# Protect Democracy Founded in 2017 as a **nonpartisan, anti-authoritarian** legal organization. Distinct from [[Democracy Forward]] in that Protect Democracy operates with explicitly bipartisan founding leadership — including former Bush administration lawyers and Republican-appointed judges as part of its broader network — and frames its work as defending the structural integrity of American constitutional democracy rather than advancing any specific policy agenda. ## The Niche Where [[Democracy Forward]] focuses on volume and speed of executive-action litigation, Protect Democracy specializes in **structural and doctrinal cases** that test the boundaries of executive power. Its case selection skews toward separation-of-powers questions, civil-service protection, election integrity, and disinformation. ## Trump 2.0 Track Record (2025–2026) ### Federal Workforce / Civil Service Major partner in the **April 2025 nationwide coalition** challenging Trump's executive order conducting mass firings (Reductions in Force, RIFs) of federal workers. Coalition included Democracy Forward, Altshuler Berzon LLP, Public Rights Project, and the State Democracy Defenders Fund. The preliminary injunction paused dozens of RIFs across multiple agencies — one of the most consequential defensive wins of the early [[Trump 2.0]] period. ### Independent Agencies Represented FTC Commissioner **Rebecca Kelly Slaughter** in the 2025 case over whether the president can unilaterally fire members of an independent commission created by Congress. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments — the case is a direct challenge to *Humphrey's Executor* (1935) and the constitutional foundation of independent agencies. Outcome will reshape the entire administrative state. ### Research Funding Sued the National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services over the cancellation of more than $1 billion in research grants. Federal judge ruled in **June 2025** that the cuts were illegal — preserving research that the administration had attempted to terminate via OMB action. ### Election Executive Order Litigation Part of multi-organization coalition challenging Trump's **March 2025 elections executive order** that purported to require proof of citizenship for federal-election registration, restrict mail-ballot deadlines, and condition federal election funding on state compliance. The order has been partially blocked by federal courts. ## The Bipartisan Frame Protect Democracy's institutional choice to maintain bipartisan staffing and language is strategically significant. In an era when "pro-democracy" has been weaponized as a partisan label, the organization preserves the option of building constitutional-defense coalitions across ideological lines — particularly with the never-Trump conservative legal community ([[CREW]] occupies a similar but more aggressive niche; see also [[John Bolton]] and the conservative-defector tradition). This positioning makes Protect Democracy more credible to federal judges (including conservative ones) than nominally partisan plaintiffs. It also produces an institutional voice that can speak to right-of-center audiences in language that movement-aligned organizations cannot. ## See Also - [[Resistance Hub]] - [[Pro-Democracy Movement]] - [[Democracy Forward]] — frequent co-counsel - [[CREW]] — government-ethics complement - [[Legal Strategy as Movement Infrastructure]]