Today, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Fair Elections Act, a voluntary system that will allow qualified candidates an initial grant followed by matching funds on small donations in District elections. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is part of the DC Fair Elections Coalition and testified in support of the bill at a committee hearing.

“Mayor Bowser heard D.C. residents’ overwhelming support for small-dollar public financing and signed the Fair Elections Act. This new program will incentivize District candidates to seek support from a more diverse coalition of citizens,” said Catie Kelley, director, policy and state programs at CLC. “This inclusive reform will draw more voters into the political process and reduce the disproportionate influence of big-dollar donors in D.C. elections. We are pleased D.C. is the latest jurisdiction in the country to opt for fair elections.”

Read the testimony CLC submitted to the D.C. Council in support of the Fair Elections Act, which analyzes the bill’s details, provides recommendations, and uses studies of multiple jurisdictions to show how matching funds programs give candidates a financial incentive to reach out to a greater number of voters.

Shaub: “The White House cannot continue to have one standard for the federal workforce generally and a lower standard for appointees who are close to this President.”

Today, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found that Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act by using her official position to advocate for the election of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, and for the defeat of his opponent, Doug Jones, after Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed two Hatch Act complaints with OSC in November and December.

CLC issued the following statement from Walter Shaub, CLC’s senior director, ethics and the former director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE):

“This case was a slam dunk. All the same, it couldn’t have been easy for Special Counsel Henry Kerner to issue a finding that one of the president’s top advisors violated an ethics law. Kerner was only recently appointed to the position of Special Counsel, and he knew he risked upsetting the White House with this finding. He is probably aware of the history that that the White House got upset when, as the head of the Office of Government Ethics, I found that Ms. Conway violated another ethics provision. Nevertheless, Kerner went ahead and did the right thing. It speaks well of him, and it’s good to see OSC continuing to enforce this important ethics law.”   

The question now is whether the White House will uphold the Hatch Act, as it is up to the White House to decide how high-level employees like Conway should be disciplined. The willfulness of Conway’s violation makes clear that anything less than removal from the federal service or a lengthy unpaid suspension will not deter future misconduct on her part. As Walter Shaub pointed out today, “OSC is now the second federal agency to find Conway in violation of ethics-related provisions. Enough is enough. She has made clear that she’s not interested in following government ethics rules. It’s time for the President to act.”

Noting that lower-level federal employees have incurred severe penalties for less serious Hatch Act violations, Shaub added, “The White House cannot continue to have one standard for the federal workforce generally and a lower standard for appointees who are close to this President.”

WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Highway 31, a super PAC that backed Democratic candidate Doug Jones in Alabama’s December 2017 U.S. Senate special election, violated campaign finance law by cooking up a secrecy scheme to spend $4.2 million on the race while keeping their donors in the shadows until after election day.

“Democrats talk the talk about supporting transparency in political money, but then national Democratic groups push aggressive new legal theories to undermine the transparency laws that are on the books,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal and FEC reform at CLC. “Despite laws requiring that super PACs disclose their donors, Alabama voters went to the polls on election day without knowing who was backing Highway 31. This secrecy scheme cooked up by Highway 31 and its backers threatens to create a new disclosure loophole that will be exploited by billionaires and operatives supporting both parties, unless the FEC does its job and enforces our disclosure laws.”

Highway 31 was created in November 2017, quickly spent $1.15 million on the Alabama race, but on its only FEC report filed before election day, claimed that it had not raised a single penny – and that Democratic campaign vendors had produced and placed the group’s ads entirely on credit. More than a month after election day, Highway 31 filed a report disclosing for the first time that its primary backers were national Democratic super PACs Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action.

CLC’s complaint alleges that the vendors do not extend over $1 million in credit to newly-created PACs in the ordinary course of business, and should have been reported as contributors, and/or that Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action may have guaranteed that those vendor bills would be paid, and should have been reported as contributors on Highway 31’s pre-election report.

PHOENIX – Debbie Lesko, a congressional candidate for Arizona’s eighth district, illegally funneled $50,000 from her state campaign fund to a super PAC supporting her congressional race, according to a complaint Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed  with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The complaint asks the FEC to investigate Lesko, her state campaign committee, and a super PAC called Conservative Leadership for Arizona, which was wholly funded by Lesko and appears to have been created for the sole purpose of supporting her Congressional run.

The Conservative Leadership for Arizona super PAC was formed on January 10, 2018, and eight days later received $50,000 from Lesko’s state campaign account—effectively all of the super PAC’s funding—and then spent those funds on polling, voter contact mail and road signs supporting Lesko.

“Congressional candidates cannot use state campaign funds to support their federal candidacy, and Lesko’s scheme is a form of political money laundering that the FEC must address,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal and FEC reform at CLC. “Lesko’s willingness to engage in such a blatantly illegal scheme might suggest that the perceived costs of a future FEC fine don’t outweigh the benefits of funding a supporting super PAC, but that is all the more reason for the FEC to take these violations seriously.”

Under federal law, Lesko could transfer no more than $5,000 to the PAC from her state committee; moreover, because the PAC was entirely funded by Lesko, it too could only accept up to $5,000. 

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alabama, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Campaign Legal Center (CLC) today submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the appeal of a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s voter ID law. David Newmann and Matthew Higgins, attorneys at Hogan Lovells, assisted with the brief.

That law requires voters to obtain photo identification in order to vote. The types of photo ID that are accepted is limited, which imposes a severe burden on the right to vote in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Statistics cited in the original complaint show that Black and Latino voters are almost twice as likely as white voters to lack an acceptable photo ID for voting. Moreover, the district court specifically found that “cases of proven in-person voter fraud in Alabama are extremely rare.”

In 2015, Greater Birmingham Ministries, Alabama NAACP, and individual plaintiffs sued the state, claiming that the voter ID law is unconstitutional because it intentionally discriminates against voters of color in Alabama. On January 10, 2018, a federal trial judge allowed the law to remain in effect. Plaintiffs appealed the decision.

“A law passed with a discriminatory purpose has no legitimacy under our Constitution,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel, Voting Rights and Redistricting at CLC. “The challenge to Alabama’s voter photo ID law must proceed to trial. There is significant evidence that the law makes it harder for racial minorities to vote.”

Laws that suppress voter turnout disproportionately affect minorities, the elderly, students, people with disabilities, and low-income and homeless voters.

The brief also expresses concern over the District Court’s approach in weighing the evidence of discriminatory intent of the photo ID law and argue that the court applied the wrong legal analysis in rejecting plaintiffs’ claims.

Yesterday, President Trump urged Pennsylvania Republicans to stand by their original extreme partisan gerrymandered map, which were struck down by their State Supreme Court, after the court said it clearly and plainly violated the state’s constitution.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released the following statement:

“Fighting partisan gerrymandering is not simply about outcomes in a single election. It is about finding a long-term fix that will ultimately benefit all voters, regardless of political affiliation. Gerrymandering is practiced by both parties. Democrats in states like Maryland and Illinois have carved up maps for their benefit with as much zeal as Republicans in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Our system would be better off if the U.S. Supreme Court creates ground rules that safeguard all Americans’ fundamental right to vote and have it count.”

According to the website Planscore, a tool developed by political science and election law experts to score district plans, the Pennsylvania U.S. House plan released yesterday has relatively low partisan asymmetry, is more compact and is more competitive than both the plans that were used in the last three elections and the one vetoed by Governor Tom Wolf last week.

In the first-ever bipartisan survey on partisan gerrymandering and the Supreme Court, an overwhelming majority (71 to 15 percent) of Americans want the Supreme Court to place limits on lawmakers’ ability to manipulate voting maps. This includes 80 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Republicans.    

The poll also shows that:

• By a margin of 62 to 10 percent, voters are less likely to support a candidate who supports partisan gerrymandering.
• ​By a margin of 73 to 14 percent, voters support removing partisan bias from redistricting, even if it means their preferred political party will win fewer seats.    

Multiple states can follow PA’s lead if U.S. Supreme Court adopts a standard for measuring unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering

WASHINGTON – Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued an order with a new congressional district map for the state’s 2018 elections after it ruled in January that the existing map’s district lines were an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. According to the website Planscore, a tool developed by political science and election law experts to score district plans, the Pennsylvania U.S. House plan released today has relatively low partisan asymmetry, is more compact and is more competitive than both the plans that were used in the last three elections and the one vetoed by Governor Tom Wolf last week. This process proved that the court was able to work with an expert consultant to produce a final plan that will treat voters of both parties fairly.

“The remedial process in Pennsylvania has shown that using public input, a manageable standard, and modern technology, it is possible to draw fair maps that are free from extreme partisan bias,” said Ruth Greenwood, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a lawyer on the legal team for the landmark partisan gerrymandering case out of Wisconsin, Gill v. Whitford. “We can expect this process to work in multiple states if the Supreme Court adopts a standard for measuring unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. Fortunately for voters in Pennsylvania, using extreme partisan bias to draw state voting maps is now measurable, and the public showed it was able to hold politicians accountable by demanding fair maps. After three elections with unconstitutional plans, the state has finally corrected this.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has a chance this term to use a standard to evaluate partisan gerrymandering and use that to evaluate the partisan implications of district plans. And now, the public has the ability to utilize Planscore’s upload page to analyze partisan bias in state plans.

CLC supports the right to equal representation regardless of partisan affiliation and opposes extreme partisan gerrymanders across the country. CLC submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Jan. 5, 2018 in support of the maps’ challengers, who were the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. CLC is representing the Wisconsin voters that challenged the state’s maps in the landmark partisan gerrymandering case, Gill V. Whitford. The Court will decide on the case this term.