Brennan Center

Author Steve Wermiel discusses his subject (Part II)

This year, the First Monday in October brought not only the traditional return to the bench for the justices of the Supreme Court, but also the publication of an important new book about one of the most influential justices of all time, William J. Brennan. Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion, by Seth Stern, a lawyer and legal reporter for Congressional Quarterly, and Stephen Wermiel, a law professor at American University and a former Supreme Court reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is the long awaited authoritative account of the justice's life, based on unprecedented access to him and his confidential case files.

ACSblog recently interviewed Prof. Wermiel about the Justice and the research behind the book. During the interview, Wermiel discusses how he came to be chosen by Brennan to write the book, the special access he received to the justice and his papers, the justice's confidence in his own abilities and his willingness to hire conservative law clerks, the decisions the justice thought were his most significant, the implications of Brennan's legacy for current ideological battles over judicial nominations, and many other subjects. For Part One of this interview, click here. To download the interview as a podcast, click here.

In our recent Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society, The Democracy Restoration Act: Addressing a Centuries-Old Injustice, we examine an ongoing and deeply problematic barrier to the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are denied this right because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of those who are disfranchised are out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they are without a political voice.

With their roots in the Jim Crow era, many of these laws were originally enacted as a way to prevent African Americans from exercising their newly-won rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Their intended effects continue today. While 2.5% of the total U.S. voting age population is currently disfranchised, over 13% of African-American men are denied the right to vote on account of past criminal convictions -- this rate is seven times the national average.

Although in the past decade there have been significant reforms of these laws in the states, there is a compelling need for a federal standard. Some states disfranchise persons on parole or probation while others permanently disfranchise some or all who have completed their sentences. Several states even deny voting rights to persons who have incurred legal financial obligations or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.