On episode 120 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by Chiraag Bains. Chiraag is the Director of Legal Strategies at Dēmos, working to support voting rights and create a more just democracy.Chiraag has spent the pandemic fighting voting rights battles around the country. He talks with Paul about the recent threats to democracy and voting rights, including the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the fear of voter fraud being used as a pretext for voter suppression. They discuss what we will need to create a democratic system that truly represents everyone, touching on policing, voting rights legislation, and court reform.Chiraag Bains is the Director of Legal Strategies at Dēmos, where he supervises a national docket of voting rights litigation and structural democracy policy work. He previously served as a visiting senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program and an OSF Leadership in Government Fellow. From 2010 to 2017, Bains served in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. As Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, he supervised matters from the Special Litigation, Voting, Housing, and Appellate Sections, and helped lead DOJ’s work on criminal justice reform. Previously, Bains was a federal prosecutor of civil rights crimes: police brutality, hate crimes, anti-abortion violence, and human trafficking. Bains earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, his M.Phil. in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. from Yale College. He clerked for Judge Karen Nelson Moore on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Nancy Gertner in the District of Massachusetts.Credits:Paul Holdengraber - Co-Creator, Host, OLA DirectorAnthony Audi - Co-Creator, Researcher, OLA DirectorAlejandro Cohen - Co-Creator, Producer, ComposerChristian Pitt - Production Coordinator Erin Cooney - Copy, ProductionDublab Team