Author: Joyce Vance

The author of Civil Discourse on Substack, Joyce Vance is a Brennan Center senior fellow who lends her expertise as a former federal prosecutor to writing and commenting on high-profile court cases and election-related matters. She is a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama School of Law, where she has taught since 2017, focusing on criminal law and democratic institutions. She is also a legal analyst for NBC and MSNBC and co-host of the legal podcasts #SistersInLaw and Cafe Insider. Previously, Vance served as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration. She served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys from 2009 to 2011 and co-chaired its criminal practice subcommittee from 2009 to 2017. Among her notable achievements were prosecuting the first material support of terrorism case in Alabama and successfully challenging the state’s 2011 anti-immigration law. Vance also created the first civil rights enforcement unit in an Alabama U.S. attorney’s office.

The Supreme Court Keeps Mifepristone Available by Mail as Litigation Continues

The mifepristone case that has landed on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket is the new face of conservative efforts to impose a nationwide ban on abortion.

It’s possible that the Court is close and needs a little more time to reach a decision. There has been some thought it might set the case for argument on the merits as early as next month, or more realistically, next term, and decide it on the merits quickly, at least as courts count time.

But given the political weight of the issue in a midterm election year, the Court could also return to its history with mifepristone: kicking the can down the road. That’s what they did when the Texas case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, came before it in June 2024, deciding that the plaintiffs lacked standing and dismissing the case, instead of ruling on the substantive issue.

Trump’s DOJ Claims Biden Administration Was Wrong to Prosecute Clinic Violence

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has released an 882-page report Tuesday about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The Act does just what it sounds like it would do: Makes it possible for individuals who provide medical care or want to receive it to enter clinics that provide reproductive health care without being subjected to violence, threats, intimidation, or physical obstruction. The law allows federal prosecutors to criminally charge people who violate it and gives victims the right to bring civil lawsuits against aggressors.

The report concludes that the Biden administration “weaponized” the DOJ against people protesting outside abortion clinics, and that it criminalized their conservative beliefs. But it doesn’t hold up very well. It’s politics in the guise of prosecution, an effort to justify Trump’s pardons of 24 abortion opponents who harassed patients and attacked clinics and curry favor with parts of his base.

The Immigration Crackdown Is Coming for Public Education

There is something especially ugly about going after children, denying them a basic education, which cuts off their path to life in a way that can’t be restored later on in their lives. But that’s what Republicans want to do.

An estimated 600,000 to 850,000 undocumented children are enrolled in K-12 education in the United States. They are not abstractions. They are kids sitting in classrooms next to American citizens, learning the lessons that will permit them to contribute to whatever society they are a part of as adults. Forcibly removing their access to education doesn’t just harm them individually, it leaves entire communities worse off.

Forget the ‘Manosphere’—The ‘Meno-Sphere’ Is the Voting Bloc With Real Power

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A recent report from centrist think tank Third Way predicts many of the “swingy, moderate, low-propensity young men” who supported Trump will sit out the midterms this year.

So who should progressive political strategists and hopefuls turn their attention to? The oft-forgotten, invisible aging woman, or, what we like to call the meno-sphere.

There are many good reasons to prioritize the electoral and mobilization potential of women over 50. Back in 1992, The New York Times published a piece called “Mighty Menopause,” which posited that the then-rise of Baby Boomer women in politics was a direct result of hormonal shifts and that the “biological changes wrought by menopause” ultimately bolster women’s “interest in power and increase their ability to use it.”

If ever there were a moment to prove that to be true, it’s now—as our daughters’ and granddaughters’ rights are rolled back, as communities are terrorized, as the power elite’s willful alignment with the rot becomes clearer by the day.

How Trump Used the Pardon Power to Excuse an Attack on Democracy

Rewarding people who tried to ignite an insurrection turns the pardon power on its head.

Trump’s pardons are not about people and their communities—they are about personal loyalty to him. Trump summoned these individuals to the Capitol to support him and now he will pardon them to complete that transaction. Trump will use the pardon power to make it clear that violence and violation of the law can be forgiven in service to himself.