It's fall, it's October and the US Supreme Court is back in session. On today's episode, we have a special guest from the AFJ Justice team. We are joined by our colleague Jamal Lockings. With Jamall we will cover the big cases to be heard by the court. Then we will talk about how nonprofits can get involved with supreme court advocacy, nominees, and more while staying nonpartisan and being mindful of lobbying limits. 

Attorneys for this Episode 

Brittany Hacker 

Susan Finkle Sourlis 

Jamaal Lockings 

Intro to Justice Program 

• Our justice team works on both federal and state judicial appointments and elections and runs numerous invaluable resources including our judicial vacancy tracker and helps keep us and the public informed about nominees. This includes the decisions they make after they've been confirmed, and how cases in federal courts – especially the supreme court – are impacting our civil rights and democracy.    

• Today, we are thrilled to be joined on the pod by our friend and colleague Jamaal Lockings. Jamaal is a fellow attorney who serves as a Dorot Fellow on the Federal Courts team.  

• Today we want to talk about the upcoming cases in this supreme court term, what we should be keeping an eye on, the potential impacts for our c3 partners, and what nonprofits can do during this term and future terms to advocate.  

Cases to watch out for this term 

• Voting Rights and Money In Politics 

• Louisiana v. Callais 

• Issue: Whether a states efforts to comply with the VRA is, in itself, a form of racial discrimination 

•  (1) Rehearing from last term (2) The Court is playing politics (3) the VRA is on the chopping block  

• Consequences: A final blow to the VRA, and increased difficulty for minority voters to participate in free and fair elections  

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