Impact Docket – 07/29/26
This week demands action. Here are nine ways you can push back right now:
⚡ Quick Actions
Keep calling to Block Blanche — the committee votes TOMORROW → Use our 60 second script and call your senator
Tell Congress: Reject the SAVE America Act — now attached to the defense bill → Write to your legislators
📩 Short-Term Engagement
Join L4GG's ED Traci Feit Love for a conversation with Stacey Abrams, Dahlia Lithwick, and others on the courts, legal strategy, and how lawyers can take action → RSVP for August 4 at 7 PM ET
BY FRIDAY: Stop the Federal Trade Commission from undermining state AI protections → Use LDAD’s resources (below) to submit a comment by July 31
Stop new barriers to work permits for immigrants — deadline MONDAY → Use ASAP’s resources (below) to submit a comment by August 4
🛠️ Long-Term Engagement
Spanish speakers: Support habeas cases for people detained by ICE — interpreters and attorneys needed → Register for our September 16 info session
🤝 Partner Actions
Lawyers and law students from ANY state: Staff Michigan's voter protection hotline for the August 4 primary → Sign up for shifts
KANSAS: It's GOTV weekend — vote NO on the judicial selection amendment → Canvass or join a Zoom phone bank
MISSOURI: Vote early, vote NO on Amendment 4 — in-person absentee voting open through August 3 → Join the campaign
Whether you have 2 minutes or 2 days, join the fight. Keep reading for more context.
🔴 The Moment We're In: "Not Prepared"
Less than 24 hours before the Judiciary Committee's scheduled vote tomorrow, Senator John Cornyn said he is "not prepared" to support Todd Blanche's confirmation as Attorney General — and canceled his meeting with Blanche entirely. Cornyn wants written guarantees that the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" is dead and that Trump's audit immunity deal is limited. Blanche keeps saying the fund is dead; Cornyn's response: "I haven't seen a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I've requested." Chairman Grassley set a 4 PM deadline today just to decide whether tomorrow's vote can proceed at all. In Cornyn's words: "Maybe they think I'm just going to give up or go along, but they're mistaken."
A nomination that was supposed to glide through is stalling — and that didn't happen by accident. More than 2,600 attorneys signed our open letter to the Senate opposing Blanche. More than 1,200 DOJ alumni went on record in opposition. Epstein survivors wrote to the committee. And lawyers across this country have been calling Senate offices for weeks. This is what sustained pressure looks like, and with the vote hanging in the balance, today is exactly the wrong day to stop. Pick up the phone and use our 60 second script!
The stakes were made plain last night, when the Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the prosecutor who issued grand jury subpoenas to New York Times journalists, as Director of National Intelligence, 51-47. The SAVE America Act is now stapled to the annual defense bill after the Senate rejected it twice. And on Tuesday, Kansas and Missouri vote on whether their courts and ballot initiatives answer to voters — or to parties and donors.
Nine actions. Pick one. Start there.
⚡ QUICK ACTIONS
📜 Block Blanche: The Pressure Is Working — Don't Let Up
Blanche's confirmation is suddenly in doubt. Two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee — Cornyn and Tillis — are withholding their support over the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund," demanding written guarantees that it's dead and that Trump's audit immunity deal is limited. The committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow morning, but it may not happen at all: Blanche keeps insisting the fund is dead, and the senators keep asking him to prove it on paper. As Cornyn put it, the DOJ knows "what they need to do but they simply refuse to do it."
This is what sustained pressure looks like. The committee vote could come as soon as tomorrow — and senators need to keep hearing from the people who took the same oath Blanche did. It takes 60 seconds. Get the script and call your senator.
🗳️ Tell Congress: Reject the SAVE America Act — However It's Packaged
The Senate has rejected the SAVE America Act twice this year. Its supporters' response: attach it to everything. Last week, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act — the annual must-pass defense bill — with the SAVE America Act bolted on, alongside the rider already attached to State Department appropriations. The strategy is explicit: force senators to choose between funding the military and blocking voter suppression.
The underlying bill hasn't changed: documentary proof of citizenship that roughly 21.3 million eligible citizens can't easily access, a photo ID standard that no state's current law satisfies, criminal penalties on election workers, and forced rewrites of election law in all 50 states. The Senate said no — twice. Jamming it through must-pass bills is an abuse of process.
📩 SHORT-TERM ENGAGEMENT
⚖️ Litigate: A Conversation with Traci Feit Love, Stacey Abrams, and Dahlia Lithwick
📍 L4GG.org/Litigate | Tuesday, August 4 | 7:00–8:00 PM ET | Virtual
Join L4GG Founder and Executive Director Traci Feit Love for a timely conversation about the role of courts, legal strategy, and community in protecting our freedoms. Traci will join Stacey Abrams, National Bar Association President Ashley Upkins, and moderator Dahlia Lithwick for Step 5 to Freedom and Power: Litigate, part of the 10 Steps Campaign community call series. Together they'll discuss the current legal landscape, the strategies already in motion, and how lawyers and advocates can take meaningful action. Come with your questions. Leave with a next step. RSVP here!
🤖 BY FRIDAY: Submit a Comment — Stop the FTC from Undermining State AI Protections
📍 Follow the steps below | Comment deadline: THIS FRIDAY, July 31
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a policy statement that would, in effect, allow the agency to undermine every state's right to regulate AI — including laws that minimize biased and discriminatory outcomes in hiring, insurance, lending, and medical care. Without those state protections, historically biased data can produce AI results that reflect biased inputs — and the proposed policy could discourage companies from complying with state AI laws at all. Our partners at Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) have detailed why the proposal is unconstitutional and in violation of law.
Read LDAD's Action Alert.
Draft your comment and submit it via Regulations.gov by midnight this Friday, July 31
Let us know you submitted at L4GG.org/TrackComment
📋 Submit a Comment: Stop New Barriers to Work Permits for Immigrants — Deadline MONDAY
📍 Follow the steps below | Comment deadline: Monday, August 4
A proposed USCIS rule would upend work authorization for people with parole, deferred action, and other forms of lawful presence — including some whose deportation is legally barred. Applicants would have to prove "economic necessity" under an undefined standard, work only for E-Verify employers, reapply as often as every year, and could be denied over arrests that were sealed, expunged, or never led to charges. For immigrants living here lawfully, this rule means one thing: losing the ability to support their families.The comment window closes Monday.
Read our partners at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project's comment resources to understand the rule.
Submit your comment via Regulations.gov by August 4, 2026
Let us know you submitted at L4GG.org/TrackComment
🛠️ LONG-TERM ENGAGEMENT
🗣️ Spanish Speakers Needed: Habeas Corpus Info Session for Volunteer Interpreters and Attorneys
📍 L4GG.org/HabeasInfoSession | Wednesday, September 16 | 12:00 PM ET | Zoom
L4GG is seeking volunteer attorneys, law students, and legal professionals fluent in Spanish to serve as interpreters supporting habeas corpus petitions for people unlawfully detained by ICE — facilitating intake interviews, interpreting legal explanations during telephonic meetings, and coordinating with counsel and family members. Volunteer attorneys are also invited to learn about representing detained individuals in habeas cases directly.
This info session covers what habeas petitions are, the tasks interpreters perform, and the support L4GG provides — including training materials, model petitions, malpractice insurance, legal research tools, and mentoring. No immigration experience required. This session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Register today.
🤝 Partner Actions
☎️ Staff Michigan's Voter Protection Hotline — You Don't Have to Be a Michigan Attorney
Michigan's primary election is August 4 — and the nonpartisan (866) OUR-VOTE hotline needs more volunteers. The Michigan Call Center, administered by our partners at the Promote the Vote Fund with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, operates through Friday, August 7. Volunteers must be lawyers or law students, but you do not need to be licensed in Michigan — attorneys from any state can help, fully remote. Two short trainings are required before your first shift; you'll receive both after signing up. If you sign up for Election Day, please complete at least one early-voting shift first to learn the system. Sign up for shifts.
❌ KANSAS: It's GOTV Weekend — Vote NO on the Judicial Selection Amendment
Election Day is Tuesday, August 4 — and Kansans United for Impartial Courts is running canvasses and phone banks every single day until then. The amendment would replace Kansas's 70-year-old merit-based system for choosing Supreme Court justices with partisan elections — turning justices into politicians who answer to donors.
In Kansas: canvass daily through Election Day in Kansas City, Wichita, Lawrence, and Topeka. Anywhere else: join a Zoom phone bank — Saturday and Sunday 1:00–3:30 PM, Monday 6:00–8:30 PM, or Tuesday 3:30–6:00 PM (all times CT). Judicial independence is a national fight, and you can make calls from your couch. Sign up for a canvass or phone bank shift!
🚫 MISSOURI: Vote Early, Vote NO on Amendment 4
Election Day is Tuesday, August 4 — and no-excuse in-person absentee voting is open NOW through August 3. Don't wait. Amendment 4 would end majority rule for ballot initiatives by requiring approval in a majority of congressional districts — the highest vote threshold in the country, designed to make it nearly impossible for Missourians to pass reforms their leaders oppose. Vote early, vote NO, and help get out the vote this final weekend. Join the campaign!
📅 Save the Date: L4GG's 10th Anniversary Convening — Feb 2027
The attorneys, advocates, and movement-builders who have shaped L4GG's first ten years are coming together — and we want you in the room. Join us in Washington, D.C. for a landmark convening to celebrate our community and build our next chapter. Sign up to be the first to know when registration opens. Your feedback shapes the programming.
We’ll be back next week with more ways to take action—but the work doesn’t stop here.
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