Not only does the center house a variety of democracy and justice programs, it can take a multifaceted approach to achieving reform. Brennan officials carefully weigh their “very robust toolkit” of scholarship, legislative drafting, lobbying and legal action.

“We persuade where we can and sue where we have to,” observes Justin Levitt. This goes well beyond legal bluster, he notes. “We’re fortunate not only to have a hammer because when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Instead, the center tries to take a “savvy approach” about going to court. “We are a bunch of lawyers—we know litigation is very expensive and time consuming,” Levitt says. Before taking that drastic step, Brennan’s legal staff spends “a lot of time” on persuasion and legislative counsel “with a very strategic eye and pragmatic eye.”

The hybrid aspect of the center had great appeal to Justice Brennan, who envisioned an organization staffed with the likes of Harvard law school graduate Levitt. “The main thing that he really liked was the idea of having a progressive or liberal institution,” Fishbein says, “that would have really bright people take positions on the issues of the day and file lawsuits if needed.”

As a result, Geri Mannion calls Brennan’s success “just phenomenal in a relatively short period of time. What stands out about them is the melding of legal acumen, research and advocacy. They’re not just fusty old researchers who produce information and recommendations that sit on a shelf, or lawyers that litigate; rather, they put all these skills together in an almost seamless effort aimed at action. They have become the legal defense fund for electoral reform, starting with campaign financing but including felony re-enfrachisement, election administration, voting rights, etc.”

Becoming a Power in Campaign Finance Reform

The Brennan Center was designed “to create a new breed of public interest organization that had one foot in the world of ideas and one foot in…policy advocacy,” Rosenkranz says. “That was almost unheard of and didn’t exist in any of the areas we set out to tackle.”

Also unheard of was the organization’s stunning decision on its first major campaign finance reform target. The center would aim to undo Justice Brennan’s majority opinion in the case of Buckley v. Valeo that deemed unconstitutional some limits on campaign spending.

But the suggestion that the Brennan Center’s first task would be to try and overturn one of its namesake’s famous decisions did not sit well with some former clerks who were reportedly furious at what they saw as a disrespectful act.

Still, the biggest concern was the reaction of Brennan himself. Rosenkranz went to Washington to break the news to the former justice about the startling plans by the center named after him.

Brennan was a creature of habit, even in retirement. Justice Brennan “always had lunch in chamber and he would order the same club sandwich every time,” Rosenkranz observes. But what he sought to tell his former boss was far from routine. “Boss, we figured out what the first thing would be,” Rosenkranz nervously hemmed and hawed.

“Out with it!” Brennan responded. When Rosenkranz told Brennan the effort was to reverse his Buckley v. Valeo opinion, “he starting laughing. He was downright tickled at the fact that we were thinking on our own. That we were addressing an old problem with new ramifications and really starting from scratch.”

Nancy Brennan adds that her father “thought it was great” because the move showed the center was focused on “the evolution of legal thinking, not fixed on a place in time that would be passé...He was thrilled.”

The unusual move also bolstered the center’s reputation for forward thinking.

“When it first started, people thought it would be to kind of keep the Brennan aura going—he’s such a beloved figure in liberal circles,” Tony Mauro now recalls.

Taking on his opinion “won them respect that it wasn’t just going to be a backward-looking memorial to Justice Brennan…[The Brennan Center] very quickly became a major player in a number of hot legal issues.”

The center also began to confound the stereotypical liberal Democratic and con-servative Republican divide. Mauro’s 1996 article cited “a singular victory” in opening up the New York Republican primary process, “which has always been a king-makers affair…Yes, the center named for the Court’s liberal lion went to bat for Republican voters and candidates.”

In fact, the Brennan Center also forged an affiliation with the man who is now the Republican standard-bearer: John McCain.

Arguing that New York’s access rules were too burdensome, the Brennan Center helped represent McCain in his legal challenge to appear on the 2000 Republican primary ballot throughout the state. Demonstrating the center’s impact, McCain made the announcement of his legal challenge at the Brennan Center’s New York headquarters. Burt Neuborne was co-counsel in the case.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled in McCain’s favor and he was placed on the ballot. A few years later, the Brennan Center-McCain affiliation would yield even bigger results.

McCain-Feingold is the informal name of a bipartisan sponsored law that is synonymous with modern election reform. It also demonstrates the range of the Brennan Center’s contributions both before and after legislation is passed. Formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, McCain-Feingold established Brennan as a major participant in bipartisan efforts to pass and defend the law that placed new restrictions on the use of “soft money” contributions to influence federal campaigns.

Brennan not only made the case to help McCain-Feingold’s passage in Congress, but also worked to uphold it in the nation’s highest court. After McCain-Feingold took effect, the center’s lawyers worked with a former Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, to successfully defend the law in a 2003 Supreme Court case.

But not everything Brennan works on turns into federal case. Another distinguishing factor of the center’s efforts is its deep involvement in local and state campaign reform efforts.

“There is this sort of intimacy in the working relationship between state-based groups and this New York-based group, which is very unusual,” explains Lawrence Hansen of the Joyce Foundation. He cites as proof “top to bottom evaluations of five state campaign finance laws” that Brennan conducted last year.