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July 07, 2021

Eleanor Eagan

Blog Post Department of Justice

Biden Labeled the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision a “Disappointment.” His Justice Department Failed to Oppose It.

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court dealt a near fatal blow to what remained of the Voting Right Act. Lawmakers, advocates, and commentators decried the decision, arguing that it will make challenging the wave of new voting restrictions emerging across the country much more difficult. In a statement, President Biden said that he was “deeply disappointed,” and concurred with Justice Elena Kagan’s assessment that the decision upholds “a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.”

July 07, 2021

Zena Wolf Dorothy Slater

Blog Post BigLawClimate and EnvironmentDepartment of Justice

Corporate BigLaw Is Infiltrating The DOJ, Jeopardizing Necessary Climate Action

There is no delicate way to put it: Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has been a striking failure so far. More than 10 percent of the way through this presidential term, Attorney General Merrick Garland has failed to remove Trump holdovers; is treating Trump as a completely typical president and refusing to prosecute his many crimes; is not reversing dangerous Trump-era legal positions; and is freely allowing corporate capture of his department.

Garland’s disappointing tenure is detrimental to progressive plans for many issues — criminal justice, police violence, labor rights, immigration, antitrust, and white collar crime prosecution, among others — but his potential to wreak havoc on necessary climate action is most staggering considering the existential stakes.

July 05, 2021 | The New Republic

Zena Wolf

Op-Ed Department of Justice

End the War on Whistleblowers

Last month, ProPublica published a jaw-dropping look into the IRS data of well-known billionaires, revealing their meager effective tax rates in detail. The disclosures were met with shock and anger. After all, how could Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros go years without paying federal income taxes? And how could this possibly be legal? The article, the first in a series from ProPublica, renewed public cries that billionaires should, in fact, pay their fair share.

June 30, 2021

Eleanor Eagan

FOIA Request

The Supreme Court Confirms, There Are More Trump Holdovers Left to Fire

With few exceptions, the Biden administration has not moved nearly as quickly to remove Trump holdovers as we had hoped he would. Most of the figures who we identified for immediate removal last November remained in office well past Biden’s day one and some are still there today (day 161). Happily, however, none of that foot-dragging was on display last week after a Supreme Court decision gave Biden the green light to remove Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Mark Calabria. Within hours, Calabria was out and a new acting Director, Sandra Thompson, was in.

June 29, 2021 | Talking Points Memo

Eleanor Eagan

Op-Ed Government Capacity

Biden’s New OPM Director May Be Among His Most Critical Appointees. Here’s Why.

It seems safe to assume that most people stopped paying attention to confirmation votes sometime around late spring (if not well before). And even those few who are still tuned in would be forgiven for missing the confirmation vote that directly preceded last week’s Senate showdown over the For the People Act. Despite its low-profile, however, that position — to lead the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — may be among the most critical to the success of the Biden administration’s agenda.

June 22, 2021

Eleanor Eagan

Blog Post Independent Agencies

The State of Independent Agency Nominations - Update for Spring 2021

Over 10 percent of Biden’s presidential term has passed. Yet, despite notable accomplishments on COVD-19 relief, the Biden administration is still far from having maximized its potential impact, particularly when it comes to executive branch power. Nowhere is that more evident than at independent federal agencies, where Biden’s agenda has barely even begun to take root. With 10 percent of his term gone, Democrats have secured a majority on just three new independent agency boards.