States United Democracy Center

Following the 2020 election, Voter Protection Program rebranded as the States United Democracy Center.^{3 4} The organization has opposed Republican-led efforts to adopt election-related legislation such as voter identification laws and has supported efforts to bar January 6th demonstrators from running for office.^{5 6} The group also operates a lobbying arm called States United Action.⁷

Background

Norm Eisen founded the organization as the Voter Protection Program by recruiting an ostensibly bipartisan board of prominent individuals and retired politicians. The organization was mentioned in a February 2021 Time article that celebrated a joint campaign by corporate executives, labor union leaders, and Democratic Party operatives who anticipated that in the event of a loss, that President Donald Trump would fight the results of the election, pointing to his criticism of mail-in ballots and other election mechanisms throughout the campaign. The coalition challenged Trump’s push for recounts following alleged delays and discrepancies in the 2020 election results and urged left-leaning advocacy groups and organizers to not stage protests in the days following the election. The article identified Eisen as a recruiter for the organization as a means of preventing then-President Trump’s efforts to contest the election outcome. ⁸

Activity

Following the 2020 election, the States United Democracy Center organized a team of lawyers to oppose challenges to the election results and in January 2021 released a legal memo detailing the organization’s stance that Vice President Mike Pence had no constitutional authority to reject slates of electors. ⁹

The organization opposed Republican-led state-level election integrity legislation and supported the Democratic-led For the People Act, which included a variety of left-leaning election policies that would be instituted nationally. The organization also opposed the audit of 2020 election results in Arizona and opposes similar plans for audits in Wisconsin, calling them “scam election review attempts.”¹⁰

The organization has worked alongside the left-of-center Brennan Center for Justice in opposing a variety of Republican-backed election administration laws and proposals. Joanna Lydgate, the group’s co-founder and CEO, “specified that restrictive bills introduced over the past two years touch every aspect of current voting systems” and asserted that “legislators are kind of trying to take control over practically every step of the electoral process.”⁶

The group has also voiced support for efforts to bar January 6th protesters from running for office through proposed legislation in several states that would “prohibit anyone convicted of participating in an insurrection from holding public office or a position of public trust, such as becoming a police officer.”⁵

In March 2023, the group praised the indictment of former President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.¹¹

In response to claims that Former President Donald Trump being reelected would pose a threat to American Democracy CEO Joanna Lydgate claimed, “Trump has made clear that he’ll disregard the law and test the limits of our system…what we’re staring down is extremely dark.” ¹²

On November 12, 2024, a post on X (formerly Twitter) accused the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison of partnering with States United Democracy Center as well as lobbying group Democracy 21. The post, along with an article by the Federalist continued by claiming that Sen. Chuck Shumer’s (D-NY) brother Robert Schumer works for the law firm which also allowed several of its attorneys to have a leave of absence to work with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during the prosecution proceedings against former president Donald Trump. ^{13 14}

In November 2024, The Daily Signal reported a story alleging that in July 2023, States United Democracy Center drafted a memo alleging potential charges that could be brought against associates of then-former president Donald Trump regarding a ““false electors scheme” following the 2020 Presidential Election. ¹⁵ The 47-page memo was delivered to Arizona Attorney General (A.G) Kris Mayes and called for criminal charges against Trump associates “under Arizona law for forgery, tampering with public records, criminal impersonation, presentation of a false instrument for filing, fraudulent schemes and practices, and conspiracy.” ¹⁵ According to the story, in April 2024, less than a year after the memo was sent, Mayes secured 18 inditements filed against Trump allies and associates by the Arizona state grand jury over charges related to the Trump 2020 campaign and presidential election. Many of those indicted were previously named in the memo, and others listed included former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. ¹⁵ Those Trump associates named in the memo included then-former president Trump, then-Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward along with additional Republican activists. The memo continued by claiming, “…Trump campaign staff and advisers drove the scheme and propelled it forward in the key states, including Arizona…Trump himself sought and obtained Ronna McDaniel’s help in furtherance of the scheme.” ¹⁵ The memo to Mayes also claimed that the statute of limitations had not expired on the 2020 case, alleging “Statutes of limitations will not provide a barrier to prosecution, so long as the prosecution is brought within the next four years…[t]horough investigations of complex cases take time.” ¹⁵

People

Joanna Lydgate is the president and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the States United Democracy Center as of April 2024. Lydgate graduated from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and served as the Deputy Attorney General of Massachusetts. ¹⁶

Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Williams is a co-founder and the board co-chair for the States United Democracy Center. Other board members of the organization include former Montana Governor Steve Bullock (D), former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge (R), former Massachusetts Governor and Libertarian Vice-Presidential Candidate Bill Weld (R), former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, Obama Administration Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, as well as several former state attorneys general, among others. ¹⁷

Financials

According to its 2022 990 form, the organization reported a revenue of $14,524,982, expenses of $9,282,181, and total assets of $8,757,900. ¹⁸

Funding

In 2021, the States United Democracy Center received a series of grants from center-left organizations including $100,000 from the Merle Chambers Fund ¹⁹ and roughly $2,025,776 from The Leadership Center for Attorney General Studies, ²⁰

In 2022, the organization also received grants from center-left groups including $1,000,000 from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, ²¹ $1.6 million from the Hopewell Fund, ²² and $250k from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. ²³