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ENJOY THE LATEST EPISODE OF OUR NEW SERIES, RISING UP FOR JUSTICE. Every Tuesday, Rising Up subscribers get the EXTENDED UNCUT version of the interview airing Mondays on Free Speech TV.
FEATURING COURTNEY HOSTETLER - Our nation and our world is overrun by billionaires and bigots, but they are few and we are many. On this series, exclusive to subscribers of Rising Up With Sonali and viewers of Free Speech TV, we’ll hear from organizers in the movements for social justice, and dig into the nuts and bolts of values, strategies, tactics, narratives, and building power.
This week on Rising Up for Justice, Courtney Hostetler, the Legal Director at Free Speech For People joins us. Courtney leads legal strategies to protect voting rights and defend U.S. democracy. She has extensive experience advancing accountability and constitutional protections through impact litigation and advocacy at the state and federal levels. Courtney spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the need for activism to build a better democracy.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Sonali Kolhatkar: It seems as though protecting our Constitution and bettering the health of our democracy is more important than ever before. I know we always feel that way, but the stakes seem to have gotten higher and higher and higher. And you and I are speaking at a time when we have a president who is basically snatching and grabbing as much dictatorial, authoritarian power as he can. In such a context, explain the work that Free Speech For People does, what its main goals are.
Courtney Hostetler: Sure. So going back to the beginning a little bit, we began as an organization committed to getting big money out of politics, and that's still a cornerstone of what we do. Because the billions of dollars that are pouring into our elections coming from corporations and billionaires, entities both that built empires off the backs of people, and of course, the legal theories that the courts have accepted allowing this to happen, it's all an affront to our Constitution and a real threat to our democracy, and absolutely steps that led to the position we're currently in.
Because big money forced open the doors of our democracy to corruption, both of the quid pro quo variety, but also to that general corruption that occurs when our elected officials aren't beholden to the people but are beholden to the big money that's being thrown at their campaigns. And it has effectively silenced people without money and made them feel as if they are outside a system that is not built for or by them, which is the opposite of what our country was intended to do.
So that's where we started, but as you rightly noted in the beginning, we are in such a moment, in this attack on our democracy. Over time, we've expanded to other areas of work, including fighting for free and fair elections. It means fighting against voter suppression and voter intimidation, fighting against political disinformation, fighting for accountability in government, particularly for our Supreme Court and our executive branch, Trump and the people within his cabinet.
