Erica Newland

Counsel and Manager, Separation of Powers Project

Erica Newland is counsel at Protect Democracy and co-manager of the separations of powers team. She works to help maintain our government’s system of separation of powers by challenging executive overreach, including protecting and defending the federal civil service and the critical programs and services it provides. Before joining Protect Democracy, Erica served as an Attorney Adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice (DoJ). Before that, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Democracy & Technology. During law school, Erica worked for the National Security Division at DoJ and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Erica received her J.D. from Yale Law School.

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Altered State: Trump has told us clearly what a second term will be: one-man rule (opens a new window)

  • August 3, 2023
  • The Miami Herald

“Trump is a symptom of larger set of movements, different political threads that have come together,” Erica Newland, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group working to defeat authoritarian threats, told the Editorial Board. “There’s a skepticism of expertise and a belief in strong executive authority. Portions of the conservative legal movement have spent the last 40 years casting doubts about the legitimacy of other institutions such as Congress.”