Ushering Our Democracy Forward: A Mini Retrospective
It’s been a while!
For those who don’t know, I left my position as Senior Legal Policy Advisor at Democracy Forward in early January 2024, and have moved into a role as an Attorney-Advisor with the Department of Interior while hard-launching my consulting service, AJA Advocacy Solutions. Needless to say, the first month and a half of 2024 has been of new beginnings and excitement! I take my transitions seriously; in addition to looking ahead to what’s on the horizon, I try hard to ensure that I take a look at where I’ve most recently been to glean any lessons or perspectives on this side of the experience. I’d like to do that with my time at Democracy Forward, and I can think of three key takeaways that I’ll carry with me into my new role and throughout my career.
The Importance of Regulatory Advocacy and the Administrative State
At Democracy Forward, I played a dual role as a policy advisor as well as an active contributor to the organization’s regulatory advocacy working group. I ended up co-leading the advocacy working group, which meant facilitating our strategy meetings and screening new opportunities for engagement in the regulatory space. Engagement could look like finding new client organizations or assisting returning client organizations in drafting comments in response to proposed regulations. It’s through this work—particularly, working with client organizations to draft comments—that I gained a newfound appreciation for the power of the regulatory advocacy space. Many mission-driven organizations that engage in policy work with elected officials or in active litigation don’t have the time or capacity to keep track of regulations that affect their constituents or memberships. Yet the regulatory space can be a critical site of effective advocacy, especially when organizations can provide regulatory agencies with data, testimonies, and new perspectives to consider when implementing rules that directly impact people’s lives. It may not be the most glamorous or high-profile work, but it gave me valuable insight into how the expertise of vastly different organizations can be translated into a useful, rich comment that directly informs and is cited by a final rule. There’s a reason right-wing actors want to destabilize and eventually destroy the administrative state where regulations are issued—because that space holds the power to touch people’s lives on the ground. Legal cases and national and state legislation affect us all, but you might find that regulations do so even more directly.
Anti-Intellectualism, Attacks on Institutional Legitimacy, and Coordinated Destabilization Aren’t Going Away
Witnessing vast diversity in the types of work and cases taken on at Democracy Forward was one of the most interesting and engaging aspects of working there—one can and should think of “democracy” as an umbrella term for countless aspects of public life that keep a nation-state moving forward. On the flip side of seeing that breadth of work, however, was a bleak fact: the progressive wins of the last two centuries are plagued by a well-organized and coordinated right wing that is actively trying to not just roll back progress, but permanently prevent further gains. My time at Democracy Forward taught me that these destructive forces are neither holding back nor are they taking a break. Anti-intellectualism is not merely a trend; the attacks on “expertise” will continue. Attacks on the legitimacy of various American institutions, whether it be Congress, state legislatures, school boards, or courts of law will continue. Coordinated efforts to destabilize the very spaces that birthed progressive, left-leaning wins will continue.
Interconnectedness Is How We Win
One of the most fascinating streams of work at Democracy Forward involved getting a better understanding of the right-wing legal landscape. This meant understanding not only what was being done in various states to impede democratic progress, but uncovering who exactly was behind these efforts and how those different actors might be connected intellectually or monetarily. I’ve never believed in pure coincidence, and this work appealed to me on an intellectual and personal level. As I’ve noted, the American right wing is exceedingly well-organized, and if progressive actors want to fight back effectively, they too must be well-organized and coordinated. However, it’s hard to do that if you also do not comprehend the breadth and depth of your opponent’s power and resources. I firmly believe that all progressive movements currently under attack must find areas of connection (and in my opinion, they are not hard to find), otherwise relatively small fires will be temporarily put out instead of quenching the widespread blaze. The work Democracy Forward undertakes reminded me that interconnectedness is how we win.
I’ll carry these lessons with me into my new roles, and I’m grateful for my time with the organization. I am encouraged to know that Democracy Forward is one of many organizations in an ecosystem dedicated to ensuring that our country has a survivable future for as many people as possible, and I’m proud to count myself as an alum.
