Movement Lawyering in the 2020 Election

• In Event: Courts, Campaigns, and Electoral Politics

Abstract

Five years ago, movement lawyering may have required some contemporary re-introduction. Today, recent examples of the nation-wide, galvanized triage of community lawyers, as check and balance to Executive authority, require little introduction. Ushering in this new era, attorneys converged on airports across the country in the first week of the Trump Presidency, and ended the last months of the term with a literal “lawyer cavalry” of ballot monitors mobilized in key states, including Wisconsin and Georgia, from early voting through recounts and runoffs stretching into 2021. This paper asserts that the newly expanded role of movement lawyers in election administration is both immediately responsive to the 2020 election, and will remain a significant, continuing fixture in the electoral process because of the 2020 election. Tracking and articulating the role of movement lawyers as witnesses and challengers, dispatched by both Republican and Democratic state parties, has important implications for legal history, the electoral process, civic education, and future of state election law and policy development.

Author

• Courtney Chenette, Hollins University