By Gwyneth K. Shaw
UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is a founder and leader of “We Hold These Truths,” a new nationwide effort to promote freedom, equality, and democracy through public education about the protections provided by the U.S. Constitution — and the essential importance of preserving them.
The project, which Chemerinsky created with former U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig and Drexel Law Professor Lisa Tucker, grew out of a conversation with Tucker about the importance of public awareness. The initial group then recruited politicians, veterans, lawyers, judges, law professors, and other leaders to help draft what they see as the five pillars of American democracy and the rule of law. Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman also joined as a co-chair of the organization.
“We Hold These Truths” launched on July 4 with full-page advertisements in several national and regional newspapers — including The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle — a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Chemerinsky and Luttig, and a website where Americans can sign on to support the group’s stance.
Chemerinsky, a renowned constitutional scholar, says he and others in the group felt compelled to stand up for the very bedrock of the nation’s guiding ideas. They deliberately chose the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence as the launch date to make a direct tie to the document that created the United States of America.
“Our country is more politically divided than it has been at any time since Reconstruction,” Chemerinsky says. “As Judge Luttig and I write in our op-ed, ‘We are not naïve about what can be achieved through this effort. But we strongly believe that there is value in reminding ourselves, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, of the truths that we hold to be self-evident.’”
“We Hold These Truths” seeks to unite Americans across partisan lines, professional sectors, and communities to stand behind a set of common civic principles, emphasizing that the Constitution belongs to all of us.
The effort to draw in people across the political spectrum started with the nearly two dozen drafters who joined Chemerinsky, Luttig, and Tucker in choosing what to include and how to describe each idea. That group includes former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, former federal judge and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, best-selling author Brad Meltzer, and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin.
The group decided to focus on five areas, then divided into subgroups to draft each one’s specific language, with opportunities for discussion and revision. The key was to make the statements general enough to lay out basic values, but specific enough to avoid platitudes.
Here are the five pillars of the project, with more details available on its website:
- Personal Freedoms: Upholding free speech, fair criminal justice, and personal autonomy
- Equality: Guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities for every American, recognizing that freedom depends on equality for all
- Democracy and Elections: Supporting accessible voting, honoring election results, and protecting the peaceful transfer of power
- The Rule of Law: Limiting government power through equality before the law, due process, judicial independence, and accountability
- Separation of Powers: Ensuring no branch of government exceeds its constitutional authority, preserving checks and balances
Anyone who supports the message can add their name in a “pledge to defend our shared values” and spread the word through social media and other channels.
“We hope these principles remind us that what unites us as a country, our deeply held underlying values, is greater than what divides us,” Chemerinsky and Luttig write in their op-ed.
With support from Democracy Forward and donors to the nonprofit initiative, “We Hold These Truths” leaders hope to build a powerful campaign to deepen Americans’ understanding of the principles, what they mean in practice, and why maintaining them is critical.
“The goal is public education, but also reminding us of the values that unite us,” Chemerinsky says. “It’s an important message about our shared basic principles of democracy.”