As other blogs in this series have shown, the Senate Ethics Committee, the lone body in charge of investigating ethics complaints against U.S. Senators, clearly does not enforce ethics laws.
The Ethics Committee’s system of self-policing has resulted in findings of no wrongdoing in 97% of all investigated ethics complaints and failure to produce a...
(This article is Part 2 of a three-part series examining the failed effort to enforce ethics in the U.S. Senate. See Part 1 here and Part 3 here.)
The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) serves a vital role in democracy by providing independent, nonpartisan oversight that safeguards the U.S. House of Representatives against corruption and holds...
The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee is responsible for guarding the integrity of the Senate and upholding the public’s right to know that their elected officials are being held accountable for unethical and unlawful behavior.
The list of misdeeds the committee is tasked with investigating includes acts such as insider trading, accepting illegal gifts...
When donors give candidates money to support their candidacy, candidates have a legal obligation to use those funds only for campaign-related purposes or, if they’re already in office, to support their duties as an elected official. Under federal law, campaign contributions may not be used to pay for personal expenses.
Moreover, candidates’...
The Judicial Conference is one of the only bodies that can enforce ethics laws against Supreme Court justices. That is why CLC wrote a letter to the Judicial Conference asking them to release the summary of their most recent meeting held nearly three months ago.
This Report of the Proceedings for the meeting should contain information about its...
Transparency in elections is vital to ensuring that voters know who is spending money to influence their vote. Yet wealthy special interests undermine transparency through secret spending groups (sometimes called “dark money” groups) and straw donor schemes, which are both tactics used to circumvent campaign finance laws and conceal who’s spending...
Now that the “hush money” trial of former President Donald Trump has come to a close and the jury has returned with its verdict, we’re faced with the fact that for the first time in our history, a major party candidate for president has been convicted of criminal charges.
This news has led to a lot of discussion concerning Trump’s ability to vote...
Last fall, while adopting a new “code of conduct,” the U.S. Supreme Court stated that there was a “misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules."
The adoption of these new ethics rules had come on the heels of a string of questionable ethical...
Every new election cycle brings a new round of record-breaking election spending that grabs headlines and threatens to drown out the voices of everyday people in our elections.
But recently, headlines have highlighted actions taken by the Philadelphia Board of Ethics to protect the voices of Philadelphians and update its campaign finance rules.
In...
The work of nonpartisan civic engagement groups like the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL) is a core part of building a better democracy from the ground up.
These groups register voters, hold community educational events and promote civic engagement—yet their efforts have come under increasing attack by self-interested politicians, with the...
The Federal Election Commission (FEC), the very agency charged with regulating money in politics, has repeatedly fallen short in its duties over the past decade. Specifically, it has consistently failed to conduct oversight and enforce federal campaign finance laws, including the laws that prohibit super PACs and other outside groups — including...
Rhode Island has taken an important step forward in the fight against secret spending in our elections. After passing a groundbreaking transparency law over a decade ago, the state has adopted regulations to ensure the law, appropriately titled “An Act Relating to Elections — Disclosure of Political Contributions and Expenditures,” can now be fully...
Voters have a right to know who is spending money to influence their vote and our government. Transparency is necessary to understand who is supporting which candidates and why, so that voters can make informed choices at the ballot box. That’s why federal law requires candidates and committees to disclose their contributors.
One way that wealthy...
A new Op-Ed by CLC Senior Researcher Roger Wieand, published by Newsday, examines tactics deployed in the special election to replace ousted Rep. George Santos that appear deliberately designed to undermine transparency.
Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence their vote and our...
When federal candidates and committees spend money to influence elections, they have to disclose that spending in publicly filed reports, which creates transparency for voters trying to decide who to vote for and helps ensure accountability if donors’ money is misused.
Federal campaign finance laws require candidates and committees to publicly...
Nobody likes robocalls, but they’re an effective way to raise money for political campaigns. Yet some of the groups behind these calls aren’t actually using donations to support political causes.
Instead, these committees, often referred to as “scam PACs,” pretend to fundraise for major candidates or issues while secretly diverting almost all of...
In a major legal victory, a federal judge just struck a blow against Tennessee’s unequal and inaccessible felony disenfranchisement regime, ruling that Tennessee election officials cannot wrongly deny Tennesseans with past felony convictions their freedom to vote if they are eligible and the state must fully inform potential voters with past felony...
The Senate Ethics Committee is the only body responsible for ethics enforcement in the Senate. It has a responsibility to investigate allegations of ethical misconduct so that the public can be sure that their elected officials are acting ethically.
That is why CLC filed a complaint with the Committee against Senator Ted Cruz for circumventing the...
When federal candidates raise money to run for office, there are important legal safeguards that limit how much they can raise from any contributor, prevent candidates from taking money from certain sources, like corporations and federal contractors, and require candidates to openly disclose who they are getting their money from, and how they are...
Free and fair elections rely on every voter having the ability to make their voice heard. Unfortunately, voters with disabilities are often met with a range of disproportionately burdensome barriers — from polling locations without ramps to restrictions on accessible voting options like vote-by-mail — that limit their ability to access the ballot...
When Senator Ted Cruz made a deal in 2022 with a major media corporation, iHeartMedia, to help produce and more widely distribute his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” he insisted that he wasn’t personally benefiting from the podcast deal and that he was volunteering his time, comparing his work hosting the now thrice-weekly podcast to his...