Civics Center is a voter registration group focused on high school students. The organization encourages state and local governments, as well as schools and nonprofits, to ease voter registration access and promote youth voting.

Civics Center is a fiscally sponsored project of Community Partners, ¹ a left-of-center nonprofit that fiscally sponsors over 180 other nonprofits. ² Donations to the Civics Center go through Community Partners. ³

Though the Civics Center professes to be nonpartisan, its founding was inspired by a negative reaction to the election of President Donald Trump, and the organization has been described as a group “leading the fight to elect Democrats and preserve democracy.” ⁴

Defend Democracy is a member of Declaration for American Democracy, a left-of-center coalition under Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen Foundation. ⁵

Founding

Laura Brill established the Civics Center after the 2016 election of President Donald Trump (R). Brill stated that she needed “personally to be doing more to protect democracy.” Brill stated that the catalyst for launching the organization was when she saw then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions criticize a Hawaii federal judge for blocking the administration’s proposed immigration restrictions and saying, “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States power.” Brill characterized this comment as “racially dehumanizing.” ^{6 7}

Brill claims to have asked her two teenage children why youth voter turnout was so low in the 2016 election. She concluded that limited turnout in her home state of California was partially due to a lack of knowledge or enforcement of California legislation which permits voters to pre-register as early as age 16. This inspired Brill to create the Civics Center to promote youth voter laws throughout the United States. ⁸

Research

The Civics Center researches so-called impediments to youth voter registration on a state-by-state basis, and issues public records requests to monitor the enforcement of registration-promoting laws. The organization issues “scorecards” rating the quality of youth voter outreach by state governments. ^{9 10}

Advocacy

The Civics Center supports the Youth Voting Rights Act, which would expand youth voter turnout by federally mandating voter pre-registration before age 18, accepting student IDs for voting, and requiring universities to have on-campus voting booths, among other policies. Other members of the Civic Center’s Youth Voting Rights Act campaign are Fix Democracy First, the Future Coalition, the National Black Justice Coalition, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, the Progressive Turnout Project, the Secure Elections Network, the Workers Circle, URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, the Secure Elections Network, the American Humanist Association, Vote.org, and Our Vote Texas. ¹¹

Ready to Vote Coalition

The Civics Center founded the Ready to Vote Coalition, a coalition of 75 advocacy groups that supports youth voter registration. Members include the Women’s March Foundation, Voters of Tomorrow, the League of Women Voters, and the New Georgia Project. ¹²

Leadership

The Civics Center was founded and is led by Laura Brill, a practicing attorney focused on appellate law and the First Amendment. ¹³ She is a founding partner at the law firm Kendall Brill and Kelly, and a former partner at Irell and Manella. Earlier in her career, Brill clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Second Circuit Judge Wilfred Feinberg. ¹⁴ Brill once represented former U.S. Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) in a dispute with consultants over a finder’s fee on a property, and she defended Greenpeace against the federal government on charges related to protesting Arctic drilling. Brill wrote amicus briefs on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in the U.S. Supreme Court. ¹⁵

In 2008, Brill donated $15,000 to a campaign against California Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that would have denied state recognition to same-sex marriages. Brill also donated to the presidential campaigns of President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D), among other Democratic candidates. ¹⁶

1. “About.” Civics Center. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://thecivicscenter.org/about.
2. “About.” Community Partners. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://communitypartners.org/about/.
3. “Join our campaign to support high school voter registration.” Civics Center. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://secure.everyaction.com/vIxcK-41rEOKM5QHl30KNg2
4. “The Civics Center with Laura Brill.” Callin. January 15, 2022. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.callin.com/episode/the-civics-center-with-laura-brill-NNmBWhLfyX.
5. “Our 250+ Member Organizations.” Declaration for American Democracy. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://dfadcoalition.org/.
6. Savage, Chris. “Jeff Sessions Dismisses Hawaii as ‘an Island in the Pacific’.” The New York Times. April 20, 2017. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/politics/jeff-sessions-judge-hawaii-pacific-island.html.
7. “The Civics Center with Laura Brill.” Callin. January 15, 2022. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.callin.com/episode/the-civics-center-with-laura-brill-NNmBWhLfyX.
8. “The Civics Center with Laura Brill.” Callin. January 15, 2022. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.callin.com/episode/the-civics-center-with-laura-brill-NNmBWhLfyX.
9. Brill, Laura, W. “In California, voter suppression starts in high school.” Cal Matters. April 29, 2019. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://calmatters.org/commentary/my-turn/2021/04/in-california-voter-suppression-starts-in-high-school/.
10. “Publications.” Civics Center. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://thecivicscenter.org/publications.
11. “Pass the Youth Voting Rights Act.” The Civics Center. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://thecivicscenter.org/petition.
12. “The Ready to Vote Coalition empowers students everywhere.” The Civics Center. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://thecivicscenter.org/.
13. “The Civics Center with Laura Brill.” Callin. January 15, 2022. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.callin.com/episode/the-civics-center-with-laura-brill-NNmBWhLfyX.
14. “Laura Brill.” LinkedIn. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbrill/.
15. Laura W. Brill.” Kendall Brill Kelly.” Accessed February 23, 2023. https://kbkfirm.com/attorneys/laura-w-brill/
16. ^[1] “Donor Search: Laura Brill.” Open Secrets. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=Laura+Brill&type=donors.