wrapping things up

Since my last post, I have been busily working on completing a couple of projects as my time at the Lawyers' Committee comes to a close. The last assignment I completed was charting the testimony of witnesses called before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in relation to the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. Working with another intern from the Brennan Center, we charted the witnesses' evasive responses and who each witness deferred to as having the answer. I am confident that our chart was put to good use during Attorney General Gonzales' latest hearing.

Since then, I've been working a lot with our Campaign Manager to set up our operations for Election Protection 2008. Election Protection is a program that seeks to provide on the ground support for voters during elections. This involves coordinating a large amount of volunteers, both legal and non-legal, to help answer any questions or resolve any problems voters may encounter before or on election day. The main project I've been working on is compiling data on our target states for 2008. Though the general election is a little more than a year from now, the primaries are rapidly approaching. The Lawyers' Committee expects to run limited Election Protection programs in key states for the primaries. For the general election, we expect to have a program far larger than our 2004 and 2006 efforts.

Lastly, I am working on a project for our Emerging Communities Initiative (ECI). As I've mentioned before, ECI seeks to empower immigrant communities by educating them of their legal and political rights and options. My current task is to track anti-immigrant ordinances that have been cropping up all across the nation following Congress' inability to move forward with immigration reform. In doing so, I will be trying to pinpoint where our efforts with ECI should be directed. In particular, I am trying to identify the best areas in the South that could be test sites for ECI.

As my last week begins, I find myself frantically scrambling to finish these projects. I really hope to be able to finish the work for the Lawyers' Committee before I leave; though, I won't be too surprised if I lend a helping hand to the Committee when I have time in the coming year.