CLC filed a lawsuit on April 10, 2018, seeking to compel U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to disclose operating agreements related to its Northwest Detention Facility in Tacoma, Washington, which may show that the subsidiary of a private prison company has a direct relationship with a federal contract — contradicting public denials from its leadership and raising further questions about the legality of its political contributions. Publicly available documents reveal that GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of private prison contractor GEO Group, Inc., has a role operating the facility, yet has also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to super PACs, despite federal law prohibiting federal contractors from making direct or indirect contributions to political committees. GEO has defended its contributions by claiming that the parent company holds the contracts, not the subsidiary.

In particular, GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc. contributed a total of $225,000 in 2016 to Rebuilding America Now, a super PAC that supported the election of then-candidate Donald Trump. The first contribution came one day after the Obama Administration announced its decision to phase out the use of private prisons, a decision that was immediately reversed after Jeff Sessions became Attorney General in February 2017.

CLC has a pending complaint with the FEC regarding the legality of GEO Corrections Holdings, Inc.’s contributions to Rebuilding America Now, and has also filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the FEC to take action on that complaint, which has been sitting on the agency’s docket for over a year. For 75 years, government contractors have been banned from making political contributions.

CLC submitted its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to ICE on December 8, 2017, and the law requires a response within twenty days. Not only did ICE fail to send an official acknowledgement for ten weeks, but it also has failed to produce a single document in response to CLC’s narrow request for more information. CLC’s lawsuit seeks to compel disclosure of the requested documents, which may be important to the pending case, Campaign Legal Center v. Federal Election Commission (GEO).

About the case

Montanans for Community Development (“MCD”) v. Mangan is a challenge to Montana’s disclosure laws, which serve to protect voters’ ability to know who is behind the election advertising they see, read, or hear. The laws at issue require political groups that spend money to influence Montana voters to disclose basic information about their finances so that voters are able to evaluate the electoral messages they receive.

MCD, the self-described “social welfare organization” challenging these laws, wanted to send out political mailers shortly before an election “educating” Montana voters by attacking or supporting certain candidates for office. Because MCD did not want to disclose who funded these mailings, it sued. MCD is challenging the laws as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad in defining which groups must disclose their funding, and unconstitutional as applied to MCD’s proposed mailers. MCD calls its mailers “issue advocacy,” even though they support or attack particular candidates. MCD is also challenging the investigatory powers of Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices on the theory that it has been discriminated against based on its viewpoint.

A federal district court in Montana dismissed each of MCD’s contentions as meritless and MCD is appealing that decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In July 2017, CLC filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Ninth Circuit in support of Montana. CLC’s brief argues that Montana’s disclosure law is neither vague nor overbroad, but instead an appropriately tailored means of ensuring that voters know who is spending money in their elections. And although MCD challenges the law as burdening their First Amendment rights, as CLC’s brief explains, Montana’s law also advances core First Amendment interests, because it provides voters with the information they need to make meaningful electoral choices and hold elected officials accountable—activities that are essential to self-government.

What’s at stake

Many states and municipalities have laws that parallel Montana’s. Disclosure laws like Montana’s are critical because voters deserve to know who is spending money to influence their votes.

Transparency is the foundation of an open democracy. Courts across the country have upheld a broad range of disclosure requirements against constitutional attack – including the Supreme Court, which has consistently approved campaign finance disclosure laws as a means of preventing corruption, ensuring that other campaign finance rules are followed, and aiding voters’ ability to make informed choices on Election Day.

At a time where more dark money is flooding into state and local elections, these types of laws are more important than ever to protect voters and our system of self-government

After the 2011 census, the Texas legislature redrew its congressional and state legislative districts. Because Texas was subject to preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act due to its history of discriminatory voting practices, the state sought preclearance of its 2011 plans in the District Court for the District of Columbia.

At the same time, various groups of plaintiffs challenged Texas’s 2011 proposed redistricting for the Texas House and for Congress. The plaintiffs alleged the Texas House and Congressional maps were intentionally racially discriminatory in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, and were in violation of the Voting Rights Act prohibition on diluting minority voting strength.

Because the D.C. Court had not precleared the 2011 plan, and based upon guidance from the Supreme Court, the Texas district court was required to draw an interim plan to be used for the 2012 elections, which were rapidly approaching. A subset of the plaintiffs and the state agreed on a compromise plan, which other plaintiffs opposed. The district court adopted the compromise plan, while expressly reserving the right to alter its analysis upon a full review of the evidence at trial.

In June 2013, shortly before the Supreme Court invalided the coverage formula for Section 5 with its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the legislature passed a bill repealing the 2011 plans, and enacting in their place the interim plan used for the 2012 elections, with minor changes to the state house plan.  The day after Shelby County was announced, the Governor signed the legislation.

The plaintiffs amended their complaints to raise claims against the 2013 plans, and to assert a claim for relief under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act, to require Texas to be “bailed in” to the preclearance regime as a consequence of its intentionally discriminatory redistricting plans.

(Read more about preclearance.)

The district court held trials on the 2011 and 2013 plans. The court concluded that the 2011 plan was intentionally discriminatory with respect to a number of districts because it cracked and packed minority voters, was an unconstitutional gerrymander with respect to several districts, and contained violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, both in intent and effects, with respect to several districts.

Following a trial on the 2013 plan, the district court concluded that the districts that were unlawful in the 2011 plan that were retained in the 2013 plan remained unlawful.

Texas now contends that because the district court did not alter those districts when it approved the interim plan, despite announcing its approval was tepid and temporary and without the benefit of a full evidentiary record, the district court was wrong to conclude the districts were unlawful.

In CLC's amicus brief filed with the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on April 4, 2018, we state our belief that states should not be able to insulate themselves from judicial review for unlawful redistricting simply by cloaking themselves under the cover of a temporary court ruling that was expressly confined and declared subject to change. Rather, when a state engages in unlawful redistricting, the state should be liable when it reaffirms that unlawful decision by reenacting the same unlawful districts without change.