment, there were state laws in existence imposing discriminatory restrictions comparable to those of the Arizona statute. She explained this did little to advance the majority's holding, since rather than having grandfathered-in already existing discriminatory election laws, the Voting Rights Act was intended to eradicate them.
The public campaign financing statute in issue in the Arizona Free Enterprise case had been enacted through voter referendum after nearly 10 percent of Arizona's state legislators had been caught exchanging votes on legislation for campaign contributions or bribes. Manifestly reflecting the voters' intent that legislators support legislation in response to voters, rather than money, the law granted public campaign funds to any candidate who secured a minimum number of $5 campaign contributions, and agreed to a few other conditions. Participation in the system was entirely optional; candidates were free to rely on privately raised funds for their campaigns. However, to ensure candidates relying on public funding were not disadvantaged, and thereby to encourage participation in the public financing system, the law generally provided publicly funded candidates sufficient campaign funds to match the expenditures by privately funded opponents.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-member Republican majority, found the law violated the First Amendment rights of private campaign contributors and their candidates. Citing the court's prior fantastic holding in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, that campaign contributions are speech, Roberts observed that unrebutted speech often is more effective than rebutted speech, and that outspending one's opponent can make it possible for a candidate's speech to be unrebutted. Roberts reasoned that by allowing the publicly financed candidate to spend as much as the privately financed candidate, the law deprived privately financed candidates of the possibility of advantaging themselves by outspending the publicly financed candidate, and speaking without rebuttal. In so doing, Roberts explained, the law reduced the efficacy of their speech, which he declared to be a violation of the First Amendment.
In her dissent Justice Kagan, on behalf of the Democratic justices, pointed out that providing funds to the publicly funded candidate--funds equally available to all candidates who elected to not rely on private funding--did absolutely nothing to prohibit, limit or exact any cost from private campaign contributors or their candidates. Thus, neither precedent nor reason authorized the majority's contention that the law violated the First Amendment. Indeed, Kagan observed that rather than guaranteeing any party the right to speak without rebuttal, the Court's First Amendment decisions long had recognized the importance of a "free marketplace of ideas." The Arizona law, by ensuring publicly funded candidates for office had the means to rebut the positions of privately funded candidates, actually facilitated competition in that marketplace, and thereby advanced this core First Amendment principle. In effect, the Arizona Free Enterprise majority recast the First Amendment as a mechanism for guaranteeing the rich and their agents the right to secure a monopoly in the marketplace of ideas--at least in what is perhaps the constitutionally most crucial corner of that marketplace, electoral debate.
At bottom, these cases show a Republican Supreme Court majority that largely has untethered itself from the law to advance an extremely anti-democratic ideology. In Brnovich, as Justice Kagan explained, "the majority's opinion mostly inhabits a law-free zone." In Arizona Free Enterprise Justice Kagan observed the rule of law established by the majority turned on "chutzpah."
Contrasting the extraordinary lengths to which the Republican majority has shown it will go to enable the rich to effectively buy elections with its blithe disregard for the rights of people (at least those of color) to vote in elections should terrify all those concerned with the survival of our extremely weakened and problematic democracy. As it stands, it is entirely possible the fate of that democracy may be decided by this Court--and soon.
Congress has the power to ensure the Supreme Court majority is one committed to the law and to democracy. It can do so by increasing the size of the Court. Perhaps it also can do so by elevating the several hundred U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges to be Supreme Court justices to rotate onto the Court. Now, while our democracy remains more or less functional, and Democrats--the only one of the two major parties committed democracy--control the presidency and the Congress, might be a good time for Congress to take one or both of those actions.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Earlier this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court's Republican majority held an Arizona election law did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, because it discriminatorily abridged the voting rights of only a few thousand voters of color. Prior to Brnovich, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom PAC v. Bennett, its Republican majority found Arizona's campaign finance law did violate the First Amendment, because it enabled candidates relying on public campaign funding to spend as much on their campaigns as their privately financed opponents.
Taken together these cases show the Court's Republican majority understands the right to purchase an election warrants considerably more protection than the right to vote in one, at least more than the right to vote of people of color.
In Brnovich the plaintiffs' challenged two provisions of an election law, one which mandated that otherwise lawfully cast ballots be discarded if deposited in the wrong precinct and a second, which criminalized the delivery of mail-in ballots by any person other than a voter or her immediate family or caregiver. It was undisputed the former provision disproportionately caused the discarding of ballots cast by voters of color, in large part, because the state more often moved the polling places of voters of color, thereby increasing the frequency of their voting in the wrong precinct. Similarly undisputed was that the latter provision likely affected Native American voters disproportionately, since they had far less access to mail service than white voters. The most recent statistics indicated that thousands more voters of color than white voters would be disenfranchised by these provisions.
The plaintiffs maintained that this disparate impact on voters of color violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had been enacted to end "discrimination in voting in America." The Act prohibits any "standard, practice or procedure" whose effect is to deny or abridge the right to vote based on race, because, under the circumstances, including the continuing effects of race discrimination, it provides voters of color less opportunity to vote. This prohibition does not apply in cases in which such unequal voting opportunities are substantially unavoidable in order to advance an important state interest, such as preventing voter fraud.
The six member Republican majority cited several reasons to hold the discriminatory impact of the provisions in issue in Brnovich lawful. First, it found the vast majority of voters of color would not be affected, and therefore the law did not "seriously hinder" their voting. Furthermore, while there was no evidence these provisions were needed to protect any important state interest, the majority opined that close scrutiny of state election laws by federal courts was inappropriate, and not reflective of democratic norms. The majority also claimed its conclusion was supported by the fact that at the time the statute in issue was enacted, similarly discriminatory state election laws already were in operation.
Writing for the three Democratic justices on the Court, Justice Kagan's dissent pointed out that the Voting Rights Act applied to all laws that resulted in voters of color having less opportunity to vote than other voters--there was no exception for laws that disparately burdened only some, say a few thousand, voters of color. Noting the majority's disdain for federal courts closely scrutinizing the justifications offered by states for discriminatory election laws, Kagan pointed out that by enacting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Congress had mandated such scrutiny--a mandate Congress had ample constitutional authority to issue. Kagan agreed that at the time of its enactment, there were state laws in existence imposing discriminatory restrictions comparable to those of the Arizona statute. She explained this did little to advance the majority's holding, since rather than having grandfathered-in already existing discriminatory election laws, the Voting Rights Act was intended to eradicate them.
The public campaign financing statute in issue in the Arizona Free Enterprise case had been enacted through voter referendum after nearly 10 percent of Arizona's state legislators had been caught exchanging votes on legislation for campaign contributions or bribes. Manifestly reflecting the voters' intent that legislators support legislation in response to voters, rather than money, the law granted public campaign funds to any candidate who secured a minimum number of $5 campaign contributions, and agreed to a few other conditions. Participation in the system was entirely optional; candidates were free to rely on privately raised funds for their campaigns. However, to ensure candidates relying on public funding were not disadvantaged, and thereby to encourage participation in the public financing system, the law generally provided publicly funded candidates sufficient campaign funds to match the expenditures by privately funded opponents.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-member Republican majority, found the law violated the First Amendment rights of private campaign contributors and their candidates. Citing the court's prior fantastic holding in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, that campaign contributions are speech, Roberts observed that unrebutted speech often is more effective than rebutted speech, and that outspending one's opponent can make it possible for a candidate's speech to be unrebutted. Roberts reasoned that by allowing the publicly financed candidate to spend as much as the privately financed candidate, the law deprived privately financed candidates of the possibility of advantaging themselves by outspending the publicly financed candidate, and speaking without rebuttal. In so doing, Roberts explained, the law reduced the efficacy of their speech, which he declared to be a violation of the First Amendment.
In her dissent Justice Kagan, on behalf of the Democratic justices, pointed out that providing funds to the publicly funded candidate--funds equally available to all candidates who elected to not rely on private funding--did absolutely nothing to prohibit, limit or exact any cost from private campaign contributors or their candidates. Thus, neither precedent nor reason authorized the majority's contention that the law violated the First Amendment. Indeed, Kagan observed that rather than guaranteeing any party the right to speak without rebuttal, the Court's First Amendment decisions long had recognized the importance of a "free marketplace of ideas." The Arizona law, by ensuring publicly funded candidates for office had the means to rebut the positions of privately funded candidates, actually facilitated competition in that marketplace, and thereby advanced this core First Amendment principle. In effect, the Arizona Free Enterprise majority recast the First Amendment as a mechanism for guaranteeing the rich and their agents the right to secure a monopoly in the marketplace of ideas--at least in what is perhaps the constitutionally most crucial corner of that marketplace, electoral debate.
At bottom, these cases show a Republican Supreme Court majority that largely has untethered itself from the law to advance an extremely anti-democratic ideology. In Brnovich, as Justice Kagan explained, "the majority's opinion mostly inhabits a law-free zone." In Arizona Free Enterprise Justice Kagan observed the rule of law established by the majority turned on "chutzpah."
Contrasting the extraordinary lengths to which the Republican majority has shown it will go to enable the rich to effectively buy elections with its blithe disregard for the rights of people (at least those of color) to vote in elections should terrify all those concerned with the survival of our extremely weakened and problematic democracy. As it stands, it is entirely possible the fate of that democracy may be decided by this Court--and soon.
Congress has the power to ensure the Supreme Court majority is one committed to the law and to democracy. It can do so by increasing the size of the Court. Perhaps it also can do so by elevating the several hundred U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges to be Supreme Court justices to rotate onto the Court. Now, while our democracy remains more or less functional, and Democrats--the only one of the two major parties committed democracy--control the presidency and the Congress, might be a good time for Congress to take one or both of those actions.
Earlier this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court's Republican majority held an Arizona election law did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, because it discriminatorily abridged the voting rights of only a few thousand voters of color. Prior to Brnovich, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom PAC v. Bennett, its Republican majority found Arizona's campaign finance law did violate the First Amendment, because it enabled candidates relying on public campaign funding to spend as much on their campaigns as their privately financed opponents.
Taken together these cases show the Court's Republican majority understands the right to purchase an election warrants considerably more protection than the right to vote in one, at least more than the right to vote of people of color.
In Brnovich the plaintiffs' challenged two provisions of an election law, one which mandated that otherwise lawfully cast ballots be discarded if deposited in the wrong precinct and a second, which criminalized the delivery of mail-in ballots by any person other than a voter or her immediate family or caregiver. It was undisputed the former provision disproportionately caused the discarding of ballots cast by voters of color, in large part, because the state more often moved the polling places of voters of color, thereby increasing the frequency of their voting in the wrong precinct. Similarly undisputed was that the latter provision likely affected Native American voters disproportionately, since they had far less access to mail service than white voters. The most recent statistics indicated that thousands more voters of color than white voters would be disenfranchised by these provisions.
The plaintiffs maintained that this disparate impact on voters of color violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had been enacted to end "discrimination in voting in America." The Act prohibits any "standard, practice or procedure" whose effect is to deny or abridge the right to vote based on race, because, under the circumstances, including the continuing effects of race discrimination, it provides voters of color less opportunity to vote. This prohibition does not apply in cases in which such unequal voting opportunities are substantially unavoidable in order to advance an important state interest, such as preventing voter fraud.
The six member Republican majority cited several reasons to hold the discriminatory impact of the provisions in issue in Brnovich lawful. First, it found the vast majority of voters of color would not be affected, and therefore the law did not "seriously hinder" their voting. Furthermore, while there was no evidence these provisions were needed to protect any important state interest, the majority opined that close scrutiny of state election laws by federal courts was inappropriate, and not reflective of democratic norms. The majority also claimed its conclusion was supported by the fact that at the time the statute in issue was enacted, similarly discriminatory state election laws already were in operation.
Writing for the three Democratic justices on the Court, Justice Kagan's dissent pointed out that the Voting Rights Act applied to all laws that resulted in voters of color having less opportunity to vote than other voters--there was no exception for laws that disparately burdened only some, say a few thousand, voters of color. Noting the majority's disdain for federal courts closely scrutinizing the justifications offered by states for discriminatory election laws, Kagan pointed out that by enacting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Congress had mandated such scrutiny--a mandate Congress had ample constitutional authority to issue. Kagan agreed that at the time of its enactment, there were state laws in existence imposing discriminatory restrictions comparable to those of the Arizona statute. She explained this did little to advance the majority's holding, since rather than having grandfathered-in already existing discriminatory election laws, the Voting Rights Act was intended to eradicate them.
The public campaign financing statute in issue in the Arizona Free Enterprise case had been enacted through voter referendum after nearly 10 percent of Arizona's state legislators had been caught exchanging votes on legislation for campaign contributions or bribes. Manifestly reflecting the voters' intent that legislators support legislation in response to voters, rather than money, the law granted public campaign funds to any candidate who secured a minimum number of $5 campaign contributions, and agreed to a few other conditions. Participation in the system was entirely optional; candidates were free to rely on privately raised funds for their campaigns. However, to ensure candidates relying on public funding were not disadvantaged, and thereby to encourage participation in the public financing system, the law generally provided publicly funded candidates sufficient campaign funds to match the expenditures by privately funded opponents.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-member Republican majority, found the law violated the First Amendment rights of private campaign contributors and their candidates. Citing the court's prior fantastic holding in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, that campaign contributions are speech, Roberts observed that unrebutted speech often is more effective than rebutted speech, and that outspending one's opponent can make it possible for a candidate's speech to be unrebutted. Roberts reasoned that by allowing the publicly financed candidate to spend as much as the privately financed candidate, the law deprived privately financed candidates of the possibility of advantaging themselves by outspending the publicly financed candidate, and speaking without rebuttal. In so doing, Roberts explained, the law reduced the efficacy of their speech, which he declared to be a violation of the First Amendment.
In her dissent Justice Kagan, on behalf of the Democratic justices, pointed out that providing funds to the publicly funded candidate--funds equally available to all candidates who elected to not rely on private funding--did absolutely nothing to prohibit, limit or exact any cost from private campaign contributors or their candidates. Thus, neither precedent nor reason authorized the majority's contention that the law violated the First Amendment. Indeed, Kagan observed that rather than guaranteeing any party the right to speak without rebuttal, the Court's First Amendment decisions long had recognized the importance of a "free marketplace of ideas." The Arizona law, by ensuring publicly funded candidates for office had the means to rebut the positions of privately funded candidates, actually facilitated competition in that marketplace, and thereby advanced this core First Amendment principle. In effect, the Arizona Free Enterprise majority recast the First Amendment as a mechanism for guaranteeing the rich and their agents the right to secure a monopoly in the marketplace of ideas--at least in what is perhaps the constitutionally most crucial corner of that marketplace, electoral debate.
At bottom, these cases show a Republican Supreme Court majority that largely has untethered itself from the law to advance an extremely anti-democratic ideology. In Brnovich, as Justice Kagan explained, "the majority's opinion mostly inhabits a law-free zone." In Arizona Free Enterprise Justice Kagan observed the rule of law established by the majority turned on "chutzpah."
Contrasting the extraordinary lengths to which the Republican majority has shown it will go to enable the rich to effectively buy elections with its blithe disregard for the rights of people (at least those of color) to vote in elections should terrify all those concerned with the survival of our extremely weakened and problematic democracy. As it stands, it is entirely possible the fate of that democracy may be decided by this Court--and soon.
Congress has the power to ensure the Supreme Court majority is one committed to the law and to democracy. It can do so by increasing the size of the Court. Perhaps it also can do so by elevating the several hundred U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges to be Supreme Court justices to rotate onto the Court. Now, while our democracy remains more or less functional, and Democrats--the only one of the two major parties committed democracy--control the presidency and the Congress, might be a good time for Congress to take one or both of those actions.
"In the coming months and years, our job is not just to respond to every absurd statement that Donald Trump makes. Our job is to stay focused on the issues that are of importance to the working families of our country."
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump posed in a garbage truck and performed a staged shift at a McDonald's as he postured as a champion of the working class.
But Trump "ignored virtually every important issue facing the working families of this country" during his inaugural address, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted Tuesday in video remarks recorded after he attended the event, which was packed with prominent billionaires and corporate executives—some of whom the president has chosen to serve in his Cabinet.
"How crazy is that? Our healthcare system is dysfunctional and it's wildly expensive," said Sanders. "Not one word from Trump about how he is going to address the healthcare crisis. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs—sometimes 10 times more than the people in other countries, and one out of four Americans are unable to afford the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe. Not one word in his speech on the high cost of prescription drugs."
"We have 800,000 Americans who are homeless and millions and millions of people spending 50 or 60% of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America, everybody knows it—and Trump in his inaugural address did not devote one word to it," Sanders continued. "Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had... but Trump had nothing to say, not one word, about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else."
Watch Sanders' full remarks:
Upon taking office, Trump immediately launched sweeping attacks on immigrant families, the environment, and the federal workforce, with more expected in the near future.
Trump also rolled back a Biden executive order aimed at lowering prescription drug prices.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Sanders said that "in the coming months and years, our job is not just to respond to every absurd statement that Donald Trump makes."
"Our job is to stay focused on the issues that are of importance to the working families of our country, and are in fact widely supported by the American people," said Sanders, pointing to broad backing for guaranteeing healthcare to all as a right, slashing drug prices, tackling the housing crisis, raising the long-stagnant federal minimum wage, and taking bold action against the climate emergency.
"No matter how many executive orders he signs and no matter how many absurd statements he makes, our goal remains the same," the senator added. "We have got to educate, we have got to organize, we have got to put pressure on Congress to do the right things."
"We cannot quit. We cannot be silent. If we quit, we lose more women," said one mother whose daughter died after being denied care under Georgia's six-week ban.
Congresswoman Nikema Williams joined patients, healthcare providers, and activists—including the mother of a woman who died after being refused abortion care in Georgia—at a Tuesday press conference held a day before what would have been the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and amid fears of a national abortion ban during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term.
"I refuse to stand by while extremist politicians attack our freedoms, our health, and our future," Williams (D-Ga.) told attendees of the virtual press conference, which was hosted by the abortion rights group Free & Just. "Reproductive freedom is about healthcare, it's about dignity, it's about autonomy. It's about ensuring that everyone, every person, has the ability to make the best decisions for themselves and their families without government interference."
Speakers at Tuesday's event included Shanette Williams, whose 28-year-old daughter Amber Nicole Thurman died in 2022 after being forced to travel out of state to seek care due to a recently passed Georgia law banning almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a period during which many people don't even know they're pregnant.
"I want to send a clear message to men to get off the sidelines and enter the fight for reproductive justice."
Thurman, who was the single mother of a young son, is one of at least several U.S. women—most of them Black or brown—whose deaths have been attributed to draconian anti-abortion laws.
"She left a son, who every day is confused by why his mother is not here," Williams said of her daughter. "I'm here to be that voice, to fight, to push, to do whatever I need to do to help save another life. Because I never want a mother to feel what I feel today."
"We cannot quit. We cannot be silent. If we quit, we lose more women," Williams added. "In November, following reporting from ProPublica, officials in Georgia dismissed all members of the state's Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which investigates the deaths of pregnant women across the state."
Last September, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney struck down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that made the procedure legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy. Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Avery Davis Bell, a Savannah mother who had to travel out of Georgia for care after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition that threatened her own life as well, said during Tuesday's press conference: "I could have been Amber Nicole Thurman. It is important for me to continue sharing my story and advocating for us to be able to build the families we want, protect our lives, and be here for our living children."
Atlanta-area ultrasound technician and abortion care provider Suki O. said during the event that Georgia's ban "has been in place for three years now and it doesn't get any easier."
"To turn women away is the hardest thing for me to do," she added. "How many Black women will die, have died, and will continue to die due to these abortion bans?"
Davan'te Jennings, president of Young Democrats of Georgia and youth organizing director at Men4Choice, told the press conference that abortion "is not just a women's issue, this is a man's issue as well."
"I want to send a clear message to men to get off the sidelines and enter the fight for reproductive justice," Jennings added. "What would it look like for you to have to watch your mother go through this? To watch your sister go through this?"
While Trump has said he would veto any national abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, reproductive rights advocates have expressed doubt that the president—a well-documented liar—would actually do so, and warned that his administration could use a 151-year-old law known as the Comstock Act to outlaw the procedure without needing congressional approval.
Critics also note that Trump has repeatedly bragged about appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the 2022 decision that canceled nearly a half-century of federal abortion rights.
The Trump administration is also widely expected to revive the so-called Global Gag Rule, which bans foreign nongovernmental organizations from performing or promoting abortion care using funds from any source, if they receive funds from the U.S. government for family planning activities.
Conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation-led coalition behind Project 2025—a blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government—have proposed policies including a national abortion ban, restricting access to birth control, defunding Planned Parenthood, monitoring and tracking pregnancy and abortion data, and eviscerating federal protections for lifesaving emergency abortion care.
While campaigning for president, Trump said he would allow states to monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 12 states currently have near-total abortion bans, and 29 states have enacted prohibitions based on gestational duration.
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," warned the leaders of Popular Democracy.
Since U.S. President Trump's return to office on Monday—at an inauguration ceremony full of American oligarchs—as the Republican has issued a flurry of executive orders and other actions, progressive leaders and organizers have expressed alarm and vowed to fight against his "authoritarian" agenda.
On his first day back at the White House, Trump issued 26 executive orders, 12 memos, and four proclamations, plus withdrew 78 of former President Joe Biden's executive actions, according to a tally from The Hill. Those moves related to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, the death penalty, federal workers, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, prescription drug prices, and more.
"In the last 24 hours, Trump has passed dozens of executive orders—many beyond his powers," said Popular Democracy co-director Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper in a Tuesday statement. "Yet, not one of them has lowered prices or made life better for Americans. Instead, he's focused on eroding democracy, attacking constitutional rights, and spreading fear, cruelty, and chaos.
"Trump has taken aim at the 14th Amendment's rights of equal protection and citizenship—the fundamental American right to live and participate in our democracy—with an executive order targeting birthright citizenship," they noted, referencing a policy that is already facing legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general.
Announcing one of the lawsuits, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said that "this order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration's overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail."
Mejia and Cooper said that "his ineffective and inhumane executive orders targeting immigrants misuse military power and double down on damaging our communities."
The group America's Voice similarly expressed concern over Trump's "authoritarian notions of deploying the military on U.S. streets," with the group's executive director, Vanessa Cárdenas, saying that "this is an attack on American families and our American values. Trump's framing of our nation being 'invaded' coupled with the attacks on birthright citizenship and policies that will throw our immigration system further into chaos show that this is a hateful campaign to justify a nativist agenda that seeks to redefine 'American' and move this nation backwards."
Popular Democracy's leaders also called out various other items from Trump's first day that are expected to face legal hurdles—though the Republican spent his first term working with GOP lawmakers to pack the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, with far-right appointees, so the effectiveness of such suits remains to be seen.
"Trump's rollbacks of critical climate policy sell out future generations to the profit of oil and gas polluters, and further endangers the poor, Black, brown, and Indigenous people who have been at the frontlines of climate disaster," they said. Trump not only repealed various Biden-era policies but also declared a "national energy emergency" to "drill, baby, drill" for fossil fuels.
Climate campaigners slammed Trump for invoking "authoritarian powers on Day 1 to gut environmental protections," in the words of the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization's executive director, Kierán Suckling, vowed that "no matter how extreme he becomes, we'll confront Trump with optimism and a fierce defense of our beloved wildlife and the planet's health."
"The United States has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, and no matter how petulantly Trump behaves, these laws don't bend before the whims of a wannabe dictator," Suckling stressed. "The use of emergency powers doesn't allow a president to bypass our environmental safeguards just to enrich himself and his cronies."
The president's attacks on health are expansive. As Mejia and Cooper detailed: "Trump's sweeping changes to healthcare will rip away access for millions, line the pockets of Big Pharma, and undo strides in reproductive rights. They also single out trans Americans, denying them lifesaving healthcare and the right to live freely and authentically."
Imara Jones, a Black trans woman, CEO of TransLash Media, and an expert on the anti-trans political movement, said in a Tuesday statement that "Trump's recognition of only 'two genders' means a war on trans people, as well as any cis person with a gender expression outside of the gender binary."
"This is not political theater, this is the beginning of a potential authoritarian takeover of the United States, one that starts with targeting one of the smallest and most vulnerable groups: transgender people," Jones emphasized. "They seek to erase trans people from public life and want to see if they can get away with it, as a prelude to much more. This should worry all of us."
Another development that provoked intense worry—and even
led the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention to issue a "red flag alert for genocide in the United States"—was Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth and a key Trump ally, twice raising his arm in what was widely seen as a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.
Trump's Monday night decision to pardon over 1,500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, an insurrection incited by the president himself as he contested his 2020 electoral loss, elicited similar warnings.
"By granting clemency to these individuals, who sought to overturn the peaceful transfer of power, Trump is signaling that political violence and the rejection of democratic norms are acceptable tactics in service to his authoritarian agenda," said Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese. "This is a direct threat to the foundations of our democracy and the safety of our communities."
The leaders of Popular Democracy highlighted that "undergirding this extreme authoritarian agenda is a claim that Trump has a mandate to act like a despot—no such mandate exists, much less is acceptable to the American people."
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," they warned, just weeks after Republicans took slim control of both chambers. "Popular Democracy is prepared to push back against Trump's assault on our communities. We will stand up against an unconstitutional power grab, and hold our representatives accountable in this fight."