Heroes of Democracy: Liza Goitein and the Emergency Powers Most Americans Never See
Excerpt: Some democracy work happens in public rallies. Liza Goitein’s work happens in the machinery room of constitutional government—where emergency powers, secrecy, and presidential authority can become dangerous before most people notice.
Some democracy work happens in the streets.
Some happens in courtrooms.
And some happens in the strange, technical, frightening world of emergency powers most Americans have never heard of.
That is where Elizabeth “Liza” Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, has done some of her most important work.
Her subject is not glamorous. It is not easy to explain in a slogan. It involves statutes, congressional oversight, classified planning documents, surveillance, secrecy, and the outer boundaries of presidential power.
But the stakes are enormous.
Because one of the classic tools of authoritarian government is the declared emergency.
A leader says there is a crisis.
Normal rules must bend.
Congress is too slow.
Courts are too weak.
The executive must act.
Goitein’s work asks a simple democratic question:
What if the emergency is real—but the power grab is real too?
The danger inside the emergency
In 2019, when President Trump declared a national emergency to redirect funds toward a border wall after Congress had refused to provide the money he wanted, Goitein called it a “grotesque abuse of power.”
Her warning was not just about one wall or one president. It was about the structure of the law itself.
The Brennan Center’s statement quoted Goitein saying that emergency powers are meant for emergencies, not for “circumventing the will of Congress on questions of policy.”
That sentence matters.
It turns a complex legal issue into a constitutional line: emergency powers are not a shortcut around democracy.
The documents in the shadows
Goitein has also helped bring attention to something even more obscure: Presidential Emergency Action Documents, often called PEADs.
The Brennan Center explains that PEADs are draft executive orders, proclamations, and messages to Congress prepared in advance for emergency scenarios. Because they are secret, Congress and the public may not know what powers a president has prepared to claim in a crisis.
That should trouble anyone who cares about the rule of law.
Secret emergency plans may be necessary in some circumstances. But secret law—or secret claims of power—are dangerous in a constitutional democracy.
In 2022, Goitein wrote about newly uncovered records that shed light on the president’s secret emergency powers. The records suggested that, as late as the George W. Bush administration, emergency documents existed on subjects including communications and habeas corpus. Her Brennan Center analysis argued that Congress should be able to oversee these “shadowy powers” before they are ever used. Read the piece here: “New Documents Illuminate the President’s Secret, Unchecked Emergency Powers”.
This is democracy defense in a form that can look almost invisible.
No crowd.
No chant.
No viral image.
Just someone reading the fine print before the fine print becomes a crisis.
From warning to reform
Goitein’s work does not stop at warning.
In May 2024, she testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs about reforming the National Emergencies Act. The Brennan Center summary of her testimony explains that the law gives presidents nearly unchecked discretion to declare national emergencies and renew them indefinitely, unlocking broad powers that are vulnerable to abuse.
Her recommendations were concrete: emergency declarations should terminate after 30 days unless Congress approves them, renewals should require congressional approval, Congress should reform especially dangerous emergency authorities such as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Insurrection Act, and presidents should disclose PEADs to relevant congressional committees. Read the Brennan Center summary here: “Testimony on reforming the National Emergencies Act”.
That is the hopeful part.
The system has weak points.
But weak points can be mapped.
And once they are mapped, they can be repaired.
Why Liza Goitein matters now
Goitein’s work is especially important because emergency government can feel reasonable at first.
Emergencies are frightening. People want action. Presidents want flexibility. Congress may hesitate. Courts may move slowly.
But as Goitein wrote in “Emergency Powers: A System Vulnerable to Executive Abuse”, the National Emergencies Act can unlock more than 130 statutory powers, some of them potentially sweeping. She notes that presidents can renew emergency declarations for years or even decades, while Congress has lost much of the practical power it was supposed to have to terminate them.
That is how democracies get into trouble: not always through one dramatic break, but through legal pathways that were never guarded well enough.
Goitein’s work says: guard them now.
What Action This Day readers can do
For university communities, law schools, civic groups, alumni networks, and democracy-minded citizens, Goitein’s work is an invitation.
Read one of her key pieces. Start with the Brennan Center’s Presidential Emergency Action Documents resource or her testimony on reforming the National Emergencies Act.
Host a discussion.
Ask a law professor, constitutional scholar, former government lawyer, or Brennan Center expert to explain emergency powers in plain English.
Ask legislators whether they support reforms that restore Congress’s role when presidents declare emergencies.
Share the idea that defending democracy is not only about reacting after power is abused. It is also about closing the trapdoors before someone steps through them.
Liza Goitein’s work is hopeful because it shows that more is possible than cynicism allows.
We do not have to wait helplessly for a crisis.
We can study the machinery of power, find the weak points, and strengthen the guardrails before they fail.
