In 2018, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan flew to Las Vegas, sat down with mega donor Sheldon Adelson, emphasized the importance of electing Republicans to the House, and then left the room. Minutes later, the head of a Ryan-aligned super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, stepped in to secure a $30 million contribution from Adelson.
What Ryan...
Tennessee has one of the lowest voter registration rates in the country. Before last fall’s elections, Tennessee had the lowest voter turnout rate of any state, at just 28.5%. And yet, the state just made it even more difficult to register people to vote and get them out to the polls.
Last Thursday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law some...
CLC filed a complaint against White House counselor Kellyanne Conway with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for again abusing her official authority to influence an election. This is Conway’s third brazen violation of the law.
Conway recently gave two interviews from the White House lawn where she pivoted, unprompted, to attack a...
After Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, his Deputy Campaign Manager David Bossie urged the president’s supporters to donate to an organization called the Presidential Coalition. Capitalizing on Bossie’s ties to the President, the group consistently told supporters that it would use their money to bolster state and local candidates that...
In Arizona, around 80% of voters choose to receive a mail-in ballot. Despite the ubiquity of voting by mail, thousands of ballots have been uncounted because of an alleged “mismatched” signature, as judged by election officials (not handwriting experts). Adding to the injustice, many voters were unaware that their vote was at risk until it was too...
The Inspector General (IG) at the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced that it is opening an investigation into potential ethics violations by 6 senior DOI political appointees after a complaint filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC).
The complaint filed in February 2019, alleged that 6 of the DOI political appointees violated revolving door...
Campaign Legal Center Action (CLC Action) filed suit on behalf of Giffords against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for failing to announce any action against the National Rifle Association (NRA) for using shell corporations to coordinate campaign spending with seven federal candidates spanning three election cycles from 2014-2018. The lawsuit...
CLC and partners reached a final settlement agreement with the state of Texas, ending Secretary of State David Whitley’s flawed voter purge program, which targeted naturalized citizens and threatened the voting rights of tens of thousands of Texans. The agreement is legally binding and will prevent the government form targeting naturalized U.S...
While Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recently-released report on 2016 election interference and coordination did not establish coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, it highlights significant flaws in our campaign finance laws and reveals how the Trump campaign was willing to accept help from a foreign adversary, a decision that...
If you have been following the news for the past two years, you have likely seen that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was tasked with a very important job. The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.
The full Mueller report, which was released to the public today, shows the extent to which...
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill this week that fixes the most problematic parts of Georgia’s failed ‘exact match’ system.
The system placed more than 50,000 voter registrations on hold before the 2018 elections because of discrepancies between government records. A coalition of Georgia civil rights groups – represented by Campaign Legal...
In New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham signed into law a set of reforms that will help ensure voters in the state know who is spending money to influence elections.
The Governor’s signature is an exclamation point at the end of a 60-day legislative session that included significant advances for democracy reform. The list of reforms enacted this year...
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett is proposing new restrictions and penalties that are not right for the Volunteer State.
Hargett is targeting groups that help residents register to vote in Tennessee with penalties for mistakes in voter registration applications that will stymie volunteer registration drives. The bill puts volunteers and...
For those who hoped the departure of secretary Ryan Zinke signaled an end to the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) disregard for ethics rules, the nomination of acting secretary David Bernhardt to head Interior shows no cause for optimism, according to an op-ed in Morning Consult today. The piece, co-authored by CLC’s Delaney Marsco and Brendan...
On April 23, the United States Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s decision to ask every household in the country about the citizenship status of its members during the 2020 census.
Two separate federal courts have held that the sole justification provided by Secretary Ross – that obtaining this information...
The oil and gas industry has friends in high places at the Department of the Interior, and they know it.
A news report by Reveal/Politico showed that the oil and gas executives who make up an influential oil industry lobbying group called the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) were recorded bragging about the “direct access” they...
For 22 months, prominent Trump critics focused on Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation as a magic bullet, with sights set on charging President Trump with a crime.
Now that Attorney General William Barr has sent a four-page letter summarizing Mueller’s report, which concludes that Mueller was unable to establish that the Trump campaign...
On Tuesday, Mar. 26, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about the intentional manipulation of voting maps by Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland for partisan political gain.
Voters nationwide are ready for a ruling that will put the voters and not lawmakers first. It is still possible for voters in North Carolina...
In November 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly voted to restore voting rights to people with past felony convictions by passing Amendment 4 - the Rights Restoration Amendment. Now, the state legislature is working to undue the will of more than 60 percent of the voters who supported restoring voting rights to people with past convictions in...
The presidential election is generally portrayed as a battle to win states and their accompanying electoral votes. Last night in a CNN town hall, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren railed against this system, saying “We need to make sure that every vote counts. I think everybody ought to have to come and ask for your vote.” The fact that...
In 2016, California took a significant step forward in the fight for everyone to be represented and have a say in our democracy with Senate Bill 1107 (SB 1107). The 2016 law paved the way for California’s state and local governments to establish public financing programs to support candidates running in state and local elections.
On Thursday...