In August 2016, the Obama administration announced that it would be phasing out federal private prison contracts like those held by GEO. The announcement sent GEO’s stocks tumbling. The next day, GEO contributed $100,000 to the pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now, and it made another $125,000 contribution just one week before the election. At the time, Mike Pence was telling donors that giving to the super PAC was “one of the best ways to stop Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump our next president!” After Trump won, GEO gave $250,000 to the Trump Inaugural Committee.

GEO did not have to wait long to see its investment start to pay off. On Feb. 23, 2017, during his second full week on the job, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a one-paragraph memo reversing the Obama administration’s private prison phase-out, instead ordering officials to continue using for-profit facilities for federal inmates.

In April 2017, the Trump Administration awarded GEO a $110 million, 10-year federal contract to build and administer a new 1,000-bed immigration detention center in Texas. GEO expects $44 million a year in revenue from the facility. GEO also has enjoyed a soaring stock price; its stock shot up 21 percent the day after Trump won, and has continued to grow since then.

CLC filed an FEC complaint, which alleges that the contributions — made through a wholly-owned subsidiary, GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc. — violated the ban on federal contractors giving money in federal elections. This law has been in place for 75 years to protect the integrity of the contracting process.

CLC filed this case against the FEC on January 10, 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after waiting more than a year for the FEC to resolve this complaint. CLC hopes the lawsuit will compel the FEC to act. 

There is recent precedent for the FEC taking action against government contractors for giving to super PACs. In September 2017, the FEC responded to a CLC complaint and found that the Massachusetts-based Suffolk Construction Company violated campaign finance law by making two $100,000 donations to a Hillary Clinton-affiliated super PAC in 2015. That company agreed to pay a $34,000 fine.

The reason that federal contractors have been barred from making contributions for the past 75 years is to prevent pay-to-play in the contracting process. Public officials are supposed to make contracting decisions based on what is best for the public, not based on who spent the most money getting them elected. GEO Group’s illegal donations have the appearance of a pay-to-play: since Trump was elected with GEO’s backing, the company has reaped enormous political and financial benefits, including a new $110 million taxpayer-funded contract.

The FEC is critical to the enforcement of the contractor contribution ban and in preventing pay-to-play politics. It is incumbent upon the FEC to enforce the longstanding federal contribution ban and take action against GEO Group to deter future violations. Without the contractor ban, the government contracting process becomes an obvious way for officials to reward friends and political donors.

In a separate but related case, CLC filed a lawsuit on June 15, 2017 seeking to compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to disclose requested records that would gather information about how DOJ reached its conclusion to rescind official policy to phase-out the use of private prisons in the administration’s contracting process. Almost nine months later, the public still has not seen any documents that show how DOJ reached its decision to change course on its private prison policy.

Doe v. FEC is a case about a mystery donor's attempt to maintain secrecy around a $1.7 million donation to a super PAC whose spending was meant to influence the 2012 election. The nonprofit group Citizens for Reponsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) brought the original complaint against the super PAC, called Now or Never PAC, in February 2015 alleging that an unknown person made a contribution to Now or Never, violating the prohibition on contributions made in the name of another person.

CLC filed a motion to intervene in support of CREW's quest for transparency on January 3, 2018.

On March 23, 2018, the U.S. District Court issued an opinion that upheld the right of the Federal Election Commission to uphold its own disclosure policy and give the public the right to know the names of donors.

Importance of Case

Disclosure is critical because voters deserve to know the names of donors that are spending millions of dollars to influence their vote. Transparency is the foundation of an open democracy. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, the FEC must be permitted to keep extensive recordkeeping and disclosure requirements of campaign contributions in order to remedy pay-to-play politics.

In 2018, a coalition of Utah voters from across the political spectrum passed a citizen initiative called Proposition 4, which established neutral redistricting requirements and criteria and prohibited partisan gerrymandering.

In 2020, the Utah Legislature overruled the will of the voters and repealed Proposition 4. It subsequently enacted an extreme partisan gerrymander, which would have locked in one-party control of Utah’s congressional delegation while silencing voters with minority political viewpoints.

In 2022, Campaign Legal Center filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the repeal of Proposition 4 and the gerrymandered 2021 map. Following a series of court rulings and multiple victories for CLC and our clients, on August 25, 2025, the Utah’s Third District Court ruled that the Legislature violated the Utah Constitution when it repealed Proposition 4.  

As a result, Proposition 4 once again became controlling law in Utah, and the court struck down the 2021 map as illegal. In order to have a new, legal map for the 2026 election, the court set out a remedial schedule that gave the Legislature the first opportunity to enact a new congressional map.  

In response to the court’s ruling, the Utah Legislature instead passed a new gerrymandered map that did not comply with Proposition 4’s neutral redistricting requirements. To ensure a legal map was in place in time for the 2026 election according to the deadlines set by the Lieutenant Governor, on November 10, 2025, the court thus ordered in place “Map 1,” a fair and legal map proposed by the state court plaintiffs that complies with Proposition 4 and federal law.

The Federal Case

In response to the state court litigation, two members of Congress, county commissioners, mayors and sheriffs have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the state court judge’s decision to impose a fair map, where no legal map drawn by the Legislature existed, in line with the requirements of Proposition 4.

Campaign Legal Center, along with co-counsel and on behalf of our clients LWVUT, MWEG and individual voters, has sought to intervene in this lawsuit and protect the principles of fair representation that Utahns voted for when they approved Proposition 4.  

The plaintiffs in this case are advancing a version of the dangerous “Independent State Legislature Theory.” This extreme legal theory would give the Utah Legislature nearly unchecked power to set rules for federal elections, handing politicians in the Legislature a license to gerrymander in defiance of state law and the lawful orders of Utah’s state courts when drawing congressional districts.

In this case, Campaign Legal Center argues that the federal courts lack the authority to override the considered judgment of Utah’s voters in enacting Proposition 4 and Utah’s state courts in enforcing the initiative’s promise. CLC is asking the federal court to dismiss the plaintiffs’ lawsuit and let the process continue to play out in state court, where the Utah Supreme Court is currently considering similar issues. 

In 2022, Massachusetts passed the VOTES Act, a wide-ranging bill improving protections and ballot access for voters across the state, including some of the nation’s strongest protections for voters in jail. Among its provisions, the VOTES Act requires the secretary of the commonwealth to publish reports after each statewide election detailing jail voting data, including how many people requested to vote and whether they were able to vote.

Many people in jails across the country remain eligible to vote while in local jails. In Massachusetts, the right to vote is only taken away while someone is serving time for a felony conviction. As such, individuals who are pre-trial or serving misdemeanors in county jails may be eligible, so long as they meet the other eligibility criteria.

However, the secretary has failed to publish the required reports even though two statewide elections have occurred since the law went into effect.

Campaign Legal Center, alongside Lawyers for Civil Rights and with pro bono support from Anderson & Kreiger and the Law Office of John Reinstein, represent six jail voting advocates in this mandamus-style action to enforce this provision.  

These mandated reports allow for critical monitoring of VOTES ACT implementation and ensure officials provide the required ballot access for those in jail. The public has a right to this information, and the law requires the secretary to provide the reports on a strict timetable.

Without this information, petitioners are impeded in their efforts to conduct oversight and advocate for necessary changes to ensure all eligible voters in jails can vote. Campaign Legal Center, our partners and our clients are asking the secretary to speedily compile a report to the Legislature with the required information about jail-based voting in the commonwealth.  

Our democracy works best when every voter can participate. Voters in jail are too often overlooked, ignored or cast aside simply because they are incarcerated. The secretary must comply with this mandate to increase transparency and ensure effective implementation of the VOTES Act so that every eligible voter in Massachusetts’ jails can have their voices heard at the ballot box.