A bipartisan, select committee in the U.S. House of Representatives continued a series of hearings this month about the January 6th attack on our country. The third hearing shined a light on the need for Congress to update the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA), which provides the primary legal framework for how presidential votes are cast and...
Voters deserve to have an equal opportunity to cast their ballots safely and effectively. In-person voting is the most popular method for voting in U.S. elections, and in some states, the only method of voting for the majority of voters. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, over half of voters — 54% — voted in person during the 2020 general election.
...By Lica Porcile, a Summer 2022 CLC intern
Wealthy special interests use secret money, sometimes called dark money, to elect candidates that support their private agenda over the interests of everyday Americans. Voters have a right to know who is spending big money to influence their vote.
One way in which special interests keep their political...
In an op-ed for The Hill last week, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) President and Founder Trevor Potter spoke of the ongoing issues stemming from inaction by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), an agency he previously led as commissioner and chair, as well as the need for other parts of our government to step up where the agency is letting voters...
The New York State Senate and New York State Assembly have passed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of New York (NYVRA), which Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed into law, making it the most comprehensive state Voting Rights Act in the country.
The NYVRA protects communities of color from attacks on their freedom to vote by preventing...
Recent high-profile ethics investigations have revealed that members of Congress are refusing to cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) at a troubling rate.
Out of the eight members whose investigations have been made public by the OCE in 2022, five have refused to cooperate with the investigation, giving a rate of 63%...
By Emily Davis, a Summer 2022 CLC intern
Companies spend on political contributions and lobbying to influence elections and advance their policy goals.
Most of this spending is legal, but there are important, necessary legal barriers that help preserve the integrity of the democratic process.
For instance, corporations cannot give directly to...
A bipartisan, select committee in the U.S. House of Representatives held its first hearing this week on the January 6th attack on our country. The proceeding included speeches from committee members interwoven with new and disturbing video footage from Jan. 6, 2021, laying the groundwork for what’s to come in a series of hearings throughout the...
By Blair Page, a Summer 2022 CLC intern
The 80-year-old ban on federal contractors making political donations protects against the appearance or reality that taxpayer-funded federal contracts are effectively “for sale.” The ban is a key defense against the formation of a corrupt “pay-to-play” system in which wealthy special interests are rewarded...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) attorneys are headed to Georgia this week to challenge restrictive measures in S.B. 202, which was signed into law in March 2021 and made significant changes to Georgia’s election system.
CLC is specifically challenging three provisions of the law that limit the ability of nonprofit civic engagement organizations to...
By Blair Page, a Summer 2022 CLC intern
To uphold transparency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) must robustly enforce the federal straw donor ban, which prohibits donors from funneling their campaign contributions through another person or entity to try to evade disclosure requirements.
Voters have a right to know who is spending to...
Every 10 years, every state must go through something called “redistricting.” Redistricting is the process where states redraw the district lines for elections, which determines who you get to vote for. This process should be straightforward. Unfortunately, in the U.S., politicians in many states engage in gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering involves...
Campaign Legal Center welcomes eight new members to our team for the summer: our 2022 class of summer law interns. The summer interns are current law students who will work with CLC's full time staff to help advance our work in the areas of voting rights, redistricting, campaign finance, and ethics.
Welcome, team!
Former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Trent Lott (R-MS) argued that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) should be updated in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal and highlighted the need for Congress to act in a bipartisan manner to close loopholes that could undermine voters’ ability to decide the outcome of the next...
The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) found substantial reason to believe that Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) violated the STOCK Act by failing to disclose up to $17 million worth of stock transactions, following a CLC complaint. Most alarming, the OCE found STOCK Act noncompliance "is pervasive and reflects a culture of delayed filing contrary to the...
No matter our color, party or zip code, we all want an equal say in the decisions that shape our future. But in recent years, we’ve seen our freedom to vote come under attack.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration recently held a hearing on the administration of the 2022 midterm elections. Witnesses for the hearing included...
In a positive step forward for helping people with past felony convictions exercise their freedom to vote, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has released a “Guide to State Voting Rules that Apply After Criminal Convictions.”
This guide draws upon, and links to, Campaign Legal Center’s (CLC) Restore Your Vote toolkit to provide information to people...
Every 10 years, the United States experiences a new cycle of “redistricting.” Responding to data from the census, state legislators or other map-drawers revise the district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures and other representative bodies, in order to equalize the districts’ population.
In that process, it is possible...
Voters have a right to know who is spending to influence their vote, and CLC is committed to protecting that right by filing complaints urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate straw donors — including shell companies used to funnel political contributions to super PACs while avoiding the legally required disclosure of the true...
As a candidate, President Joe Biden created a plan to, “guarantee government works for the people.” Among these reforms was a promise to work with Congress to enact legislation that would prevent members of Congress, “from being influenced by personal financial holdings.”
A year and a half into his term, the president has not taken any steps to...
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia have both signed anti-voter bills into law to create partisan “election police force units.” These partisan agencies are ostensibly dedicated to pursuing voter fraud and other election crimes under the control of the governor’s office.
In reality, they are unnecessary wastes of taxpayer...