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Paul Smith

Updates

Updates

 

 

Campaign Legal Center and the League of Women Voters sent a letter on Nov. 8, 2019 to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger expressing grave concerns regarding the planned purge of over 300,000 Georgia voters from the voter registration list. The letter also outlines potential violations of federal and state law.

The letter urges Secretary...

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and partners filed a lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of all late-jailed voters in Ohio seeking access to the ballot and the ability to exercise their right to vote. This resulted in CLC’s clients being allowed to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, but CLC still worked to ensure that the state’s practice would no longer be...

On her way out of office, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen appears to have used campaign funds for a family trip to Disney and for thousands of dollars of expenditures at luxury hotels in New York and Miami.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate this apparent violation of the ban on the...

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and End Citizens United filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), alleging that during the 2018 election, President Trump’s “approved” super PAC, America First Action (AFA), made up to $6.6 million in illegally coordinated expenditures supporting Rep. Pete Sessions in Texas, and U.S. Senate candidates...

In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, Campaign Legal Center’s Trevor Potter and Delaney Marsco explain why the lack of transparency surrounding Rudy Giuliani’s income is a problem, and why the financial disclosure ordinarily required for individuals representing the U.S. government is so important.

“Giuliani has confirmed that he was paid...

Issues

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and a coalition of 35 other organizations sent a letter to Congress urging members to support the SHIELD Act, which would protect U.S. elections against the ongoing threat of foreign intervention.

With a floor vote expected on October 23, 2019, the coalition emphasized that the critical legislation will help safeguard...

Judge Robert Hinkle for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida ruled on Oct. 18, 2019 that it is unconstitutional to deny individuals with past convictions the right to vote based on their inability to pay fines and fees.

In an op-ed published in the Orlando Sentinel, Campaign Legal Center’s Danielle Lang analyzes the recent...

Judge Robert Hinkle for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued an opinion ruling that it is unconstitutional to deny individuals with past convictions the right to vote based on their inability to pay fines and fees.

The decision restores the right to vote to plaintiffs who are otherwise eligible to vote but are unable...

For the past 40 years, every president has placed his personal investments and assets in a blind trust while in the White House, or has sold everything and held cash equivalents. This was a norm that was respected by presidents of both parties. We are now seeing the natural and very serious consequences of President Donald Trump's decision to...

Issues

Campaign Legal Center hosted “Yes, Asking Foreign Governments for Political Favors Breaks the Law,” a conference call on foreign election interference, the president’s recent campaign finance violations, and abuses of power.

During the call, CLC experts discussed the criminal indictment of two Ukrainian-Americans for campaign finance violations...

The stunning arrest of Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas on criminal campaign finance charges arose directly from Campaign Legal Center’s (CLC’s) complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on this matter last year—and underscores the key roles these mysterious Rudy Giuliani associates with ties to Ukraine and big money have played in setting into...

Two Ukrainian-Americans who had been working with President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on Ukrainian matters, were arrested late Wednesday for violating campaign finance laws. These arrests stemmed from a Campaign Legal Center (CLC) complaint.

In July 2018, CLC uncovered how these two men had laundered a six-figure contribution to...

CLC President Trevor Potter has joined a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers, most of whom have served in senior positions in Republican Administrations, to stand firm against foreign interference in American elections.

In an open letter, reported on by The Washington Post, the group states that the president’s recent interactions with...

According to an op-ed published in Talking Points Memo by CLC’s Paul Smith, Americans should be wary of “faithless electors” — presidential electors who can cast their vote for anyone, regardless of how the state voted and regardless of whether the elector pledged to support the state winner.  

Two lower courts have recently weighed in on this...

President Trump pressed the newly elected Ukrainian president to open an investigation into a candidate challenging Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. This is a stunning abuse of power; it also violates campaign finance law.  

A now-public whistleblower complaint details reports “from multiple U.S. Government officials that the...

Nearly 18 million of the 23 million Americans with felony convictions should be able to vote right now, if they just understood their rights. 

On National Voter Registration Day, Campaign Legal Center launched RecupereSuVoto.org, the Spanish language version of RestoreYourVote.org: an online toolkit to help citizens with past felony convictions...

On September 17, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a proposed ordinance to update the city’s matching funds program, a system of public financing that matches city residents’ campaign contributions to local candidates with public funds at a certain rate.

If the Board of Supervisors votes again next week to approve of the...

In the summer of 2019, a bipartisan group of New Hampshire legislators overwhelmingly voted to pass HB 706, which would grant authority to an independent redistricting commission (IRC) to create electoral maps for state and federal elections free from partisan gerrymandering.

These legislators listened to their constituents’ call for fair...

Issues

In the final weeks of the 2018 elections, a Facebook page called America Progress Now was created and quickly reached hundreds of thousands of Facebook users with paid ads urging voters to cast ballots for third-party candidates in five competitive U.S. Senate and House races. Shortly after Election Day, the page went silent.

America Progress Now...

federal court blocked a Tennessee law that sought to undermine voter registration in the state. This ruling is a major victory, which derails a law that sought to undercut democracy. CLC and partners challenged the law, which would have imposed substantial penalties on groups that foster political participation through voter registration efforts...

Michigan voters in 2018 said loud and clear that they want a say in how their district lines are drawn. That is why 425,000 Michiganders signed a petition to put on the ballot a proposal to create a voter-led commission – designed to establish a new level of transparency in the state’s future redistricting process. The proposal passed with 61% of...

Issues