The White House recently released a report detailing many of the barriers commonly faced by Native voters and described best practices for protecting the right to vote. This built on a White House directive issued on March 7 to expand voting access.
The report was developed in consultation with Tribal Leaders, Native voters, organizations working...
Voters should be the ones to choose their politicians, not the other way around. Read more about why in an op-ed that husband-wife duo Malcolm and Vicki Reid wrote for The Deseret News on how the gerrymandered congressional map undermines the will of voters.
Malcolm, a Democratic voter, and Vicki, a Republican voter, oppose Utah’s congressional map...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia federal court, challenging the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) failure to act on an administrative complaint CLC filed against the campaign committees of then-President Donald Trump in July 2020 and supplemented in January 2021.
The underlying administrative complaint...
I came to Washington to work in the Reagan Justice Department and have spent much of my career in Republican circles. I was a lawyer for the presidential campaign of President George H.W. Bush, — a Republican Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and as a long-time advisor and campaign legal counsel to Sen. John McCain.
But I’m...
Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC), underscored in an op-ed for The Arizona Republic that the anti-voter bill H.B. 2492 would create significant obstacles to voting and impose high costs on voters in violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The op-ed, published on March 27, 2022, looked at how this bill is...
A district court declared that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has illegally failed to act for more than three years on Campaign Legal Center’s (CLC) “supported” and “credible” allegations that secret money group Heritage Action violated campaign finance laws.
As the court explained, CLC’s “allegations outline a legitimate threat to the...
The Georgia House of Representatives recently introduced a new 40-page omnibus bill – H.B. 1464 – that undermines the freedom to vote and poses risks to our democracy.
Campaign Legal Center has submitted written testimony outlining serious concerns with the bill ahead of a Georgia Senate hearing tomorrow.
Among the most concerning measures are...
While members of Congress have rightly received a lot of publicity and scrutiny for allegedly violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act and trading stock based on nonpublic information they receive in their official capacity, the stock trading problem on Capitol Hill doesn’t end with them.
Senior level congressional staff...
The American people strike a bargain with nonprofit groups: nonprofits get a break on their taxes but must agree to make much of their tax return public.
This transparency is especially important for certain groups that devote huge sums to political spending but organize as “social welfare” nonprofits under section 501(c)(4) of federal tax law in...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC), partnered with Utah attorneys from Parr Brown Gee & Loveless and Zimmerman Booher to file a lawsuit on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and individual voters in Salt Lake City to block Utah from violating voters’ will with its new congressional redistricting map.
The...
Gicola Lane, Restore Your Vote advocate at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Dawn Herrington, executive director of Free Hearts, recently published an op-ed in The Tennessean highlighting how Pamela Moses’ sentence of six years in prison for trying to regain the freedom to vote underscores the need to reform Tennessee’s rights restoration process.
T...
The Florida Legislature has approved a sweeping election bill, S.B. 524, which would limit voters’ freedom to vote and open the door for voter intimidation and harassment by a new partisan agency under the governor’s control.
This bill would also purge thousands of registered voters from the rolls by increasing the frequency of voter registration...
On March 3, 2022, following an impasse between the Wisconsin legislature and Gov. Tony Evers on new election maps, the Wisconsin Supreme Court selected the maps proposed by Gov. Evers. Within the constraints set by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for new maps, this is a win for voters in Wisconsin.
Gov. Evers’ maps respect state and federal...
In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden will have no shortage of issues to discuss. He will understandably focus on the developing situation in Ukraine.
However, while the U.S. helps Ukraine defend its democracy, there are several ways that the president can uplift democracy at home to make it work better for all Americans as we...
In a victory for civic engagement groups that assist with voter registration in Kansas, the state agreed to a permanent injunction of its law prohibiting the distribution of mail ballot applications by out-of-state persons or entities.
The permanent injunction, ordered on Feb. 25, 2022, will also hopefully set a precedent that will help groups...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed an application at the Tennessee Supreme Court to appeal the case of Ernest Falls, who has been denied the right to vote for failure to prove that he does not owe court costs related to a 1986 felony conviction in Virginia.
Having faced setbacks at both the Chancery Court and the Court of Appeals of Tennessee...
Part 1: Taking Stock of the STOCK Act
Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act) in 2012, following more than 10 years of allegations of insider trading by members of Congress and staff.
A decade after its passage, the STOCK Act has done little to prevent the appearance of corruption and has fallen short of...
The U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, blocked a three-judge district court’s unanimous ruling on February 7 that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required Alabama to draw a congressional district map in which Black people would make up majorities in two of seven districts.
To call this order surprising and worrying is an understatement. No...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas, in partnership with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, filed suit on Feb. 14, 2022 challenging the Kansas congressional redistricting plan as a partisan and racial gerrymander.
Contrary to the Kansas Constitution’s robust equality and speech protections, the Kansas...
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed an amicus brief in New Jersey Bankers Association v. Grewal urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to affirm a district court decision that upheld New Jersey’s longstanding ban on campaign contributions from banks and certain other corporations.
In November 2018, the New Jersey Bankers...
Following a Campaign Legal Center (CLC) investigation, the federal government has indicted three men in a scheme to cover up illegal campaign contributions through a shell company.
The February 10 indictment of Martin Kao, Clifford Chen and Lawrence "Kahele" Lum Kee is a win for transparency and accountability that also illustrates appalling...