A friend expressed concern last week about how difficult it must be for me to write the newsletter every night. She was worried I was working too hard. I reassured her, and wanted to share with you all, how much I enjoy doing this. It’s not easy. It does take time and a lot of careful thought and research. But I keep a running file of notes, and every evening, I look forward to sitting down and writing to you all. It brings clarity and it lets me focus on important issues that matter to me and then share them with you. I love hearing from you all—I learn a lot. Having the opportunity to write to you is definitely a big part of my personal agenda of joy. I was in Boston last week to speak with students at Boston College, and they reinforced the importance of sharing knowledge right now. They told me they start every morning with Heather Cox Richardson for history and with me for law. My heart was full. We don’t yet know how historians will assess this moment—we don’t know what the outcome will be for certain. But I’ve spoken with groups across the country in the past month, frequently about my book and sometimes on other topics, and my biggest takeaway is that there are a lot of us out there who are committed to keeping the Republic. We need to stay encouraged. We need to keep going. The biggest weapon Trump is leveling against us is the bully’s insistence that he has already won. That is not the case. So, we dig into the week ahead. The New York Times’ Peter Baker did the math on the solution in search of a problem that is the SAVE Act. Trump and Congressional Republicans maintain that its passage is necessary to keep noncitizens from voting. But the ultra-conservative right-wing Heritage Foundation, the folks who oversaw the creation of Project 2025, found only 1,620 cases of voter fraud from 1982 to 2025. That included 100 cases of noncitizens voting, or as Baker pointed out, “That's about 0.000008% of more than 1.3 billion votes cast in presidential elections in that time.” The tradeoff for solving that non-problem? Here’s just one example: the Act would require states to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, a tool DHS oversees the use of that verifies immigration status. But when states were able to use it on a voluntary basis in 2025, it was shown to mistakenly flag American citizens as noncitizens. The Texas Tribune explained that “At least seven states with a total of about 35 million registered voters have publicly reported the results of running their voter rolls through the system. Those searches have identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens. This aligns with previous findings that noncitizens rarely register to vote.” The potential for keeping eligible Americans from voting is so great that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has warned that the Save Act provision requiring use of the verification system “could purge millions of American citizens from the voter rolls.” Check: Keep people you think are likely to vote for Democrats from voting, based on a made-up rationale. The New York Times reported that “The Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit, recently noted that often ‘claims of large numbers of possible noncitizens on voter records are revised significantly downward after proper investigation and scrutiny.’” They noted, “There is no documented example of ineligible votes cast by noncitizens that have swung an election or even come close to it.” But they are willing to keep American citizens from voting, nonetheless. Sometimes, the truth just stares you in the face. This is one of those cases. Just like Trump made up claims of fraud in 2020 to try to turn his loss into a win, he’s making up claims of fraud now to try to stave off disaster in the midterm elections and beyond. Sometimes, you have to be willing to call the bald-faced lie a bald-faced lie. So come armed with the actual data and numbers, from places like the Heritage Foundation itself, and the next time someone tells you about “illegal aliens” voting, tell them the truth. And maybe ask why someone who made the perilous journey here and is forced to live in the shadows would risk it all to cast an illegal ballot in an election they couldn’t hope to have any influence on. It defies common sense. As one of my favorite signs from Saturday’s No Kings March encouraged: “Think. It’s still legal.” Then there’s this: Axios reported that more than 5 million Americans would have to drive an hour or more to comply with the SAVE Act’s requirement that they present their proof of citizenship in person in order to register to vote. That estimate doesn’t include the possibility of longer drive times due to traffic. We discussed the Supreme Court’s decision in Harper that ended all poll taxes last week. That’s the case where the Court wrote, “Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society. Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized." The SAVE Act would be a calculated burden on the right to vote, calculated to give the party in control a solid political advantage. Nothing about the Act is consistent with American democracy. The Senate has recessed, but Trump continues to call for passage of the SAVE Act. This evening, speaking on Air Force One, he said, “They [Republicans] should terminate the filibuster and they should vote [on the SAVE America Act]... They're playing too soft. The Republicans are wonderful people, but we're dealing with very sick individuals — the Democrats are sick. ... We have to protect our country." Earlier today, Vice President JD Vance called on Republicans to break the filibuster and pass the Act: "I would bet every dollar that I own that the next time the Democrats have control of the Senate, they will break the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and destroy this country. We have to do it NOW in order to save the country." That happens as there is news on the Epstein front, in the civil settlement we’ve been discussing that survivors brought against Bank of America. They allege the Bank financially benefited from its relationship with Epstein, and so overlooked indicators that his accounts with them were being used to facilitate trafficking. We now know the terms of the settlement in that case, which still has to be approved by the Judge. Bank of America has agreed to pay $72.5 million to settle the lawsuit. The Bank said, “While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex-trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs.” That’s a lot of coin to pay for something you didn’t do. It won’t make the administration happy to have the Epstein Files back on the public radar screen—especially since we’ve seen no movement on releasing the rest of the files or unredacting what has already been released. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case. We’ve discussed this a good bit. The 14th Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” It’s the source of “birthright citizenship,” which makes anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, a citizen. The administration has seized on the “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language. Historically, it created a limited exception to birthright citizenship for children of foreign diplomats who are born while their parents are working in the United States but aren’t subject to U.S. law. Despite the fact that this exception has been narrowly construed since it was adopted, the administration will argue the Court should suddenly change that—damn history and tradition—and let Donald Trump decide who gets to be an American citizen. We discussed that argument, and the history of the 14th Amendment, which reversed the Dred Scott case that held Black people weren’t citizens, last May, if you want more detail ahead of Wednesday. Trump v. Barbara is a case out of New Hampshire. This case should be a bridge too far, even for this Court, given its tenacity about relying on history and tradition, alongside the plain language of the law and its consistent construction for over a hundred years. After the Court ruled against Trump in the tariffs case, there is reason to believe that six or even seven justices will stand for the rule of law here. We’ll know more after Wednesday. Finally, as former State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller tweeted today, it has been 10 days since the Pentagon briefed the press on the war with Iran that we are in the middle of—that’s absolutely extraordinary. If you happen to see your elected officials while they’re home for the Easter holiday, ask them about that. Since Congress chose not to invoke the War Powers Act here, the least they could do is insist on a little transparency. We’re in this together, Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Sunday, March 29, 2026
The Week Ahead
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March 29, 2026
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