WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives reintroduced the For the People Act (H.R. 1), a comprehensive set of democracy reforms to advance voting rights, strengthen ethics laws, end partisan gerrymandering and decrease the influence of wealthy special interests in our political system. If passed, this much-needed legislation would enact some of the greatest, most comprehensive improvements our democracy has seen in decades.

“The reforms included in H.R. 1 are urgently needed and polls show are immensely popular. Similar bills have already been enacted at the state and local level and now are needed at the federal level. This is evidenced by the many vulnerabilities that were exposed during 2020 election season,” said Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC), and former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). “The House of Representatives has already previously passed the bill, in the last session, and once it has done so again the Senate should take it up and approve it. When that has occurred, President-elect Joe Biden should sign it into law after he is sworn in as president, to create a truer, fairer and more accessible democracy for all people.”

The For the People Act garnered support from a diverse coalition of hundreds of organizations. As many as 82% of voters in battleground states – including 84% of Independents – support the legislation. The same poll showed that in those states, 75% of voters said cracking down on corruption was their top legislative priority.

Key H.R.1 provisions will address problems like access to voting, extreme partisan gerrymandering, ethical abuses by officials and difficult-to-trace dark money that supports both Democrats and Republicans. 

On Jan. 29, 2019, Adav Noti, CLC’s senior director of trial litigation, testified before Congress in support of H.R. 1. He talked about how the bill would improve campaign finance laws by ensuring that “ordinary citizens can participate in the political process without having their voices drowned out by wealthy corporations and individuals that hold special interests.”

Many elected officials have pledged to prioritize democracy reform, and they should make good on their promise. Americans deserve to have a government that is accessible, transparent and responsive to the people.

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit over the Trump Administration’s attempts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census counts to be used for apportionment of seats in Congress among the States. That means that the issue may need to be litigated later, if the Trump plan remains in effect and ends up changing the apportionment.

“The Trump Administration should discontinue its attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census,” said Paul Smith, vice president at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “The Supreme Court seems content to run out the clock on the Trump Administration, anticipating that it will fail to put into action a plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census before January 20. Regardless of whether the Trump Administration has time to gather the data they are seeking, their plan is discriminatory and attempts to punish states with large immigrant communities by denying them fair representation in government. Their ploy is purely political and undercuts central principles of our democracy, ignoring the U.S. Constitution in the process.”

The U.S. Constitution mandates that the "whole number of persons" living in each state be counted to figure out how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes are allocated to each state.

Washington, DC – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that during the 2020 general election two super PACs, Ditch Fund and March on PAC, violated the law by illegally making over $8 million in coordinated expenditures backing the campaigns of U.S. Senate candidates Amy McGrath and Michael Espy.

During the 2020 election cycle, the super PACs distributed and placed their advertisements supporting McGrath and Espy using the same firm—and in many cases, the same employee—that was strategically placing the McGrath and Espy campaigns’ own advertisements. Such use of a common vendor helped to ensure that spending by the super PACs would be complementary to, and coordinated with, the campaigns’ own efforts.

The McGrath and Espy campaigns both used the DC-based firm Buying Time LLC to place their advertisements, and Ditch Fund and March On PAC placed their ads supporting McGrath and Espy using a shell corporation for Buying Time called Targeted Platform Media (TPM). TPM has no significant digital footprint and a Buying Time employee is listed as the executive for both firms.

Ditch Fund spent $8 million supporting Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate McGrath or attacking her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The same TPM employee who placed advertisements for the super PAC, was also strategically placing advertisements for the McGrath campaign through Buying Time.

The March On PAC spent at least $50,000 supporting Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate Espy. The super PAC used TPM to distribute and place advertisements in the same periods and in the same media markets as the Espy campaign. TPM used the same Buying Time employee that was strategically placing the Espy campaigns’ own advertisements.

“Super PACs can only raise and spend unlimited amounts if they are completely independent of the campaigns they support. When the same person is placing ads for both a super PAC and the candidate that super PAC supports, then the super PAC’s spending is not at all independent, as required by law,” said Brendan Fischer, federal reform director for CLC.  “A vendor cannot possibly separate its work for a super PAC from its work for a campaign when the same person is placing ads for both—an employee cannot create a firewall inside their own head.”

Campaign finance laws prohibit coordination between candidates and outside groups, like super PACs, which are only allowed to make unlimited expenditures if they are independent of the candidates they support. Anti-coordination laws limit how a vendor may work for both a candidate and a super PAC supporting that candidate; otherwise, the vendor can act as a conduit to funnel strategic information to the super PAC, which means that the super PAC is no longer acting independent of the campaign.

The violations alleged in today’s complaints are similar to those of the National Rifle Association (NRA), about which CLC filed complaints in 2018 and 2019.

To reduce political corruption, we need real transparency about who is spending big money on elections so that politicians can no longer receive unlimited secret money from wealthy special interests to support their campaigns, the FEC must investigate and hold all parties accountable for their blatant disregard of campaign finance laws.