Coalition Urges White House, Senate to Restore FEC Quorum with Commissioners Committed to Enforcing Anti-Corruption Laws

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Groups caution against nominating FEC Commissioners who would use position to prevent enforcement

WASHINGTON – Today, a coalition of good-government groups sent a letter calling on the President and U.S. Senate to restore the Federal Election Commission (FEC) voting quorum – but countering a call from private attorneys to confirm a “full slate” of six new FEC commissioners who would continue the FEC’s longstanding dysfunction. The letter from Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Public Citizen, Common Cause, Democracy 21, CREW, and 16 other organizations and individuals describes how the FEC’s problems preceded its recent absence of a quorum, resulting in an explosion of secret spending that has increasingly rigged our political system in favor of wealthy special interests. The letter urges the President and U.S. Senate “not to respond to the FEC’s lack of a quorum by nominating or confirming any FEC commissioner who would use that position to prevent enforcement of the law,” and notes that confirming commissioners opposed to election transparency “would hinder enforcement, not enable it.”

“To stop the explosion of secret election spending by wealthy special interests, the practice of nominating FEC Commissioners who carry water for those interests must end,” said Adav Noti, senior director and chief of staff at CLC, and former Associate General Counsel of the FEC. “The failure of the FEC is one of the best-kept secrets in Washington, and one of the most shameful. To ensure the 2020 elections are transparent and fair, the President and Senate must prioritize restoration of the FEC’s quorum, but that is no excuse to re-stock the FEC with yet another crop of commissioners who oppose campaign finance reform.”

“It is imperative to get the campaign finance cop back on the beat as this nation enters what promises to be the most expensive election in history, said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “But it is just as important that we get a functional campaign finance cop on the beat. The FEC has long been rendered incapable of performing its mission by the appointment of commissioners opposed to the campaign finance laws. Immediately restore a quorum on the FEC, and then make the appointment of additional commissioners impartial and nonpartisan.”

“It is beyond belief that in this presidential year of enormous consequence, the nation’s campaign finance enforcement agency is defunct because it does not have enough commissioners for a quorum to take action to enforce the laws,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21. “Responsibility for this indefensible state of affairs rests with two people: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who never met a campaign finance law he likes and who is stonewalling the appointment of the commissioners needed for the quorum necessary to act, and President Trump, who is taking his cues from McConnell and not sending any nominations to the Senate. The American people are owed serious enforcement of the nation’s campaign finance laws which have been enacted to prevent corruption. If McConnell and Trump continue to keep the FEC moribund, they will be the principal enablers of the criminal activity and corrupt practices that are likely to occur this year.”

“As we race headlong into what will undoubtedly be the most expensive election in our nation’s history, the American people deserve a functioning regulator willing to enforce and administer our federal campaign finance laws,” said Beth Rotman, director, money in politics & ethics program at Common Cause. “It would be reckless and irresponsible to leave the FEC without a quorum to act when Russia and other hostile foreign powers are working to sway our elections and record amounts of money will be flowing not only into congressional and presidential campaign coffers but also to outside groups including super PACs and dark money organizations. We cannot afford to play Russian roulette with our democracy, a quorum willing to enforce the law must be appointed and confirmed at the FEC.”

"Now is the time for Democratic and Republican lawmakers to put aside their political differences, and move forward with the FEC commissioner nominating process,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director CREW. “By shirking their responsibility to nominate and confirm FEC commissioners, the President and the Senate are allowing for campaign finance violations to continue unchecked, and for corrupt politicians and organizations to abuse the laws and system designed to ensure fair elections. Quick nomination and confirmation of commissioners committed to the campaign finance law enforcement mission of the FEC will help us start to get back on track." 

The FEC currently lacks the authority to pass rules, issue formal guidance to candidates, or punish lawbreakers. But the agency’s problems preceded its recent absence of a quorum. Those problems stem largely from the historical practice of nominating and confirming commissioners who are ideologically opposed to the mission of the agency and who intentionally leverage its structural deficiencies to undermine the laws it is charged with enforcing. Increasingly over the last decade, the FEC’s law-enforcement activity has been gutted frequently by deadlock on critical enforcement matters. The FEC’s own enforcement statistics show that of the enforcement matters the commissioners consider in their official meetings, a majority (approximately 50.6% since 2012) have at least one deadlock and fail to reach the four affirmative votes necessary to pursue the matter.

Voters have an overwhelmingly negative view of the campaign finance system, as they believe it is corrupt, filled with loopholes and rigged in favor of the wealthy, corporations and special interests. Recent polling released by CLC indicates 71% of voters want the FEC to take a more active role in enforcing campaign finance laws.

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Campaign Finance

CLC Urges 11th Circuit to Affirm Ruling in Florida Voting Case: ‘The Right to Vote Cannot Be Denied on Basis of Wealth’

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ATLANTA, GA – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a brief with the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit calling on the court to affirm an October 2019 district court ruling, which barred Florida from denying people with past convictions the right to vote based on their inability to pay outstanding fines, fees and restitution obligations.

The case is Jones v. DeSantis. The court has scheduled oral argument for January 28. Florida’s presidential primary registration deadline is fast approaching on February 18 and the presidential preference primary election is on March 17.

 Paul Smith, vice president of CLC and lawyer for the plaintiffs, released the following statement:

“The lower court has already recognized that Florida can’t deny our clients the right to vote based on lack of wealth. Now the appeals court must affirm this ruling and send a clear message to the state that wealth based discrimination in voting is unjust. Hundreds of thousands of peoples’ rights hang in the balance.”

The lower court ruling restored voting rights to the 17 plaintiffs in the case, but the case continues. It will determine whether those individuals and hundreds of thousands of others in the same position will be able to vote in the 2020 election. CLC is representing three clients who would otherwise be denied the right to vote under Florida’s law because they are unable to pay off their fines and fees: Bonnie Raysor of Boynton Beach, Diane Sherrill of St. Petersburg and Lee Hoffman of Plant City. CLC filed a class-action lawsuit, and is also seeking relief for all Floridians who are denied the right to vote based on inability to pay.

One year ago Wednesday, Amendment 4 was implemented in Florida, a transformative legal change that elevated a class of citizens with felony convictions and promised to restore voting rights to approximately 1.5 million people through a new provision in the state constitution. Florida voters supported the ballot initiative restoring the right to vote to individuals with past felony convictions, passing it by a nearly two-to-one margin in November 2018.

Issues
Voting and Elections

Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger

At a Glance

A coalition of civil rights groups and religious organizations are challenging numerous deficiencies in Georgia’s electoral system that impose serious burdens on the right to vote for eligible Georgians. These obstacles particularly impact Georgia’s residents of color, severely limiting Georgia’s ability to conduct free and fair elections. CLC represents the plaintiff organizations in challenging Georgia’s electoral system under the U.S. Constitution.

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Closed
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Issues
Voting and Elections
About This Case/Action

The State of Georgia has a longstanding record of neglecting its elections infrastructure and suppressing votes – particularly those of people of color. Many of these barriers to voting were halted by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”); however, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder eliminated several of the VRA’s key protections, Georgia once again began erecting discriminatory voting barriers. 

In the 2018 general election, Georgia experienced historic levels of voter registration and turnout, particularly among voters of color; however, those record turnout levels were matched by increased reports of problems with voters’ registrations, absentee ballots, and polling places, among other things. Specifically, Georgia implemented the following policies and procedures that disenfranchised voters, particularly voters of color and low-income voters:

Exact Match

In the lead up to the 2018 election, then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp adopted an extreme interpretation of the statute requiring a “match” between their information on a voter registration form and other government records, implementing a policy requiring the match to be “exact.” Under this policy, inconsequential typographical mismatches, often caused by technical limitations on computer systems or simple errors by government employees, were used to deny Georgians their right to vote. This practice resulted in the suspension of tens of thousands of new voter registrations – especially voters of color and newly naturalized citizens—before it was blocked in part by a federal court. CLC is involved in a second case, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda v. Raffensberger challenging remaining portions of the exact match policy.

“Use It or Lose it”

In 1997, Georgia enacted legislation requiring Georgia citizens to be purged from the voter registration rolls based in large part on whether they decided to exercise their right to vote within certain timeframes. In 2017 alone, the Secretary of State used this statute to purge the voter rolls of nearly ten percent of Georgia’s registered voters. On Dec. 16, 2019, CLC and Fair Fight Action filed an emergency motion to halt the state’s plans to purge 120,561 Georgia voters form the rolls. These people are being removed solely because they have chosen not to participate in recent elections and have not returned two mailed notices asking for confirmation of their addresses.

Polling Place Closures and Relocations

Over the past few years, Georgia election officials closed or moved more than 300 polling places, many in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color. These changes create confusion for voters, and fewer polling places means that the remaining locations struggle to accommodate an influx of voters – especially when faced with the increased turnout of the 2018 election. Election officials in Georgia failed to supply sufficient, functioning voting machines and enough provisional ballots. The lack of resources and reduced number of polling places meant that voters had to endure longer lines with wait times of up to four hours – meaning that Georgians who couldn’t wait because of disability, health, or work or family obligations effectively lost the right to vote.

Provisional Ballot Issues

Georgia law requires election officials to provide a provisional ballot to any voter whose registration can’t be confirmed at the polling place, but many poll workers either did not understand that requirement or refused to comply. In other locations, particularly high-turnout precincts with large populations of voters of color, precincts ran out of provisional ballots, resulting in many voters losing the ability to vote entirely.

Absentee Ballot Issues

Thousands of Georgia voters who cast absentee ballots via mail also experienced significant obstacles in 2018. Some voters who applied for an absentee ballot never received one; others received their ballots too late to be able to cast them in time to be counted; and some had their applications or ballots illegally rejected. Elections officials also misinformed voters about whether absentee ballots had been accepted, preventing voters from having the chance to fix purported deficiencies in their ballots. 

CLC has joined the legal team representing a coalition of civil rights groups and religious organizations as plaintiffs in this case, including Fair Fight Action, Inc., Care in Action, Inc., Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, Inc., Baconton Missionary Baptist Church, Inc., Virginia-Highland Church, Inc., and The Sixth Episcopal District, Inc. The case challenges the deficiencies in Georgia’s electoral system described above, among others, under the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The lawsuit calls on the court to declare that the problems described in Georgia’s electoral system are unconstitutional and prevent the state from enforcing them in upcoming elections.

On May 30, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied the state’s motion to dismiss the coalition’s claims, and subsequently set a trial date for March 2020.

Plaintiffs

Fair Fight Action

Defendant

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Fair Fight Action, Campaign Legal Center File Emergency Motion to Stop Georgia From Massive Voter Purge

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ATLANTA, Ga. – Today, Fair Fight Action and Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed an emergency motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The temporary restraining order seeks to prevent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from moving forward with the state’s plans to illegally purge 120,561 Georgia voters from the rolls tonight. These people are being removed solely because they have chosen not to vote in recent elections and have not returned two mailed notices asking for confirmation of their addresses.

CLC is working in partnership with Fair Fight Action on the legal challenge to the planned voter purge, arguing that the anticipated purge will violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as recent changes to Georgia election law under House Bill 316.

Paul Smith, vice president of CLC, and counsel for the plaintiff group Fair Fight Action, released the following statement:

“The court must step in to prevent this reckless purge from removing many thousands of Georgians from the rolls. Declining to vote in recent elections is not a reliable indicator that a registered voter has become ineligible. Many conditions exist that make it difficult for many eligible voters to make it to the polls to vote. Hourly and wage workers, seniors, people with disabilities, people who rely on public transportation, low-income individuals, the homeless and those with family responsibilities may be unable to make it to the polls to vote. Practices like Georgia’s disproportionately impact traditionally marginalized communities. At a time when we should be working to increase the participation of all communities, Georgia seems to be moving backward.”

Issues
Voting and Elections
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