Pressure Applied by Trump on Ukraine Is an Abuse of Power
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WASHINGTON – Today, the White House released a memorandum that describes portions of a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The document includes a disclaimer that cautions readers: it is not a verbatim transcript, and a number of factors can affect its accuracy.
CLC President Trevor Potter, a former Republican Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, released the following statement:
“On his phone call with the President of Ukraine, President Trump repeatedly pressured a newly-elected head of a foreign country to investigate a former U.S. Vice President and current candidate for President of the United States for his own political gain. This is a betrayal of his oath of office. Given the context of the call, President Trump created an implicit understanding that U.S. support for Ukraine and taxpayer-funded security aid to Ukraine was hanging in the balance. In order for the President and executive branch to be held accountable, Congress must exercise its core constitutional authority to ensure that the whistleblower complaint be released in its entirety, and all the facts surrounding this incident are publicly known.”
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CLC Lanza Una Nueva Guía en Español Para Ayudar a Millones de Personas Entender Sus Derechos A Votar
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WASHINGTON — Para comemorar el Día Nacional de la Inscripción a Votar, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) lanzó hoy RecupereSuVoto.org, la versión español de RestoreYourVote.org, una guía electrónica para los 23 millones de ciudadanos estadounidenses con condenas por delitos graves para entender sus opciones para ejercer el derecho a votar. Reflejando el sitio de Restore Your Vote original, RecupereSuVoto.org incluye una mapa para el proceso de la recuperación del derecho a votar en cada de los 50 estados, el Distrito de Columbia, y Puerto Rico. Durante este último año, los estados de Nevada y Colorado han revisados sus leyes para re-conceder derechos de votar a las personas cuando salen de la cárcel. Esos estados son parte de una tendencia nacional. Tantos como 18 millones de personas con condenas previas pudieran votar hoy en día, si solamente entendieran sus derechos.
Porque las leyes de la privación del derecho de votar por razón de condena varían mucho de estado a estado, muchas personas siguen sin saber lo que son sus derechos. Los gobiernos estatales a menudo caen cortos y faltan de educar a los ciudadanos con condenas previas sobre sus derechos a votar después que ya han pagado sus deudas a la sociedad, y efectivamente extienden sus sentencias.
Los impactos de las leyes de privación del derecho a votar por delitos graves son sentidos desproporcionadamente por las comunidades de grupos minorías, impidiendo que sus voces sean escuchadas. Aunque los hispanos son solamente 16% de la populación adulta de los Estados Unidos, comprenden 23% de la populación encarcelada.
“Los ciudadanos quienes han pagado sus deudas a la sociedad tienen el derecho de participar en nuestra democracia. Estamos lanzando esta guía por que la votación debe ser accesible a todos los ciudadanos, sin importar donde viven, el color de su piel, o la lengua que hablan,” dijo Jonathan Diaz, abogado de derechos de votar, CLC. “Las leyes y políticas federales y estatales deben proteger el derecho a votar uniformemente, y también deben promover la participación de los votantes sobre el país entero. Las acciones recientes de algunos estados de expandir los derechos a votar a las personas con previas condenas son desarrollos positivos. Pero a menudo, aunque las leyes se han mejorado, una falta de información puede evitar que los votantes sepan su estado y ejercen sus derechos a votar. Nosotros hemos creado esta guía para reparar esa falta de información para tantas personas como sea posible.”
Desde que lanzó la versión en inglés en agosto del 2018, casi 70,000 personas han visitado RestoreYourVote.org. A través del alcance comunitario del programa Restore Your Vote, organizadores de CLC identificaron los estados con las leyes de recuperación del derecho a votar más confusas, y directamente ayudaron a más de 5,000 personas con condenas por delitos graves recuperar sus derechos a votar. También apoderaron miles de líderes comunitarios a mejor ayudar sus vecinos tratando de entender las leyes de recuperación del derecho a votar en sus estados.
Visite RecupereSuVoto.org para aprender más.
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CLC Launches New Spanish Language Online Tool to Help Millions Understand Their Voting Rights
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WASHINGTON – To commemorate National Voter Registration Day, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) launched RecupereSuVoto.org today, the Spanish language version of RestoreYourVote.org, an online toolkit for the 23 million citizens with past felony convictions to understand their options for exercising the right to vote. Mirroring the original Restore Your Vote website, RecupereSuVoto.org includes a roadmap for rights restoration in all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Just this year, Nevada and Colorado have revised their laws to re-enfranchise individuals upon release from incarceration. These states demonstrate a national trend. As many as 18 million people with past convictions should be able to vote right now, if they only understood their rights.
Since felony disenfranchisement laws vary widely by state, many people remain unaware of their rights. States often fall short and fail to educate citizens with past convictions about their ability to vote after they have paid their debt to society, which can effectively extend their sentence.
The impact of felony disenfranchisement laws are felt disproportionately by people of color, preventing them from having their voices heard. Despite being only 16% of the U.S. adult population, Hispanic-Americans make up 23% of the U.S. prison population.
“Citizens who have paid their debt to society are entitled to participate in our democracy. We are launching this tool because voting should be accessible to all citizens no matter where they live, the color of their skin or the language they speak,” said Jonathan Diaz, legal counsel, voting rights at CLC. “State and federal policies should uniformly protect the right to vote and promote voter participation across the United States. Recent efforts by states to expand voting rights to those with past convictions have been a positive development. But often, even after the laws are changed, a lack of information can prevent voters from knowing their status and exercising their voting rights. We have created this tool to close that education gap for as many people as possible.”
Since its launch in August 2018, nearly 70,000 people have visited RestoreYourVote.org. Through the Restore Your Vote campaign’s grassroots outreach, CLC organizers targeted the states with the most complicated rights restoration laws in the country, directly assisting more than 5,000 people with past felony convictions restore their voting rights, and empowered thousands of community leaders to better assist their neighbors seeking to navigate rights restoration laws in their state.
Visit RecupereSuVoto.org to learn more.
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CLC and Voters Not Politicians Respond to Efforts to Sabotage Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission
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LANSING, Mich. - Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Voters Not Politicians filed briefs in response to the lawsuits brought by politicians and special interests to undermine Michigan’s voter-initiated Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. The lawsuits, which were consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, were brought by a group of Republican activists led by Tony Daunt, who was the face of the losing opposition campaign last year, and the Michigan Republican Party, which a U.S. District Court found, gerrymandered the state’s district maps to historical proportions during the most recent redistricting cycle to give themselves “a strong, systematic, and durable structural advantage in Michigan's elections."
“Michigan voters in 2018 said loud and clear that they want a say in the way their district lines are drawn,” said Paul Smith, Vice President of the Campaign Legal Center. “We are proud to join Voters Not Politicians in the fight to protect Michigan’s democratically-enacted Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, a reform that will take the political incentives out of the redistricting process. There is unprecedented energy across America behind the movement to take back redistricting power so that voters are choosing their elected officials and not vice versa. When citizens have a chance to take democracy into their own hands, they have consistently supported measures to end partisan gerrymandering.”
“This lawsuit is a desperate attempt by those who benefited the most from gerrymandering Michigan’s maps to sabotage the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission that voters put in place,” said Nancy Wang, Executive Director of Voters Not Politicians. “We are confident that the amendment adopted by a supermajority of voters in 2018 will stand.”
Briefs filed today request the court to deny plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, which would put the brakes on implementation of the commission, and seek to dismiss the case due to the plaintiffs’ failure to present any legally valid claims. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has indicated that her office is prepared to make applications to serve on the commission available to the public later this year.
Voters Not Politicians crafted the amendment language following 33 town hall events in 33 days to collect feedback from voters on the solution they wanted to end partisan gerrymandering. Over 4,000 volunteers collected more than 425,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Proposal 2 passed with 61% of the vote – over 2.5 million votes – including a majority in 67 of Michigan’s 83 counties.
One brief states: “Plaintiffs’ prayer for relief provides convincing proof that they are not really motivated by a desire to serve on the Commission or aggrieved by their exclusion from eligibility for that service at all – that it is instead their desire to thwart the implementation of the new Commission and prevent its use to accomplish the purpose for which it was overwhelmingly approved by the voters.”
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