Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
America at 250: A Country in Distress

America at 250: A Country in Distress

Protesters gather at the Wisconsin State Capitol, holding signs.

Trump's Water Policies Put America's Drinking Water at Risk

Bruce Springsteen In Concert, facing his audience.

Springsteen’s October D.C. Festival Pushes Music Into Democracy Fight

Happy teacher asking girl with hand raised sitting in classroom at elementary school

When It Comes to Our Children’s Education, Trump Gets An ‘F’

“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid

“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid

Law Day 2025: A Perfect Time for Attorneys To Reaffirm Their Oath

Opinion

Law Day 2025: A Perfect Time for Attorneys To Reaffirm Their Oath

A gavel in front of the U.S. flag.

Getty Images, SimpleImages
By Kristina Becvar,
Kristina Becvar

In her role as co-publisher of The Fulcrum and Executive Director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, she is a driving force behind collaborative efforts to transform our democracy. Recognizing that no single idea or organization can address our complex challenges in isolation, Kristina excels in blending intuitive leadership with data-driven insights. Her extensive background in operations and change management, coupled with her M.S. in data analytics and research methods, equips her with a powerful skill set. Kristina brings a focused approach to the essential work required for a thriving democratic republic.

See More Writings by author
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
See More Writings by author
Apr 30, 2025

Each year on May 1st, the United States marks Law Day—a national observance that many Americans have never heard of, despite its six-decade history. Established in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Law Day is meant to honor the rule of law and reflect on its essential role in safeguarding liberty, promoting justice, and upholding the freedoms we often take for granted.

Each year, Law Day centers on a theme that highlights a fundamental aspect of the American legal and constitutional system. The theme for 2025, "The Constitution’s Promise: Out of Many, One," underscores the ideals of unity, shared responsibility, and the binding promise of our Constitution.

This year, a group of lawyers from across the country is taking that commitment a step further by encouraging fellow attorneys to participate in #ReaffirmTheOath—a nonpartisan grassroots campaign encouraging lawyers in communities large and small to publicly renew their commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law. It’s a powerful act of solidarity and civic leadership at a moment when the legal profession itself is under mounting pressure.

In recent years, we've witnessed an alarming erosion of trust in our democratic institutions—including efforts to discredit judges, intimidate election officials, and politicize the judiciary. Lawyers, law firms, and public servants have found themselves targeted simply for doing their jobs. #ReaffirmTheOath is a response to these attacks, offering a unifying platform for attorneys to stand up for the Constitution, the legal system, and the democratic principles they are sworn to uphold.

Led by volunteer lawyers, Checks and Balances Now is a legal and civic education initiative created by a group of lawyers. “The question I have heard for the past months from lawyer colleagues is ‘What can I do?’” said Cheryl Niro, former President of the Illinois State Bar Association and one of the organizers. “Reaffirming our Oath by making a public recommitment to our sacred duty to step up to defend and protect the Constitution and the Rule of Law is the best answer I could think of. Demonstrating that we are bound by the promise we made when we received our license to practice should help Americans understand it is our job, and we stand together to fulfill our obligation.” With the support of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Task Force for American Democracy and inspired by the Task Force's urgent call to action, Checks and Balances Now was launched to strengthen public understanding of the rule of law and democracy.

The ABA task force leaders include an impressive group of attorneys, encompassing all political perspectives. You can meet the task force at: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/election_law/american-democracy/about/

The mission of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy is to:

  • Inspire and mobilize America’s duty-bound legal profession to actively support and defend American democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law.
  • Ensure that lawyers are educated and held accountable to their professional obligations to support and defend our democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law.
  • Leverage the legal profession to educate the public on the reasons for, and the importance of, democracy and the rule of law.

Through #ReaffirmOurOath, the legal profession is being asked not just to recite words but to model the integrity and civic responsibility that democracy demands. You can find more information and see how to get involved with #ReaffirmTheOath here: https://www.checksandbalancesnow.org/events.

In turn, it is our hope that millions of Americans across our nation will understand the importance of the rule of law and the institutions that uphold life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in our great nation.

The Fulcrum supports this effort to make Law Day 2025 a powerful moment for the legal profession to lead with clarity, integrity, and purpose. In doing so, they help ensure that the rule of law remains not only a legal ideal but a living promise to every American.

David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Kristina Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.


Latest news

ICE agents wearing gear that reads, "POLICE ICE." Their faces are covered, they are wearing helmets, and one of them is holding a weapon.
Media & Technology

Your Face Is in a Federal Database and ICE Put It There

A father voting, with his young son standing by him, watching him.
Economy

Colombia’s Election Matters—Especially to Ecuador and the U.S.

Jonah Goldberg: The right and left need to control the radicals in their own parties
Bridging & Common Ground

Jonah Goldberg: The right and left need to control the radicals in their own parties

Read More

Are State Courts More Protective of Transgender People than Federal Courts?
Credit State Court Report

Are State Courts More Protective of Transgender People than Federal Courts?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that state laws prohibiting trans women and girls from participating on female sports teams do not violate the Equal Protection Clause — the seventh Supreme Court ruling curbing the rights of trans people in just the past 14 months. Since May 2025, the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to ban trans people from serving in the military, upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for trans minors, given anti-LGBTQ+ parents a veto over LGBTQ+-inclusive content in their children’s classrooms, endorsed Trump’s policy requiring trans people to list their sex assigned at birth on their passports, reinstated an injunction against policies barring schools from outing trans students to their parents against students’ wishes, and determined that Colorado’s ban on anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy must be subjected to strict scrutiny, a form of judicial review that almost no law survives.

However, there may be some cause for optimism. In an article published in The Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, I conducted a comprehensive survey of state court cases that impacted the rights and lives of trans people between 2022 and 2024. The survey showed state courts have an essential role to play in protecting trans people in an increasingly hostile political environment. Amongst some ominous signs for trans rights, there were important signals of hope in the survey.

Keep ReadingShow less
A gavel.

The rule of law, American democracy, constitutional rights, and judicial independence.

Getty Images, David Talukdar

In Texas, People Don’t Kill People, Guns Kill People

It has been said that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Apparently, that’s not the case in very red Collin County, Texas, where a self-described recovering alcoholic fatally shot his daughter in the chest, only to be let off the hook by a sympathetic grand jury. As a retired justice of the New York State Supreme Court, the case intrigued me and I tried to understand why the prosecutor, upon failing to obtain an indictment, did not try again.

In January 2025, the victim and her boyfriend traveled from England to visit her father at his home in Collin County where the shooting occurred. Although evidence presented to a grand jury cannot be disclosed, it is reasonably assumed that the grand jury was provided with the statement made by the father to the police at the scene immediately following the shooting. In that statement, the father related how he had taken his daughter, at her request, to see his gun, and that when he brought her to his bedroom and removed the gun from a cabinet in which he kept it, “it went off.” He could not recall if his finger had been on the trigger.

Keep ReadingShow less
Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix
beige concrete building under blue sky during daytime
Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix

This month, the Supreme Court will rule on Trump v. Barbara, the case that could upend birthright citizenship as we have known it for over a century.

But the current debate over birthright citizenship overlooks the fact that legal citizenship — by birthright or naturalization — has never fully protected marginalized Americans. People of color, women, LGBTQ, and lower-income Americans have long been CINOs: Citizens in Name Only. Throughout our 250-year history, they have lacked full social citizenship - access to social/welfare entitlements, political citizenship – access to voting rights, and cultural citizenship – recognition as members of the American family. So, while a court ruling can determine who gets a U.S. birth certificate, it cannot guarantee societal inclusion.

Keep ReadingShow less
How State Courts Can Help Deflect the Supreme Court’s Latest Blow to Multiracial Democracy

Black and white illustration of voters

State Court Report

How State Courts Can Help Deflect the Supreme Court’s Latest Blow to Multiracial Democracy

With its April ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court delivered yet another blow to the Voting Rights Act, specifically Section 2, which governs race in redistricting. The decision was sad and utterly predictable, but still nothing short of astonishing. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the Court’s conservative supermajority, stealthily setting aside 40 years of legal precedent under Section 2 largely on the belief that racism is a thing of the past and extreme partisan gerrymandering is, in effect, a fundamental right of state lawmakers. Callais had a tortured path to the Court, a feature of the case that has undoubtedly been eclipsed by the lawless nature of the ruling itself, all of which reveals that the Supreme Court represents the gravest threat to multiracial democracy in the United States. (I argued as much in a law review article, predicting the outcome and analyzing the ways a Court gone rogue might get to that ruling.)

What’s more? In recent years, the Court has played fast and loose with a “principle” purportedly meant to limit chaos around elections, known as Purcell. But instead of limiting chaos, the Court’s Purcell jurisprudence will hasten and aggrandize the already-problematic impact of the Callais ruling. As the nation’s redistricting wars inevitably continue — in this election season, the 2028 presidential campaign, and even the next decade — state courts can help stave off democratic erosion by resisting the urge to invoke Purcell.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026