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On June 28 Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) won the countrys presidential electoral rerun. He led a nine-party opposition coalition, the Tonse Alliance (Together Alliance). His running mate was the vibrant and popular Saulos Chilima, the leader of the United Transformation Movement (UTM).

The Tonse victory appears to have consolidated the countrys democracy, at the same revealing redefined roles of a new consensus built on the judiciary, the military and civil society organisations. At first glance, Malawians have voted for the party they rejected in 1994 as part of their transition towards constitutionalism through multiparty democratic elections after 31 years of death and darkness. (On achieving independence in 1964, the prime minister and later president, Hastings Banda, declared Malawi a one-party state under the MCP.)

Twenty-six years later, the MCP has benefited from the complex machinations and attempts to impose transitional leadership succession that have characterised Malawian politics for the past decade and a half. In 2004, president Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) acrimoniously ended his second tenure, after failing to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term. After he left office, Muluzi foisted on his party and country the little-known former deputy governor of the Reserve bank of Malawi and later finance minister, Bingu wa Mutharika. This came at a time when the opposition was boycotting the electoral process.

Within months, Wa Mutharika and Muluzi had fallen out, with corruption and treason charges levelled against the former president by the incumbent. Mutharika proceeded to form his own political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while sequestering legislators from the UDF. In April 2005, Muluzi went public, apologising to Malawians for having facilitated Wa Mutharikas ascension to office. He was then forced to flee the country and went into self-exile in the United Kingdom until May 2008.

Early in his second term, Mutharika began planning for his successor, requesting that his DDP deputy vice-president of the country, Joyce Banda, step aside for his younger brother, law professor Peter wa Mutharika, who was teaching in the United States at the time. Banda resisted and was unceremoniously removed from the party and government and forced to stay at home; she immediately formed her own party, the Peoples Party.

On April 5 2005, the unexpected happened. President Bingu wa Mutharika had a cardiac arrest and died. Thereafter, the DPP discovered that the Constitution provided for the vice-president, in this instance Joyce Banda, to take over, which she did. In the ensuing chaos, allegations emerged that key DPP officials had asked that either the attorney general or the commander of the defence forces, General Henry Odillo, take over the running of the country for a time to prevent Banda from assuming power.

In the presence of the police inspector general, Peter Mukhito, Odillo refused. Banda was able to succeed Bingu wa Mutharika and serve out the remaining term until the May 2014 elections. The DPP reorganised, with Peter Mutharika as the leader, and won the May 2014 poll. Meanwhile, an internal corruption case, the Cashgate scandal, had embroiled Joyce Bandas administration, resulting in the loss of public confidence and the possibility of arrest and detention. She fled the country into four years of self-imposed exile.

Peter Mutharika became president in May 2014 and, within weeks of his inauguration, Odillo was relieved of his duties. No explanation was provided, but it was clearly tied up with the recalcitrant position he took in 2012. In the run-up to and beyond the May 2019 elections, Mutharika continued attempting to retain the services of a discredited Malawi Electoral Commission, confronting and attempting to forcibly retire members of the judiciary and the military. Senior officers had to approach the courts to block the presidential decrees, and were successful in these efforts.

As the country prepared for the 2019 polls, Mutharika fell out with his deputy and vice-president, Chilima. As had become fashionable, Chilima also established his own party, the UTM, that is reported to have connected with the young people across the nation, particularly in urban areas.

The May 28 2019 election result, later criticised by the courts as The Tippex Election, had the DPP winning with 38.57%; the MCP and the UTM gained 35.41% and 20.24% of the vote, respectively. The two losing parties, the MCP and UTM together with the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) approached the courts, citing irregularities. One of their criticisms was about the role played by the electoral commission director, Jane Ansaha, who was accused of being partisan and biased. The electoral commission and the governing DPP appealed against the injunction.

But the high court of Malawi, in its verdict of the May 2019 election, overturned the results.

It was clear that, to defeat the incumbent, the opposition parties had to reach an accommodation of sorts before the polls an elite pact. As the elections approached, it was evident that Chilima would be the kingmaker between the governing DPP and the old, established MCP.

The short history of the Tonse Alliance, whose main leaders marched on the streets on March 12 2020 and since been inaugurated in power by June, reflects an entity emerging from a shot-gun wedding whose lasting endurance remains to be tested. This is because the marriage of convenience emerged from a sober evaluation of the losing percentages in the May election against the narrow victory of the incumbent, Peter Mutharika. On this the sums were obvious; if the two combined then they would dislodge Mutharika. The losing parties were reacting to the 150 day cooling period before the presidential re-run opportunity offered by the court ruling succeeding to gain office as the logical outcome.

The question is: How deep is this relationship and will it combine the ideological idiosyncrasies and constituencies of the MCP and UTM?

Significantly, as part of his new appointments, including a vice-president, minister of economic planning and public sector reform, and minister of finance, Chakwera has also removed the partisan acting police inspector, Duncan Mwapasa, and installed George Kainja with instructions to clean up the battered image of the police.

What has the Malawi election delivered? An entity that comprises a complex elite sits in the political saddle, while providing an opportunity for the judiciary, the electoral commission and the military to act in concert towards consolidating democracy in the country.

As Malawians rush into the streets to celebrate, they must be aware of the implications of what the poll has delivered, and keep a watchful eye on the extent the actors remain true to their ideal of acting as servant leaders.

The rest is here:
Consolidating democracy in Malawi: A case of recycled elite pacts? - Mail and Guardian

Dear Editor,

I note that my friend and CARICOM Brother, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the new CARICOM Chairman, seems determined to throw stones towards Guyana.

Statements which are certainly premature.

As one of the most experienced leaders in the Region, and the longest serving Prime Minister, I remain disappointed that he has not taken a page out of the Book of many other CARICOM Heads of Government and Leaders of political and social groupings.

That is to maintain a level of cohesion and comradery within CARICOM.

When we behave this way, we earn the disrespect of outsiders and weaken the foundation pillars of CARICOM.

No sensible leader should contribute to the creation of this kind of environment.

I read a report by the Opposition Leader of St. Vincent. He certainly did not glorify democracy in St. Vincent.

Mr. Gonsalves and others use the term democracy with gay abandon. He must know that throughout modern history, democracy is a chameleon term used for a variety of reasons and those of us who ought to know better should be careful not to ply this term without providing detail and credible information.

The truth is democracy means different things to different people and experienced political figures ought to be careful when we apply the term without providing data. In a few hours, we will be celebrating the Independence anniversary of the United States of America.

A country and the people I believe the majority of Guyanese cherish. A place where Guyanese have a family-member, relative, or friend resident there and in the majority of cases, enjoying the American way of life with the many avenues for upward mobility and where we happily refer to as the land of opportunities.

There and elsewhere the struggle to define and refine democracy is ongoing.

I quote from the Book, The Challenge of Democracy written by Janda, Berry and Goldman which states in the first chapter of the second edition, as follows: Which is better: to live under a government that allows individuals freedom to do whatever they please or under one that enforces strict law and order? Which is better: to allow businesses and private clubs to discriminate in choosing their customers and members or to pass laws that enforce equality among races and sexes?

For many people, none of these alternatives is satisfactory. All of them pose difficult dilemmas of choice. The dilemmas are tied to opposing philosophies that place different values on freedom, order, and equality. End of quote.

Even before we cut the umbilical cord with Great Britain, Demerarians (as Guyanese were then called) looked to the US for guidance and succor.

We can be reminded, however, that the first twelve Presidents beginning with George Washington, James Maddison, James Munroe, Andrew Jackson and others were slave owners in that democracy prompting Martin Luther King (jnr), a century after the American Civil War to note and I quote I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed We hold these truths to be self -evident, that all men are created equal.

President David A. Granger has neither violated our Constitution nor broken our laws but yet we see so many throwing stones at him and the government he leads.

And I wonder, Dear Editor, if the underlying philosophy of these stone throwers is that they regard our erect and proper leader as being one of the other folks.

I wonder, for I can find no valid reasons for this relentless stone-throwing by a few people in the US, Guyana and the Caribbean. I wonder.

Yours faithfully,

Hamilton Green

See the rest here:
Mr. Gonsalves and others use the term 'democracy' with gay abandon - Stabroek News

Democracy can refer to a system of government or to a particular state that employs this system. The word entered English around the 1570s, from the Middle French dmocratie, but it originally comes, via Latin, from the ancient Greek demokratia, which literally means rule (kratos) by the people (demos). The Greek demokratia dates all the way back to the 5th century b.c., when it was used to describe the government in some city-states, notably Athens.

There are two kinds of democracy: direct and representative. Direct democracy is when the people are directly involved in governing the state. Representative democracy, which characterizes the U.S. system, occurs when people elect representatives to ensure their interests in government. When we think of democracy today, we usually think of a representative one in which all or most people are able to participate. This concept didnt originate until a very long time after democracys ancient roots.

In 507 b.c., Cleisthenes, the leader of Athens, introduced a series of reforms designed to allow the people to have a voice in ruling the city. It included three different political bodies: the governors, the council of representatives, and the courts. Only male citizens over the age of eighteen could vote, excluding those from outside the city, slaves, and all women. This system of government lasted until around the 400 b.c., when it began to waver, with conquests by neighbors gradually weakening it further. Athenian democracy was probably not the first example of democracy in the ancient world, but it is the best-known early version, and it is from here that we draw the word and its governmental philosophy.

Another well-known example of early democracy was the Roman Republic. Like Athens, it wasnt what we would think of today as a full democracy. Again, only adult male citizens were eligible to participate. Italy continued the tradition in a few of its medieval city-based republics. Venice, and Florence particularly, had governmental systems that included political participation by the people, if in a limited way.

Democracy also found its way into monarchical European states through the concept of the parliament, which was a council that advised the monarch. For the most part, only those who already had power could participate in parliaments, though Sweden allowed peasants to participate in its council (the Riksdag) starting in the 15th century.

The Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries brought a greater questioning of established authority to mainstream philosophy and discourse. This trend had a strong impact on the fledgling United States, which, when it won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, set up a system of representative democracy to represent its people. France was also impacted by this model. The French Revolution in 1789 was an attempt to achieve democracy, though the country didnt achieve it until the mid-1800s.

It was not until the 20th century that universal or broader suffrage, or the right to vote, was extended in most countries, and it was in the 20th century that democracy spread. By the beginning of the 21st century, almost half of the countries of the world had some variety of democratic or near-democratic system.

Types of democracies are classified according to various distinguishing features, including constitutional democracy, democratic socialism, Jeffersonian democracy, liberal democracy, parliamentary democracy, or presidential democracy, to name a few.

Democracy is also used for non-governmental organizational systems, such as a workplace democracy, which applies democratic principles in professional contexts. An advocate of democracy or democratic values is called a democrat, not to be confused with a member of the U.S. Democratic party.

Original post:
Democracy | Definition of Democracy at Dictionary.com

In both a republic and a democracy, citizens are empowered to participate in a representational political system. They electpeople to represent and protect their interests in how the government functions.

In a republic, an official set of fundamental laws, like the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, prohibits the government from limiting or taking away certain inalienable rights of the people, even if that government was freely chosen by a majority of the people. In a pure democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority.

The United States, like most modern nations, is neither a pure republic nor a pure democracy. Instead, it isa hybrid democratic republic.

The main difference between a democracy and a republic is the extent to which the people control the process of making laws under each form of government.

Pure Democracy

Republic

Power Held By

The population as a whole

Individual citizens

Making Laws

A voting majority has almost unlimited power to make laws. Minorities have few protections from the will of the majority.

The people elect representatives to make laws according to the constraints of a constitution.

Ruled By

The majority.

Laws made by elected representatives of the people.

Protection of Rights

Rights can be overridden by the will of the majority.

A constitution protects the rights of all people from the will of the majority.

Early Examples

Athenian democracy in Greece (500 BCE)

The Roman Republic (509 BCE)

Even when the delegates of the United States Constitutional Convention debated the question in 1787, the exact meanings of the terms republic and democracy remained unsettled. At the time, there was no term for a representative form of government created by the people rather than by a king. In addition, American colonists used the terms democracy and republic more or less interchangeably, as remains common today. In Britain, the absolute monarchy was giving way to a full-fledged parliamentary government. Had the Constitutional Convention been held two generations later, the framers of the U.S. Constitution, having been able to read the new constitution of Britain, might have decided that the British system with an expanded electoral system might allow America to meet its full potential for democracy. Thus, the U.S. might well have a parliament rather than a Congress today.

Founding Father James Madison may have best described the difference between a democracy and a republic:

The fact that the Founders intended that the United States should function as a representative democracy, rather than a pure democracy is illustrated in Alexander Hamiltons letter of May 19, 1777, to Gouverneur Morris.

In a pure democracy, all citizens who are eligible to vote take an equal part in the process of making laws that govern them. In a pure or direct democracy, the citizens as a whole have the power to make all laws directly at the ballot box. Today, some U.S. states empower their citizens to make state laws through a form of direct democracy known as the ballot initiative. Put simply, in a pure democracy, the majority truly does rule and the minority has little or no power.

The concept of democracy can be traced back to around 500 BCE in Athens, Greece. Athenian democracy was a true direct democracy, or mobocracy, under which the public voted on every law, with the majority having almost total control over rights and freedoms.

In a republic, the people elect representativesto make the laws and an executive to enforce those laws.While the majority still rules in the selection of representatives, an official charter lists and protects certain inalienable rights, thus protecting the minority from the arbitrary political whims of the majority. In this sense, republics like the United States function as representative democracies.

Perhaps as a natural outgrowth of Athenian democracy, the first documented representative democracy appeared around 509 BCE in the form of the Roman Republic. While the Roman Republics constitution was mostly unwritten and enforced by custom, it outlined a system of checks and balances between the different branches of government. This concept of separate governmental powers remains a feature of almost all modern republics.

The following statement is often used to define the United States' system of government: "The United States is a republic, not a democracy. This statement suggests that the concepts and characteristics of republics and democracies can never coexist in a single form of government. However, this is rarely the case. As in the United States, most republics function as blended representational democracies featuring a democracys political powers of the majority tempered by a republics system of checks and balances enforced by a constitution that protects the minority from the majority.

To say that the United States is strictly a democracy suggests that the minority is completely unprotected from the will of the majority, which is not correct.

As a republics most unique feature, a constitution enables it to protect the minority from the majority by interpreting and, if necessary, overturning laws made by the elected representatives of the people. In the United States, the Constitution assigns this function to the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts.

For example, in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared all state laws establishing separate racially segregated public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

In its 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling, the Supreme Court overturned all remaining state laws banning interracial marriages and relationships.

The constitutionally-granted power of the judicial branch to overturn laws made by the legislative branch illustrates the unique ability of a republics rule of law to protect the minority from a pure democracys rule of the masses.

Read more:
Republic vs. Democracy: What Is the Difference?

Black-clad security forces armed with riot shields advance on a mass of peaceful demonstrators. Rubber bullets and gas canisters fly. The embattled head of state, flanked by his top prosecutor and general, emerges from his estate to stake a claim for order. The scene looked like something out of a banana republic, but it unfolded in Washingtons Lafayette Square on June 1. And soon after, an obscure nonprofit got a call from a state attorney generals office, asking the perennial questions of the Donald Trump era: Can he do that? How can we stop that from happening here?

These are questions the nonprofit Protect Democracy was founded to answer. When the call came in (from a state the group declines to name), its lawyers got to work on an analysis of the Insurrection Act of 1807, aiming to equip local leaders to fight back if the Administration seeks to send in the military over their objections, as President Trump has threatened to do. And they began rounding up bipartisan signatories for a statement on behalf of Department of Justice veterans decrying Attorney General Bill Barrs conduct.

Since the beginning of the Trump presidency, Protect Democracy has cast itself in the role its name suggests: defender of Americas system of government against the threat of authoritarianism. Started by two former Obama White House lawyers who were concerned that the new President would undermine the rule of law, the group has filed lawsuits to block Trumps retaliation against critics and to curtail his use of emergency powers. It has organized groups of civil servants to speak out against what they say is Trumps politicization of law enforcement. And it has built bipartisan congressional support to rein in presidential powers.

Protect Democracy has notched some big wins. The groups lawsuits invalidated Trumps emergency declaration for the southern border and blocked the Administration from making it harder for low-income green-card holders to become citizens. They successfully argued in New York federal court that the Presidents retaliation against media outlets may violate the Constitution, and helped ensure that a defamation lawsuit brought by a former mistress could proceed in state court. Their advocacy has gotten states to reform election procedures and Congress to act to limit Executive power.

Its an impressive record for a three-year-old startup. They are innovative, imaginative, energetic and extremely effective, says Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor in chief of Lawfare, whose work with the group led to the release of the Watergate prosecutors road map that had been sealed for more than 40 years.

The June 1 spectacle at Lafayette Square seems to have brought some reticent figures closer to Protect Democracys view of things. Former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were among those who spoke out in favor of the protesters. When you see military helicopters above the streets of D.C., using tactics from war zones, using tear gas on peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, says Ian Bassin, co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, these things so match what people imagine when they think of the toppling of democracies that it struck a chord.

From the beginning, however, Protect Democracy has argued the onset of authoritarianism in America would come not with a flash-bang grenade but with the whimper of institutions gradually succumbing to the erosion of long-standing norms. Ideas that seemed far-fetched three years ago have become routine: a President who declares himself immune to congressional or judicial oversight; whose Attorney General seeks to exempt the Presidents friends from responsibility while prosecuting his political enemies; whose lawyers argue in open court that he could, in fact, shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without consequence. The events of recent days appear to validate the groups concerns, with Trumps former National Security Adviser accusing him of corrupting the electoral process and the Administration firing a U.S. prosecutor whose office was investigating the Presidents close associates. Trump continues to sow doubt about the integrity of the upcoming election, recently declaring on Twitter that it would be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history.

As the election nears, Protect Democracy is focused on securing the Nov. 3 contests against foreign and domestic meddling. The group, which is officially nonpartisan, is funded by foundations and individual donors, including the LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Boston-based investor Seth Klarman, who before Trump was the GOPs largest donor in New England. Protect Democracy is lobbying and advising states on election procedure with an eye to ensuring a legitimate result. Yet the group is also looking beyond Trump, seeing him as a symptom of a system whose weakened defenses leave it open to abuse, and figuring out what can be done to strengthen American democracy in the future, regardless of who is in the White House next year.

Trump tours a section of the border wall in Otay Mesa, Calif., on Sept. 18, 2019

Evan VucciAP

If you believed your government was slouching toward dictatorship, what would you do about it? The answer, to judge from Protect Democracys routine, can seem mundane. On a recent Monday, 55 people are assembled as squares on a screen in a Google Meet video chat. Long before COVID-19 turned nearly all white collar workers into video-chat adepts, Protect Democracy was a work-from-anywhere organization, its 66 employees scattered from coast to coast. (Bassin is based in the Bay Area, co-founder Justin Florence in Boston; the group maintains a lease on a WeWork space in D.C.)

But the topics on such calls reach to the highest levels of government. Im working on a letter calling on the Justice Department inspector general to open an investigation into Barrs involvement in Lafayette Square, Justin Vail, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, tells the team. Vail, a former Obama White House and Democratic Senate aide, tells the group hes assembled more than a thousand signatories, former federal prosecutors from Republican and Democratic Administrations.

These sorts of current and former government insiders are disdained by the President and his allies as the deep statepetty bureaucrats dedicated to undermining Trumps necessary disruption of the status quo. But a competent, nonpolitical civil service is an important component of democracy. In America, officials from the President to the lowest-ranking soldier swear an oath pledging loyalty not to any ruler, Administration or party, but to the Constitution itself.

For many civil servants, that nonpartisanship has traditionally extended from one Administration to the next, and even past their time in government. Its hard to overstate how unusualbasically unprecedentedit is to have former career officials speaking out in this way, says Ben Berwick, who spent six years in the DOJs Civil Division during the Obama Administration. He left a few months after Trump took office, and became one of Protect Democracys earliest hires. The group has now massed hundreds of DOJ alums on a series of letters like the one Vail is preparing. Among the most high-profile was one stating that any ordinary American who committed the acts described in Robert Muellers Russia report would have been prosecuted for obstruction of justice, and another deploring Barrs extraordinary move to request a lighter sentence for former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone.

The group says such letters have brought concrete changes. We have seen [current Justice officials] resign, withdraw from cases, object and file internal complaints as a result, Vail says. Its a reminder that people on the outside support them having the courage to stand up and continue to work with integrity. As the group was preparing its 2,500-signatory letter on the Stone case, Barr publicly distanced himself from the Presidenta sign, the group says, that he was feeling pressure in his ranks. The department subsequently backtracked on its sentencing recommendation. On June 23, a former prosecutor testified to Congress that Stones softened sentence had been the result of heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break because of his relationship to the President.

Protect Democracys founders, Bassin and Florence, both served in the White House counsels office during the Obama Administration. By the time Trump took office, both had left government and moved on to other thingsBassin to international antipoverty work, Florence to a comfortable gig at a top law firm. But as the new Presidents actions set off alarm bells, the two began corresponding. They realized that there was no single organization doing what they were talking about: safeguarding basic principles, like checks and balances, and the idea that no one is above the law, against a perceived threat to democracy itself.

Bassin and Florence began consulting scholars who study authoritarianism abroad, hoping on some level that experts would say they were out of their minds. But the scholars shared the same worries. The scary thing was that no one rolled their eyes; nobody said, Oh, come on, really, youre being hysterical,' Bassin says.

Experts pointed to places like Poland and Turkey, where authoritarian leaders won elections and turned their countries into what scholars of the region describe as Potemkin democracies by curtailing civil rights and undermining popular control of the government. Democracies today die in a much more subtle fashion than they used to, says Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, co-author of the book How Democracies Die. Its pretty rare to see the generals all at once seize power, dissolve the constitution, and imprison dissidents and the press. Instead you see elected leaders graduallyimperceptibly to many citizenstransform the machinery of government to protect their friends and harass and punish their enemies.

Bassin recalls one early, telling example. Under Obama, one of his jobs had been to advise Executive Branch officials on how to follow rules set out in thick binders and handed down from Administration to Administration starting with President Eisenhowers in the 1950s. Many werent laws so much as norms and codes intended to embody the spirit of public service. Among the precepts, for example, is a 14-page memo dating to the Carter Administration that lays out specific rules for when and how White House officials could contact the Justice Department, to avoid the perception of politics influencing law enforcement. In February 2017, then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus contacted the FBI to ask the agency to publicly refute a New York Times report about contacts between Trump associates and Russian agents, and the White House openly acknowledged he had made the contact. It was already clear back thenbefore Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, before Mueller began his investigation, before Ukraine and impeachment and everything elsethat the new Administration was not interested in the binders and memos, the rules and norms, that had prevailed for generations.

Bassin and Florence wanted their organization to be bipartisan. It really is something that Republicans and Democrats, all people of good faith, should be able to agree on, that the President is not a monarch who is above accountability of any kind, says Jamila Benkato, who joined the group after clerking for a federal judge in California. But most of the groups early hires were liberals. Even Trump-skeptical conservatives wanted to give the new President a chance to grow into the job. And the group has struggled to establish a public identity that transcends its liberal roots.

Yet the mission has attracted some Republicans. Protect Democracys employees include a former GOP presidential campaign operative and consultant for the Koch brothers political outfit; a former clerk to the conservative federal judge Edith Brown Clement; and a former GOP Senate staffer and writer for the conservative Weekly Standard. In March, the group assembled 37 former Republican members of Congress and Administration officials to file a friend-of-the-court brief in Trump v. Vance, arguing that the Presidents accountants must comply with a subpoena for documents related to his hush-money payments to alleged mistresses.

From a conservative standpoint, its clear to me that the President is offending the rule of law generally and the Constitution specifically, says Stuart Gerson, who headed the DOJs Civil Division under President George H.W. Bush. Gerson worked with Protect Democracy on its successful lawsuit in a conservative court in Texas, which thwarted Trumps attempt to build his border wall without permission or funding from Congress. Im an apostle of the unitary executiveI argued all the war-powers cases in the Bush Administration, Gerson says of the idea that the Constitution gives the President expansive powers over the workings of the Executive Branch. But that [doctrine] puts the President in charge of the Executive Branch, not the other two.

Protect Democracy has organized former Justice Department officials to speak out against Barr, left, and President Trump

Doug MillsThe New York Times/Redux

Sometime in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is set to rule on Trump v. Vance and two related cases having to do with the validity of subpoenas into the Presidents private conduct. The cases will test the idea that no one is above the law, by resolving whether a President can be investigated and held accountable for any activities, even those that precede or have nothing to do with the office. Protect Democracys advocates say the cases are part of a broader set of questions about presidential power, which they have been fighting to constrain.

One of Trumps first moves as President was the creation of an election-integrity commission, which sought to examine allegations of voting abuse, like his baseless claim that the 2016 election was tainted by millions of illegal votes. Working with other advocacy groups, Protect Democracy sued based on a technicalitythe Administrations failure to follow the Paperwork Reduction Act, which mandates the procedures for establishing such commissionsand informed states they were not required to provide the Administration with the voter data it sought. The commission, Protect Democracy argued, represented not a good-faith effort to secure the vote but an attempt to sow doubt based on a nonexistent problem. Within a few months, the commission was shuttered.

Later that year, when Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff convicted of contempt of court for racially profiling Latinos, Protect Democracy filed a brief arguing the pardon was unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed to appoint a private attorney to argue the matter. And when the Administration released a report claiming that immigrants were responsible for most acts of terrorisminformation Trump cited in his 2017 address to Congressthe group sued based on an obscure statute, the Information Quality Act, thats typically used by Big Business to dispute environmental regulations. It was a legally creative approach to a vexing question: If the government decides to simply make up statistics, does the public have any recourse? While that litigation is still pending, the Justice Department admitted in court that the terrorism report was inaccurate.

When the former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos sued Trump for defamation in 2017 after he called her a liar for accusing him of sexual assault, Protect Democracy filed the only outside brief, arguing the President was not immune from civil lawsuits. It was a little-noticed case, but one the group thought could establish a dangerous precedent. In ruling Zervos suit could go forward, the court drew extensively on Protect Democracys arguments. It is the first time a court has ruled the President is subject to civil lawsuits in state court.

In October 2018, Protect Democracy filed another lawsuit on behalf of PEN America, a journalists organization, arguing that Trump was violating the First Amendment by revoking press credentials to punish journalists and threatening media businesses bottom lines: stalling the proposed merger of CNNs parent company, raising postal rates on Amazon (whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post) and threatening to revoke broadcast licenses. In March, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled the suit could go forward.

Over the course of this presidency, Protect Democracy has broadened its purview, on the theory that threats to American democracy do not begin or end with Trump, and that many of the weaknesses he is exploiting predate him. Presidents of both parties have steadily expanded executive power, while Congress has willingly ceded more and more of its constitutional authorities. Protect Democracy has worked with both parties in Congress to reclaim some power from the Executive Branch, teaming up with GOP Senator Mike Lee on a bill putting new limitations on presidential emergency powers. The legislation advanced out of committee on a bipartisan 11-2 vote. Protect Democracy is also collaborating with advocates who have been working for years to reassert congressional authority over war powers; the group filed lawsuits to force the Administration to release the memos justifying its military strikes on Syrian chemical-weapons sites and the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

In 2018, Protect Democracy broke away from its federal work and intervened in recounts under way in two states, Georgia and Florida, where candidates were overseeing elections in which they were also competing. In Georgia, their lawsuit helped prompt gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp to resign as secretary of state. Since then, the group has sought to find and fix weaknesses in voting systems, lobbying and advocating for new voting machines in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. It has also tackled voter suppression, using an old statute aimed at the Ku Klux Klan to stop a Trump ally from harassing Latino voters in Virginia and working with a North Carolina group, Forward Justice, to bring a lawsuit that would force the state to re-enfranchise felons.

More than a year ago, Protect Democracy formed a bipartisan election task force to examine such threats and recommend responses. Ironically, one of the crises they originally decided not to plan for was a potential pandemic. Now, as COVID-19 has thrown states election plans into doubt, the group has made a set of recommendations for moving forward with mail balloting and other changes.

For now, Protect Democracy says it wants to ensure that the November election is free and fair, producing a result that can be widely accepted as legitimate regardless of who wins. Whenever Trump leaves office, the group envisions a brief window for Congress to pass reforms, similar to the burst of legislation that followed President Nixons resignation. The organization has been gearing up for this with a 100 days agenda of recommendations for the next President, including changes to election systems, prohibitions on election interference and campaign-finance reform.

In a democracy, the people are the ultimate check on power. Protect Democracys central argument is that institutions dont protect themselves; people have to be activated to use the tools the system provides. In a timely metaphor, the groups leaders compare authoritarianism to a virus sweeping the globe: first you treat the patient by activating the bodys immune system to fight off the illness; over time, you formulate a vaccine to provide immunity in the future.

When Ian and I first started talking about this, we thought it would be an organization that lasted however long Trump was in office, then folded up shop, says Florence, the groups co-founder and legal director. What weve learned is that were seeing a moment that requires a generation-long response. Ultimately, weve got to rebuild our institutions to make our system more resistant to a future authoritarian-minded leader.

With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Josh Rosenberg

This appears in the July 06, 2020 issue of TIME.

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Write to Molly Ball at molly.ball@time.com.

The rest is here:
Trench Lawfare: Inside the Battles to Save Democracy From the Trump Administration - TIME