Host Simone Leeper speaks with litigation experts Anna Baldwin and Brent Ferguson to unpack threats to the rule of law — and what can be done to preserve our system of checks and balances.
The foundation of our democracy is the Constitution, a system of checks and balances and the rule of law. But today, those cornerstones are being blatantly disrespected by a presidential administration attempting to consolidate power at all costs..
In this episode, host Simone Leeper is joined by Campaign Legal Center litigators Anna Baldwin and Brent Ferguson. They examine the most pressing examples of the erosion of the rule of law, from the politicization of the Department of Justice to the stifling of free speech. Along the way, they highlight how Congress and the courts have failed as effective checks — leaving civil society and citizens to defend constitutional principles — and explore the reforms that could restore accountability, protect the rule of law and strengthen democracy against threats.
Timestamps:
(00:05) — Why is free speech under attack in the U.S.?
(03:50) — How is political opposition being falsely linked to political violence?
(05:38) — Why is deploying federal troops in U.S. cities a threat to democracy?
(09:50) — How are Congress and the courts failing to check presidential abuses of power?
(15:09) — How has the DOJ been transformed into a political tool?
(20:17) — Why is the Voting Rights Act no longer being enforced?
(21:17) — What’s at stake with the DOJ’s demand for voter data?
(27:27) — How is CLC challenging unlawful executive orders?
(32:30) — What reforms are needed to restore checks and balances?
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.
Anna Baldwin is a member of Campaign Legal Center's voting rights team working to protect the freedom to vote, litigating cases in state and federal courts, from filing through appeal to the Supreme Court. Prior to joining CLC, Anna spent 14 years in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory, Anna led briefing and appellate argument for the United States to overturn a North Carolina law that purposefully restricted voting and registration opportunities for Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Anna was also a member of the trial team that successfully challenged Texas’s racially discriminatory voter ID law. Anna has argued eighteen cases before the federal courts of appeal, including four en banc cases. Previously, Anna was an associate in the Washington D.C. office of Jenner & Block LLP, and clerked for Judge James Robertson on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and for Judge M. Blane Michael on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Brent Ferguson leads Campaign Legal Center's strategic litigation team, focusing on anti-authoritarianism and litigating in all areas of election law. Brent has worked on protecting and improving our democracy for most of his career. At CLC, he has led litigation teams challenging state and federal laws and policies that seek to unlawfully purge voters, limit voter registration activity and otherwise prevent Americans from exercising their constitutionally protected rights. He has authored academic articles on election law and other constitutional issues in the Washington Law Review, the Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Emory Law Journal Online and elsewhere.
Before coming to CLC, Brent was senior counsel at the National Redistricting Foundation, where he helped develop strategy for federal and state redistricting litigation. For four years, he served as counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, focusing on campaign finance reform and working on a broad range of other democracy issues. He was also an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, where he litigated appeals of public corruption convictions. He clerked for Judge Michael Chagares of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Jeffrey Miller of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
Links:
Taking Action Against Presidential Abuses of Power | Campaign Legal Center
About CLC:
Democracy Decoded is a production of Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy. Campaign Legal Center fights for every American’s freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process. Learn more about us.
Democracy Decoded is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
Brent Ferguson: We have to, even in this moment where we're trying to put out fires that we haven't seen before, remember that some of these more fundamental reforms for good government are really important and can help solve these problems for the future.
Simone Leeper: I am Simone Leeper and this is Democracy Decoded, a podcast where we examine our government and discuss innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, accountable, and inclusive democracy. I work for a nonpartisan organization called Campaign Legal Center, dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy.
This season on Democracy Decoded we are sounding the alarm safeguards at the core of our American system of democracy are being challenged, ignored, or outright dismantled. Our very form of governance is under threat. In this episode, we're bringing you an up- to- the- minute interview with legal experts to help you better understand the fast- moving issues affecting our democracy. As the Trump administration engages in a troubling erosion of the rule of law, Campaign Legal Center is pushing back in court.
Today I'm talking with two Campaign Legal Center attorneys who are on the front lines challenging this erosion. Anna Baldwin is a litigation director on our voting rights team. They joined Campaign Legal Center this year after working for 14 years in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S Department of Justice, and they have argued 18 cases before the Federal Courts of Appeal. I'm also joined by Brent Ferguson who leads our strategic litigation team where he focuses on anti- authoritarianism and litigating in all areas of election law. Welcome both of you to Democracy Decoded and thanks for joining me today.
Anna Baldwin: So great to be here.
Brent Ferguson: Thanks so much. Happy to be here.
Simone Leeper: So as I just covered, this season of Democracy Decoded, we're highlighting cracks in our system of government that over time have allowed some persistent issues with our democracy to be exploited. Brent, what proverbial crack in the system has you most concerned?
Brent Ferguson: Sure. One of my biggest concerns in the last few weeks is the stifling of free speech, and we've seen some stifling of free speech throughout this whole administration and that started with attacks on universities and law firms, but it's really seemed to dial up in the last few weeks when we've been talking about political violence. Now, I think people on both sides of the aisle across the country are talking about how unacceptable political violence is, and that's a healthy part of the discussion. But then you've seen the administration fight back and focus only on political violence that's directed at President Trump and members of his party and completely ignoring that the fact that political violence is a problem on all sides.
And so in making that point and then issuing a memorandum about political violence and domestic terrorism, President Trump and members of the administration are creating these false links between people who engage in political violence and people who just speak out on issues and especially on issues that President Trump disagrees with. And so when you see that false link coming up and trying to label a nonprofit or a funder or a journalist as someone who's akin to a domestic terrorist because they support a certain policy stance, that's when we have to start to fight back against it as hard as we can.
Simone Leeper: That's a great point, Brent. Anna, do you have anything to add?
Anna Baldwin: Absolutely. We should all be united in the condemnation of political violence and we should all also condemn using political violence for political gain to just assemble an enemies list to attack organizations nonprofit status to go after people with whom you have longstanding political disagreements that are resolved in the civic sphere. It doesn't calm political violence, it amps it up to continue using the weapons of the federal government to shut people down, to push them out of the public sphere through arms of the state. If you describe the sort of democratic backsliding that we're seeing that's seen as a call to violence rather than a frank discussion of the dangers and challenges that we're facing in this moment and that everybody needs to sort of soberingly face so that we can surmount them.
Simone Leeper: That point is incredibly well taken. Something that I think a lot of our listeners will have seen is these images of heavily armed, oftentimes masked law enforcement on the streets of American cities. President Trump's effort to send National Guard troops into American cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland, Oregon has been described as a blatant abuse of executive power. As you guys are Washington D.C. residents or nearby D.C. residents, I'm sure that you've seen how particularly evident this has been in Washington D.C., where President Trump even federalized the Washington D.C. police force. Why is this happening now?
Brent Ferguson: It's really hard to say why it's happening. What's clear is that it's not actually happening because of crime. There's no recent crime wave in D.C. or elsewhere that justifies this federalization of troops and sending in National Guard. Military force should be the last resort here.
A federal military takeover or federalization of the police isn't the answer to crime, and American law prevents that and so does our tradition of keeping the military out of domestic law enforcement, which really contrasts the US as a democracy with many countries around the world. Because this is a special threat in D.C., because D.C. isn't a state, CLC has sent a letter to Congress opposing the federal takeover of police. And so while the President can try some of these tactics really anywhere in the country, it does have some more power in D.C. to do things like this. That doesn't mean that the current call for the National Guard or federalization of police is lawful here, it's largely not, but certainly it highlights the need for D.C. to have more control over its local affairs, and the number one way to do that is through making D.C. a state.
Anna Baldwin: Yeah. And Simone, just sort of piggybacking on some of what Brent was saying, you know, when we talk about the separation of powers, it means that each branch has to actually be doing their job. And if we had an assertive judiciary and an assertive Congress, there are the tools, they exist in our constitutional order and they have functioned to this point as a check. But right now, lower courts are making detailed factual findings. And without even hearing the case on the merits, the Supreme Court over and over again has rewarded the administration and said, " Nope, we're going to stay this order. We're not going to reach the merits. We'll hear the merits later, but for now, you can go back to doing what you're going to do, executive."
And the same thing with Congress. I mean, there are many instances where Congress could act as a check where the executive is usurping Congress's power and simply because of extreme polarization or what have you, Congress isn't standing up for its own institutional prerogatives. And so executive power is going unchecked except by the people in civil society groups who are doing the work to try and reinforce the branches. It puts the constitutional system under real stress when you don't have the other two branches exerting the powers that the framers envision them to assert.
Brent Ferguson: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And one thing I'd add on the judicial branch part that Anna mentioned is we've seen so much from the lower courts stopping the most obvious unlawful actions by this administration. And of course the Supreme Court has made a lot of headlines for the shadow docket decisions that Anna mentioned. One interesting component of that is that there are a fair number of cases where lower courts are stopping the Trump administration, where the administration has not sought relief in the Supreme Court, and often those actions remain enjoined by the courts. And it seems like the federal government is at least making some decisions about what it thinks is going too far and what even the Supreme Court won't bless. I don't know if that's going to continue.
So one example is with the birthright citizenship cases, after it's holding this earlier this summer, where the Supreme Court said that a universal injunction that stopped the birthright citizenship order can't be applied in all circumstances by a lower court all across the country. Several lower courts went back, followed the Supreme Court's ruling and issued new orders that effectively stopped the birthright citizenship order. And initially the administration didn't go back up to the Supreme Court, but now we've seen that they have recently done that arguing that the order is constitutional. So I think one really important thing to watch in the coming months is whether those most egregious cases where the federal government loses below are going up to the Supreme Court and this'll be a real test for the judicial system.
Simone Leeper: That's a great point, Brent. One thing just quickly to define a term that's weighing heavily on American democracy right now, the shadow docket is these cases, like you said, Brent, where the Supreme Court issues a stay or declines to issue a stay. So either allows an action to move forward or doesn't allow an action to move forward without actually hearing an argument about the case. So eventually that case may make its way up to the Supreme Court, but in the meantime, before it has heard any of the arguments on either side, the Supreme Court takes an action or allows the government to take an action.
Anna Baldwin: And just as part of the rule of law, the rule of law means giving reasons so that lower courts know what the law actually is, what is the confines of the power that the executive has. And part of what's so troubling about the Shadow Docket is it's these decisions often without any reasoning, so that in this moment where you have such aggressive assertion of executive power and the Supreme Court making all of these really big decisions about what can go forward and what can't, to be doing it without reasoning again is a real challenge to the rule of law where you're not even saying really anymore what the rules of the road are.
Simone Leeper: I want to move on to another question. A lot of the cracks in our system of government have been widening slowly over time, and those cracks are now being taken advantage of, but some of these fissures have happened quite abruptly. One of those is that the US Department of Justice has undergone a rapid transformation under the second Trump administration. Can you walk us through what some of those changes are and what concerns you the most about them?
Anna Baldwin: Sure. You know as a longtime Department of Justice veteran, I served as a career official in both democratic administrations, Republican administrations during the Trump administration. What again is different about this time is that political appointees during the first Trump administration, like, in other times, everybody agreed on what the rules of the road were and that the Department of Justice was fundamentally independent from the president and the executive branch. Ever since the Nixon administration and the scandals of Watergate, we know that when the president can use the power to throw somebody in jail or to threaten prosecution, that just fundamentally undermines the idea of democratic equality and that the same rule of law applies to everybody. And so ever since Watergate, there's just been this norm that those decisions whether or not to charge somebody criminally, whether to turn their life upside down and subject them to a trial, that politics would have nothing to do with that.
And there are really extensive manuals about charging decisions that can't be made before elections. It's just everything to try and preserve the impartiality and the integrity of the Department of Justice. That is all thrown out the window. Whether it's watching the Eric Adams case, which really looked like a quid pro quo, where the department was saying, " Hey, we will drop this prosecution against you, Mayor of New York if you agree to get on board with our immigration priorities." You had long- time career attorneys who said, " No, we're not going to go along with that. That is not in the traditions of the Department of Justice. It's unethical and it's wrong," and they were fired. Whether it's that, whether it's the Comey prosecution, whether it's the department being fined with the President issuing executive orders against law firms, just the top to bottom use of the Department of Justice as a tool of retribution against who he perceives to be his enemies is again, completely norm shattering.
And as a result of it, many, many lawyers who had been at the department for decades have left and others are in a really difficult position of what can I do to try and preserve the rule of law in the norms here? Do I stay until there's a line that's crossed? Am I just whitewashing it? It's a really difficult position for career lawyers to be in. There was also a norm that you don't just go through and fire career staff, but all kinds of reforms that were enacted in the wake of Watergate have just been eroded. And it does go back to the Supreme Court, when you have the Supreme Court telling the President, " You cannot be indicted for actions taken in your official duties."
Some of the checks and balances simply break down when you have the Supreme Court saying that kind of rule of law is not going to be a guardrail, that the folks who are going to be willing to serve as political appointees at the Department of Justice are going to be people who are comfortable with the president's actions on January 6th that he was never held accountable for. And so that is just a really fundamental culture shift to see law enforcement as a political tool.
Brent Ferguson: And I would add to that, it creates this distrust with the federal government that I think is damaging not only in the areas that Anna is mentioning, but just more broadly when we talk about American government, which for a long, long time has been served by thousands, millions of civil servants who are trying to do their job. And generally we trust that they are doing so, and by firing people or pushing them out, if they refuse to prosecute the President's enemies, that is eroding trust in government in a way that's not going to be easy to get back, it's not going to be a quick process. And one other quick thing I'll add just on this general topic of the Department of Justice's position is that we have relied on the Department of Justice for decades to help enforce federal voting rights laws like the Voting Rights Act.
And so here at CLC, we have often litigated alongside the Department of Justice when we're trying to stop states from illegally purging voters or doing other things that prevent American citizens from voting and putting obstacles in their way. And that has certainly changed. In the last few decades, you've seen Departments of Justice and the voting section in particular take different positions on different issues depending on who's the president, but never before have we seen this decision to completely ignore the Voting Rights Act and leave all enforcement of the Voting Rights Act to non- profit groups or individuals who are facing discrimination.
Simone Leeper: And that development is particularly disturbing considering there are legal theories right now working their ways through the courts. I would say very inaccurately claiming that the Voting Rights Act can only be enforced by the Department of Justice and that individuals and organizations don't have standing to bring these claims under the Voting Rights Act. So the Department of Justice completely stepping away from that enforcement would be very troubling.
Brent Ferguson: Exactly. That means no more Voting Rights Act is what those two things mean together.
Simone Leeper: Something that I know is happening right now with the Department of Justice is the DOJ demanding that election officials in over two dozen states, I believe 35 states, turn over their voter data so they can pass it along to the Department of Homeland Security and DOJ has also sued a number of states who refuse to do that. Could you tell us a little more about that situation and what CLC is doing to combat it?
Brent Ferguson: Sure. So over the summer, DOJ sent letters to at least 35 states asking for essentially their voter rolls. And so that's their list of people who are registered voters in the state. Now, a lot of times voter rolls in general are public and we certainly support transparency of voter lists. They make sure we know how many people are voting and that everything's running smoothly with our elections. The Department of Justice has never before sought this kind of data from so many states, and the main reason for that is largely the states are in charge of running their own elections, even when that's federal elections. Now, the Department of Justice could seek this data for a number of legitimate purposes, but we know that's not what's going on here. There has been reporting showing that they want these lists including private data that's not normally made publicly available, just so they can use it to help in immigration enforcement and most likely to pursue false claims of fraud.
And we know from the data and from multiple studies, that that simply does not happen on a large scale at all. So after that request to 35 states, a lot of states said no because their state law or federal law prevents it. And in the last couple of weeks, DOJ has sued eight states that said no. The first two were in Oregon and Maine. And CLC has been closely following those to see what DOJ is doing and how the states are reacting.
CLC is on the verge of intervening in DOJs case against Maine in support of the League of Women voters who are helping Maine fight against DOJs illegal efforts to obtain voter data. And we're also gonna be intervening in other states on behalf of those states to similarly protect the voter's data there in order to make the point that registered voters in Maine register to vote with the government with the expectation that their private data will remain private, that both the state of Maine and DOJ will follow federal and state law when deciding what data to share with others and not using it for investigations that aren't based on fact. And ao CLC will be representing the League of Women Voters of Maine in that lawsuit. And the goal is to try to prevent DOJ from getting this data and using it for nefarious purposes.
Anna Baldwin: It's just also crazy that we're in the moment where we know that it's probably nefarious purposes, right. The whole presumption of regularity that the government is following the law. I mean it's just gone.
Brent Ferguson: It's gone to Anna's point, we have spent a long time thinking that the federal government in most or many instances will do things like this when it really needs the data. Trying to get all of that data all of a sudden all at once when there's no legitimate claim of any kind of unlawful activity should be really telling. And that's why we need to defend against it.
Simone Leeper: This is obviously concerning because of the data privacy issues. It's concerning for the nefarious purposes for which this data could be used. It's also just concerning because of how it might intimidate voters or people seeking things like food assistance for their families and playing the role of having people who might have members of their family who don't have immigration status. They might not register to vote because they don't want to bring attention to themselves. And that's obviously really concerning.
Brent Ferguson: Exactly. They might not register. Or if they're already registered and they know the government has got their data or is trying to get their data, then maybe they're not going to go out to a protest. Maybe they're not going to sign a public letter or do other things that would mark them as an opponent of the administration. And so this all goes back to what we've been talking about throughout is, trusting that the government is not going to do things to target people for their speech.
Anna Baldwin: This conversation is heavy, but one of the things is when we see institution failure and we are seeing institution failure, right, when you have powerful law firms that are faced with, " Oh, we either have to do the administration's bidding" or, " We could stand up to this executive order that is blatantly unconstitutional. Well, it's just more convenient to do the administration's bidding." So you don't want to blame people who feel afraid, but at the same time, fear is contagious and so is courage. And that's one of the things that I love the most about working at CLC and getting to show up and do this work every day in community with people who are determined, separation of powers, checks and balances.
The people are ultimately the check and the people's willingness to stand up and use their voice and to call out things that are not normal. Yes. Is it becoming ever more stacked and ever more difficult to do that? Yes, but it is all the more essential and the more people that continue to use their voice and that continue to stand up and who don't normalize what's going on, that's the thing that breaks authoritarians. There is not great public support for this kind of policy, and it's really the people waking up and taking back our government and it's not too late and it will take rebuilding, but we can and have to do that, and I know as Americans we will.
Simone Leeper: So what other work is CLC doing right now to uphold the rule of law and constitutional principles?
Anna Baldwin: CLC is doing so much work across the board. One of the cases that Brent and I are litigating together, President Trump issued an executive order acting as if he has the authority to unilaterally set election rules, to demand documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote for voters using a particular form that is supposed to be easy to use and available in every state. The President has no authority to do that and CLC and our partners, we got a preliminary injunction against that executive order. And to go back to an earlier point in the conversation, this is an example of a case where a lower court stepped in and said, " Under the elections clause, this is Congress's role. This is not for you Mr. President," and the Department of Justice didn't appeal that order. There are some instances when the president goes so far that you do get the sense that there's sort of titrating up to want to take the easy wins up to the Supreme Court and to keep the things that are most unconstitutional to hold those back.
So that's just one example. We talked about the Voting Rights Act and with the department leaving the field, CLC is litigating a case out of North Dakota where we stood up to enforce the rights of Native American voters to have equal representation and a fair map. We won at trial and then the Eighth Circuit said, " No, in fact, you can't enforce the Voting Rights Act at all, only the federal government can do that." And again, since 1965, private plaintiffs have been an essential part of enforcing the act. And so CLC is currently litigating that case up to the Supreme Court.
Brent Ferguson: Yeah. Those are really vital parts of our effort. And I'll talk about a couple efforts we have going on to prevent executive overreach. So one of the core parts of that is what Anna mentioned, the president's executive order on voting rights and trying to force documentary proof of citizenship. But we more broadly think one of the big threats to American democracy is the President encroaching on the power of other branches and especially Congress. And so one case we have is against DOGE and Elon Musk, and it seems like a million years ago that Elon Musk was in the headlines every day, but in leading the effort to terminate a lot of federal spending and fire federal workers, he took actions that have really long- lasting effects and that are still being felt now.
So in March, we filed a case to try to stop that, and it was based largely on executive overreach saying that Elon Musk didn't have the appointment that gave him the power to serve in that high government role and also that Congress had provided for spending by really vital agencies, and that's agencies that engage in scientific research, that's agencies that run our national parks. And essentially by allowing one person to step in and cut all of that contrary to what our elected representatives wanted, that's the kind of executive overreach that's going to lead to further destruction of our democracy. And so we are continuing to litigate that and hope to stop some of those terminations of contracts and employees.
And then we're just continuing to look at other areas where the federal government is overreaching, either its power vis-a-vis Congress or with regard to the states. And so that's why I mentioned earlier, this really unprecedented effort to try to get data from states and demand it from them, not just ask it, but say, " If you don't give us this data we want, well we'll cut your funding or do other things that will essentially punish states for not falling in line." And so we think if that's allowed to spread unchecked, it's going to really create a federal government that's more powerful than what's envisioned in our constitution and it'll really hurt the American people by concentrating that power and giving federal government the power that it's shown it's willing to use to prosecute its enemies.
Simone Leeper: So looking ahead, what reforms or legislative actions do you believe are essential to rebuild and strengthen our representative system of government really to shore up the rule of law from attacks in the future?
Anna Baldwin: It's a hard question to say just one thing when you have over time, a lot of things becoming really out of balance. But one of the core problems that we've talked about and that you brought up, Simone, we have these two other branches. We have Congress and we have the judiciary. And part of, at least my understanding of why Congress has been so ineffective and so unwilling to take action is really related to the problem of money and politics and to the disconnect between the people and their elected representatives. And you have these policies that are just, they're not actually supported by a majority of Americans because a majority of Americans, because of the function of our broken campaign finance system, aren't really able to make their voices heard. And you have outsized wealthy and corporate interest able to control the process and to insulate the results.
So I think continuing to work to overturn decisions like Citizens United, long- term campaign finance reforms to really return the government to the people are going to be vital to fixing things. I think we may be at a real moment where a number of fundamental problems we will have a chance to fix because this moment of real democratic backsliding has shown the dangers of just leaving things unchecked and just hoping that norms will get us through. And in fact, norms aren't enough. There are some systematic overhauls that we need to have. People need to be able to have their voices heard, and we need to re- figure our understanding of the First Amendment and money in politics.
Brent Ferguson: I'm glad you said that, Anna, 'cause I feel like that gets lost in the conversation a lot. I used to be a campaign finance lawyer, and it was in the era right after Citizens United and we saw the rise of Super PACs and just this unlimited spending that really came to dominate politics. And I worry that in the last few years with all of the daily headlines and controversies and all of this stuff we're talking about today, it gets lost a little bit that still, every member of Congress is so polarized.
The last thing I'll say is that CLC supports systems like Alaska's, which is called a final four or final five voting system that gets rid of partisan primaries and says in the primary, people of all parties get to participate, and then the top four or five candidates move on to the general. So it doesn't matter what party they are. And what that does is it means that people are able to vote for whoever they want. They don't have to only vote in their party primary. In the general election, the top two candidates could be Democrats, they could be Republicans, it doesn't matter. And what Alaska has shown and other places have shown is that this really leads to people who represent their constituents better. It means that someone who wins one party's primary with 30% of the vote, doesn't go on to win in a landslide in the general because that district is polarized one way or another.
So we have to, even in this moment where we're trying to put out fires that we haven't seen before, remember that some of these more fundamental reforms for good government are really important and can help solve these problems for the future.
Simone Leeper: Thank you both of you for joining us today. I feel like we've had a really great conversation. I have a million more questions, but I think we have to keep it at a reasonable length, so thank you both for joining.
Anna Baldwin: Thank you so much for having us.
Brent Ferguson: Thanks a lot. It was fun.
Simone Leeper: As this conversation has made pretty clear, we're entering uncharted territory as a democracy. The Trump administration is moving quickly and unpredictably to undermine safeguards of the American system. If Trump and his allies are successful, the very bedrock foundations of our democracy, including the rule of law and the Constitution itself, could crumble. The stakes are high in the cases that American courts are considering right now, and it's not lost on any of us that while the circumstances are challenging, we're all privileged to be doing this work, standing up for the rule of law and our democracy.
In the next episode, we'll delve deeper into a rising feature of the current administration: corruption. We'll look at how the United States has historically ensured high ethical standards for government officials, and we'll talk to experts including an inspector general whom Trump fired capriciously about how those standards are being undermined in plain sight.
This season of Democracy Decoded is produced by JAR Podcast Solutions for Campaign Legal Center. We're a nonpartisan legal organization dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy. We fight for every American's freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the Democratic process, particularly Americans who have faced political barriers because of race, ethnicity, or economic status. During this pivotal moment for our country, it is critical that Campaign Legal Center has the support it needs to continue to fight on behalf of the American people. Your tax- deductible donation can directly fund our efforts to do just that. If you would like to support our work, just go to campaignlegal.org and click on the donate button.
Special thanks to our guests, Anna Baldwin and Brent Ferguson of Campaign Legal Center. I'm your host, Simone Leeper. Thanks so much for listening. If you learned something new today, you can find us on your podcast platform of choice and hit subscribe to get updates as we release new episodes.
Leading the production for Campaign Legal Center are Casey Atkins, multimedia manager and Madeleine Greenberg, Communications Associate. This podcast was produced by Sam Eifling, edited and mixed by Luke Batiot. Democracy Decoded is a member of the Democracy Group, a network of podcasts dedicated to engaging in civil discourse, inspiring civic engagement, and exploring the future of our democracy. You can learn more at democracygroup.org.