Washington, D.C. - Today, a large coalition of leading pro-democracy organizations is launching a multimillion-dollar effort called Democracy 2025 to ensure swift legal challenges and responses to harmful and anti-democratic actions expected in the first days of the Trump-Vance administration.
Democracy 2025, resourced by Democracy Forward, includes a growing roster of 280+ legal, expert, and advocacy organizations and 800+ individuals representing millions of people and communities across the country. Members include litigators, strategists, advocates, academics and policy experts, and faith leaders who are prepared to challenge expected governmental actions that will harm people, communities, and our democracy. The actions the groups are prepared to respond to include efforts to purge and target our nation’s civil service, roll back health care access, harm immigrant communities, undermine labor protections, and dismantle core functions of the U.S. government.
Members of the coalition have built a multimillion-dollar war chest across organizations to support Democracy 2025 members taking legal action, representing people and communities pro bono, and creating resources for the broad pro-democracy community.
Monitoring the activities of far-right organizations that are supporting the development of a Trump-Vance policy agenda, Democracy 2025 has developed a “Threat Matrix” that has identified 221 high-priority threats across core issue areas, including threats outlined in Project 2025 and other plans by far-right groups to use Presidential power and Executive Branch actions. Organizations in the coalition are planning responses if a Trump-Vance Department of Justice (DOJ) abandons the DOJ’s role in defense of important federal policies and benefits being challenged by far-right attorneys general, organizations, and special interests or if it seeks to weaponize the DOJ against the American people.
Many coalition members are prepared to swiftly bring litigation should the Trump-Vance administration undermine our national security, economic protections, civil rights, climate and conservation, reproductive rights, and more.
The coalition has also launched Democracy2025.org—a website that will serve as a central hub for tracking threats to freedom and democracy and responses to those actions as well as enabling people across the nation to join in the work. The website will provide information to enable the American people to hold their lawmakers to account for the implementation of Project 2025 or other unpopular and harmful proposals that, as candidates, Donald Trump and JD Vance disavowed. It will also have resources for civil servants and communities that are expected to face greater attacks.
The groups in the coalition are no strangers to using the courts to challenge unlawful action–and winning. In the first Trump administration, legal challenges filed by coalition members as well as Democratic attorneys general were largely successful. The administration lost nearly 80% of the time in court and a number of their activities were rebuked even by judges appointed by Republican Presidents and Trump himself.
Members of the Democracy 2025 coalition issued the following statements, with additional statements being added as they are available:
“Within days of taking office in 2017, Donald Trump and his administration took a series of actions that undermined and violated the rights and well-being of the American people and threatened our nation’s greatest values. It has become clear that the Trump-Vance administration will waste no time doing the same in 2025,“ said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “Thanks to this growing and broad, inclusive coalition of communities, lawyers, experts and advocates, we and our partners are ready to use every legal tool at our disposal should the Trump-Vance administration abuse the public trust and break the law. It is imperative that the American people have the ability to access the courts and use their voice to protect their rights and build for a better future.”
“Preserving our democracy requires constant vigilance. The first Trump administration demonstrated a blatant disregard for the rule of law and the democratic principles that have guided our country since its beginning. Now, as we prepare for a second Trump administration, we stand ready to hold the line and take the legal and policy actions necessary to protect our democratic institutions and hold Donald Trump and members of his administration to account when they break the law," said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. "CREW is proud to partner with Democracy Forward and other good governance groups to continue to advocate for an ethical democracy under the rule of law, no matter who is in the White House. Donald Trump is no exception. We are guided by the core principle that our government exists to serve all of the people, and that starts by ensuring those at the highest level abide by the law. We are ready to engage in the hard work of developing new tools and strategies to repair our laws, norms and institutions to fight for our collective future."
“There are proven strategies to respond to the large challenges US democratic governance faces,” Ambassador Norman Eisen (ret.), co-founder of State Democracy Defenders Action. “Democracy 2025 will work to safeguard democracy and rule of law through strategic litigation and by leveraging rule of law power to push back on attempts at undermining and weaponizing the federal government for ideological, political and personal means.”
Lisa Gilbert, Co-President of Public Citizen, said: “Donald Trump is returning to the White House filled with vengeance and constrained by few guardrails. Public Citizen is ready to fight back for the public good and against corruption. In the first Trump term, we used our legal expertise to rein in abuses on issues ranging from environmental protection to civil rights to consumer financial protections. In the second term, we are prepared, once again, to litigate creatively and intelligently—to push back on rollbacks of health, safety, civil rights, and consumer protections, and to protect the functioning of democratic institutions and the separation of powers. We look forward to working in collaboration with allies across the movement to protect the public during this dangerous time.”
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, said: “Donald Trump’s election brings us to one of the most dangerous moments in our country’s history. But there is too much at stake to succumb to despair. Instead, we will come together, lift up the courage and resilience of immigrant communities, and fight back with everything we have. We successfully fought Trump before, and we will do it again.”
“All across America, Interfaith Alliance is mobilizing diverse faith leaders and communities who recognize and reject the dangerous religious extremism represented by the incoming administration. The majority of faithful Americans are fully prepared to defend our constitutional right to religious freedom for all and to protect our democracy for the coercive and corrosive effect Project 2025 will have on faith in America,” said Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance.
“As we head into a second Trump term, our legal team is prepared to deploy every tool at our disposal to defend democracy and protect the rights of women, girls, and other vulnerable communities,” said Emily Martin, chief program officer at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). “We are proud to stand alongside hundreds of talented pro-democracy lawyers and organizations in countering the coming assaults on our democracy, our civil rights protections, and the rule of law by the incoming administration.”
“Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the rule of law and his contempt for accountability,” said Chioma Chukwu, the interim executive director of American Oversight. “American Oversight knows from his first administration the lengths to which he will go to line his pockets and shore up his own political power at the expense of the American people. Protecting our democracy and the vulnerable groups who will be disproportionately targeted by the Trump administration’s inhumane proposals will require an informed public and a broad coalition of groups and individuals dedicated to fighting those abuses of power. We are proud to stand with our allies in the pro-democracy movement and are prepared to aggressively defend the public’s right to hold its leaders accountable.”
“As President-elect Trump prepares to retake the White House, it’s more important than ever that we expose the Trump administration’s efforts to implement his Project 2025 agenda, including the consequences of trying to control our lives and giving more power to his billionaire friends and corporate backers and uncovering any corruption,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “We’re proud to be a part of the Democracy 2025 coalition and are prepared to aggressively shine a light on this incoming administration, ensuring that lawmakers, the public, and our partners have the information they need to hold Trump’s administration and its allies accountable for their efforts to hurt working families and take away our freedoms.”
"We have seen firsthand the devastation that Project 2025-style extremism has caused in our courts and in communities -- from banning abortion to making it harder for Americans to make ends meet. Based on the appointments President-elect Trump has already announced, it appears that chaos will be a core pillar of his administration. Demand Justice is poised to build power with the voices of the millions of Americans across the nation that will not be silenced. It will be imperative that our courts do what they are supposed to do and protect the rights of people and our Constitution," said Demand Justice Managing Director, Maggie Jo Buchanan.
“Donald Trump is not above the law. The incoming administration must obey the Constitution and answer to the American people,” said Courage for America spokesperson Danny Turkel. “Courage for America is proud to join this broad coalition of pro-democracy organizations and will continue defending our democracy to ensure our government works for all."
For more information, please visit www.democracy2025.org. To speak with a coalition spokesperson, please email David Graham-Caso at dgrahamcaso@democracyforward.org.