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...

Nearly two years ago, news about members of Congress trading stock based on nonpublic information they received during a COVID-19 briefing brought congressional stock trading into the spotlight. The attention, thankfully, has not let up.

Americans from both sides of the aisle have long been suspicious of members trading stock, as it creates a...

Campaign Legal Center (CLC), on behalf of Voters Not Politicians (VNP), took steps to intervene as defendants in a lawsuit filed on Feb. 7, 2022 that challenges and seeks to overturn the Michigan congressional maps recently adopted by Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Created by a citizen-led ballot initiative passed in 201...

A state’s refusal to comply with the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) public disclosure requirement is not an esoteric question of public records maintenance. Rather, it is an act of stonewalling public monitoring intended to ensure that all citizens have equal access to the ballot.

That is why earlier this week Campaign Legal Center (CLC)...

The undeniable truth is that sunlight alone will not disinfect the congressional stock trading problem. The first 10 years of the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act proved that stock trading disclosure laws without stock trading restrictions make the problem worse, which means reform is inevitable. 

Comparing the...

The night of Jan. 19, 2022 was a disappointing night for all who have been fighting for the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act (H.R. 5746) — a critical piece of legislation aimed at strengthening our democracy that failed in a U.S. Senate vote. Indeed, this month and this past year have been rough for everyone who cares about the freedom to vote.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and our co-counsel, the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), are representing individual Latino voters and the Southcentral Coalition of People of Color for Redistricting in a federal lawsuit against Washington state officials over a voting map that dilutes the...

Voters should be able to live under maps where they can choose their leaders, instead of giving self-interested politicians the power to pick their voters. In order to have fair and equitable representation, communities must be able to remain together, and voters must be able to have an equal voice.

To combat a racially targeted attack on voters’...

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the risk of corruption is “inherent” in a campaign finance system that relies on private contributions to candidates. One type of contribution that raises particularly acute corruption concerns is money raised after Election Day to repay candidates’ personal loans to their campaigns.

Using post-election...

As the 2022 midterms rapidly approach, Congress is doing what needs to be done to protect the freedom to vote by advancing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. Protecting our democracy is not a partisan issue. 

On Jan. 13, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed this important legislation. The U.S. Senate now has the opportunity to...

Voters should be able to elect their preferred candidates instead of having politicians pick their voters. No matter where we come from, when it comes to having a say in who represents us, most of us want a transparent process we can trust, where voters have an equal voice.

Right now, voters across the country are finding out what state and...