You cannot have a functioning democracy where representatives are choosing which way to

vote on a given issue at a fear for their lives.

You cannot have a functioning election where election officials are carrying out their jobs

under fear of violence.

Hi and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court and the rule

of law.

I'm Dialithwick and I cover those things for Slate.

We are finding ourselves right now in a really troubling moment for democracy, both home

and abroad.

The news from the Middle East is devastating and the speaker's fight in the House of

Representatives certainly suggests that democracy as we understand it is failing utterly

to meet the moment.

So it seemed like a good time for Amicus to turn back to one of the godfathers of democracy

preservation, my good friend Ian Basson.

Ian has been stopping by the show in these moments of wobbling democracy, often to point

our listeners to what is holding and what is teetering and maybe most importantly what

we should be focusing our attention on and what we should be doing.

Ian is co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy.

He previously served as associate White House counsel where in addition to counseling

the president and senior White House staff on administrative and constitutional law, his

responsibilities included ensuring that White House and executive branch officials complied

...