In response to news that House Ways & Means Chairman Kevin Brady offered an amendment, which passed on a party-line vote, that further weakens the long-standing federal law barring charities and churches from engaging in electoral politics, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released the following statements:

Trevor Potter, CLC president and a former Republican chairman of the FEC said: 

“Rolling-back the longstanding prohibition on charitable political activity would broadly impact the entire charitable sector, and will undoubtedly lead to an array of new dark money activities, but now by charities and religious institutions.  

The charitable activities prohibition was passed without controversy in 1954 by a Republican Congress, signed by a Republican president, and has been supported and strengthened on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties. And this is for good reason: donors to 501(c)(3) organizations are subsidized by taxpayers for their charitable, religious and educational work, not partisan political activity.
 
We know from the investigations and controversies of the last few years concerning 501(c)(4) dark money groups that the IRS has neither the interest nor capacity to police restrictions on the use of tax-exempt status for political purpose — and Congress will put political pressure on the IRS if they try. For that reason, giving 501(c)(3) organizations the ability to spend even a “de minimis” (or minimal) amount on political activity is a recipe for real disaster.”
 
Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC reform program director at CLC said: 

“This amendment is not about promoting religious liberty, it is about making dark money tax-deductible. Rolling back limitations on political activities by charities and churches could offer billionaire donors a way to not only influence elections anonymously, but also to get a charitable tax deduction for doing so.”

The political activities prohibition refers to language in the Internal Revenue Code that bars organizations that include religious entities, but also an array of other charities, from participating in or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or opposition to, any candidate for public office.

Read CLC’s white paper on the history of the political activities prohibition and the consequences of repealing it.

Proposals seek to insulate ethics program from political retaliation, strengthen transparency, increase effectiveness of agency oversight capacity

WASHINGTON – Today, Walter Shaub, senior director, ethics, at Campaign Legal Center (CLC), met with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings to discuss 13 policy recommendations to strengthen the government ethics program. He released these policy ideas publicly today, as the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is going through the reauthorization process in Congress. Shaub developed this proposal based on his experience as Director of OGE, a position he served from January 2013 through July 2017.

“Each recommendation represents a real opportunity to achieve bipartisan reform to strengthen government ethics, which will reinforce the fact that public service is a public trust,” said Walter Shaub, senior director, ethics, at CLC. “The Director of OGE must be able to carry out his or her mission without fear of political retaliation. This requires it to operate as an independent prevention mechanism with the ability to prevent conflicts of interest in government. For the system to work properly, OGE must also have access to specific ethics records and plans, it must have its authority more clearly defined, and transparency must be strengthened to prevent misuse of government office.”

Congress created OGE in 1978 as part of the Ethics in Government Act as an institutional check to monitor the ethics program and prevent conflicts of interest in the Executive Branch.

The 13 policy recommendations are broken into the following four buckets, and each of the 13 can be considered individually:

• Independence of OGE
• Effectiveness of Oversight
• Transparency
• Substantive Ethics Requirements
   

Click here to see the proposals.

WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed comments with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) urging it to write new rules clarifying that digital political ads must include “disclaimers” stating who paid for the ads.

“The time is long overdue for the FEC to shore up the vulnerabilities that were exploited by foreign actors in the 2016 elections,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal and FEC reform at CLC. “A political ad run on TV must include a disclaimer telling voters who paid for it, and the FEC should clarify that disclaimer rules still apply when the same ad is run on the Internet.”  

As CLC noted in its comments:

“The Commission’s failure to clarify the rules allowed both foreign- and domestic-sponsored digital political ads in 2016 to omit disclaimers—meaning that thousands of Russian political ads were allowed to circulate without information about who paid for them, and that voters, watchdog groups, and law enforcement could not identify which ads were funded by foreign sources.”

Additionally, CLC’s comments noted:

“Had effective online disclaimer rules been in place in 2016, Russia’s wide-ranging influence campaign might have been detected sooner, or Russia might have been deterred from engaging in the effort in the first place."

Digital advertising has grown rapidly in recent election cycles: at least $1.4 billion spent on digital ads in 2016, up from $159.8 million in 2012.

Additionally, on Oct. 31, 2017, CLC and Take Back Action Fund filed an advisory opinion request that will require the FEC to provide guidance by early 2018 about how existing rules apply to disclaimers for Facebook political ads.

System has disenfranchised at least 26,000 eligible voters in Maricopa County alone

WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and private co-counsel filed a federal lawsuit challenging Arizona’s overly burdensome and confusing voter registration process that has disenfranchised 26,000 voters in Maricopa County alone. Maricopa is the largest county in Arizona.

The Arizona law requires eligible voters to attach specific documents such as a birth certificate to registration forms if they want to vote in state elections. However, federal law requires Arizona to accept federal registration forms, which permit an applicant to swear, under penalty of perjury, to their citizenship, at least for federal elections.

As a result of this dual voter registration system, Arizona voters submit valid registration forms assuming they are registered for both state and federal elections, but whether they can vote in those elections hinges on the form they were provided. In sum, eligible voters are denied the right to vote simply because of the registration form they happen to fill out.

“Arizona should be focusing on making voting accessible to all citizens, not complicating their registration requirements,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “Arizona’s policies place unnecessary and irrational burdens on the right to vote and fly in the face of the Constitution’s promise of equal protection. The right to vote is sacred in our democracy and should not be denied based on the happenstance of which registration form a voter completes.”

What’s more, Arizona rejects voters for lack of documentary proof of citizenship even though Arizonans have already provided that information to the state either at the DMV or another county recorder’s office.

“Our lawsuit seeks to ensure that eligible Arizonans will not be unfairly cut off from registering to vote and participating in federal elections because of arbitrary requirements that violate the Constitution,” said Ezra Rosenberg, co-director of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Our democracy is stronger when all citizens participate in the electoral process. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is committed to breaking down barriers and tackling voter suppression in all its forms, including Arizona’s onerous registration requirements that serve no purpose other than to disenfranchise eligible voters.”

CLC and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law are representing the League of United Latin American Citizens Arizona (LULAC-Arizona) and Arizona Students’ Association (ASA)—organizations that work to register voters and have seen how the state’s dual voter registration system severely limits the success of voter registration activity.

“The courts must rectify the injustice of Arizona’s burdensome registration process,” said David V. Hernandez, National Vice President of the Farwest at LULAC (which includes LULAC-Arizona). “The system puts a strain on registering Latino voters statewide, forcing us to divert limited volunteer and staff time to navigate the difficult system. This has placed serious limitations on our ability to carry out our mission.”

“This voter registration requirement has stifled political activity in the state by disenfranchising young voters and making voter registration drives practically impossible,” said Shayna Stevens, executive director of the Arizona Students’ Association, a student-led nonprofit organization that conducts outreach to promote student voting. “For lawmakers to hear the student voice, and for students to advocate for issues that impact their lives, they need to have easy access to voting. Making students fill out duplicate forms or dig up their original birth certificates and passports is making that process very difficult for no reason.”

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, held that Arizona could not impose its registration requirements on voters registering with the federal form. Rather than eliminating its burdensome requirements, in 2014, the Secretary of State implemented this “dual registration system.”

Goddard Law, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, and Luis Roberto Vera, Jr. are serving as private co-counsel in the case.

--

Read CLC's case page for more information.

WASHINGTON - Today, the city of Seattle’s democracy voucher program has been upheld as constitutional. The Superior Court of the State of Washington for King County issued an opinion finding that the city’s pioneering public financing system is a valid tool for the city government to foster citizen involvement in elections, which is a goal “vital to a self-governing people.”

“This positive decision protects the city of Seattle’s ability to boost citizen engagement in local campaigns,” said Tara Malloy, senior director, appellate litigation and strategy at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “Seattle’s public financing system loosens the stranglehold that large donors have had over the terms of political debate. As Judge Andrus recognized, the voucher program aims to broaden  ‘voter participation in the electoral process’– and to further the First Amendment rights of city residents – by giving more people an opportunity to have their voices heard in our democracy.”

“This is a huge win for the people of Seattle who voted overwhelmingly to take back their elections from special interests by passing this citizen-financed elections bill,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause. “Deep-pocketed special interests have challenged similar programs across the country but the courts have consistently sided with citizens over big money interests because the Supreme Court in Buckley made very clear that citizen-financed election programs do not curb First Amendment rights but actually advance those rights.”

In November 2015, over sixty percent of Seattle voters approved I-122, known as the Honest Elections Seattle Initiative, a comprehensive set of reforms intended to reshape the campaign process for local office. Available data from Seattle show that the democracy voucher program has already spurred impressive levels of local engagement. Since the program’s rollout in January, Seattle residents have collectively assigned over 34,000 democracy vouchers valued at nearly $865,000 to qualified candidates. Past research has found that Seattle’s program has boosted political engagement among a younger and more diverse pool of the electorate.

CLC and Common Cause filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Sept. 20, 2017 in support of the city’s public financing system. Read the brief here.

Learn more about Seattle’s public financing system by visiting CLC’s action page.

WASHINGTON – As the Federal Election Commission drags its feet on new rules to address foreign interference, Take Back Action Fund and the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) today filed an advisory opinion request that will require the FEC to address gaps in online ad transparency requirements by the end of 2017.

TBAF is a conservative 501(c)(4) organization that plans to purchase ads targeting liberals during the 2018 election cycle on Facebook. Its advisory opinion request asks whether those ads need to include disclaimers, and notes that the capacity for digital ads to include disclaimers has changed significantly since the FEC’s last guidance on the issue in 2010.

By law, the FEC must respond to an Advisory Opinion Request within 60 days.

Years of inaction by the FEC have created ambiguity about when disclaimers stating who paid for a message are required for online political ads, and Russian nationals exploited this ambiguity to covertly circulate political ads on Facebook and other online platforms in 2015 and 2016.

The FEC may not write new online ad rules for quite some time. And legislation may not be enacted any time soon. But by using this advisory request mechanism, TBAF and CLC are invoking their legal right to ensure that the FEC timely address the issue of disclaimers for online political ads.

“It is time for the FEC to join the 21st century and end the confusion over online election ads,” said Adav Noti, senior director, trial litigation and strategy at CLC, who previously served as the FEC’s Associate General Counsel for Policy. “This advisory opinion request legally requires the FEC to clarify whether election ads on Facebook must include a statement disclosing who paid for the ad. Because social media companies have proven that they are unable or unwilling to self-police, the FEC must act.  This advisory opinion will provide for election-ad disclaimers so voters, journalists, watchdog groups, and law enforcement have some of the tools they need to root out illegal foreign activity.”

"I am filing this request with the FEC because I am dead set against the ridiculous lack of transparency in politics that invites countries like Russia to secretly run political ads, but if the FEC is going to allow this abuse then Take Back Action Fund plans to play by the same rules and run advertisements without disclosures," said John Pudner, President of Take Back Action Fund. "My hope is rather that the FEC will break their log jam to at least stop the one thing almost all Americans agree on - that it is our job to safe guard our elections against foreign infiltration."

Digital advertising accounts for a large and growing portion of election-related ads, including $1.4 billion in spending in the 2016 cycle alone. CLC supports the bipartisan legislative disclosure solution — the Honest Ads Act — that was introduced in both the Senate and House on October 19, but until that bill is enacted, the FEC must clarify the requirements for online ad disclaimers.

This afternoon at the daily White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders misstated current law when insinuating that the DNC and Hillary Clinton acted illegally in paying for opposition research into the Trump campaign, while the Trump campaign merely “took a meeting.”  

Adav Noti, CLC’s senior director of trial litigation, explains the distinction in the law, which Sanders has misrepresented:

“Opposition research is a central element of modern political campaigning. Candidates from both parties legally pay millions of dollars every cycle for opposition research. However, if a campaign solicits or accepts opposition research without paying for it, the value of that research constitutes a solicitation for, or an in-kind contribution to, the campaign.”

According to available information, the Clinton campaign paid for opposition research into the Trump campaign, which reportedly resulted in the so-called Steele Dossier. That is legal – although the campaign’s failure to report those payments may be illegal. Campaigns may legally pay foreign nationals to provide services to their campaign.

The difference is Trump campaign solicited opposition research from Russia without paying for it. We now know that the Trump campaign learned in April 2016 that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” and in June 2016 Trump Jr. agreed to a meeting with a Russian government lawyer with the apparent expectation that this research would be turned over. The solicitation of that opposition research was illegal. Foreign nationals are prohibited from giving a contribution to a campaign; in the form of money, or in the form of an “in-kind contribution” like services or information. Just as it’s illegal for a foreign national to give a $100,000 check as a contribution to a politician, it is also illegal for a foreign national to give $100,000 worth of free services as a contribution to the politician.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog, filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission to investigate both the DNC and Clinton for failing to properly disclose these payments for opposition research, as well as the Trump campaign for illegally soliciting a contribution from a foreign national. 

Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke violated campaign finance law by failing to report tens of thousands of dollars of contributions received and for using campaign funds for the personal benefit of himself and his family.

Zinke failed to report the identity of multiple individuals who contributed thousands of dollars to his campaign through a joint fundraising committee, potentially concealing contributions in excess of federal limits.

Additionally, several transactions indicate Zinke converted campaign funds to personal use. For example, in April 2016 the Zinke campaign bought a motorhome from Zinke’s wife for $59,100, spent thousands of dollars maintaining the vehicle, then sold it in July 2017 to a friend for just $25,000. If the campaign paid Zinke’s wife above market rate for the vehicle, or sold it to Zinke’s friend below market rate, then it illegally converted funds to personal use. Other transactions, such as a hotel stay in the U.S. Virgin Islands and a five-star hotel in New York City, were misreported on Zinke’s FEC reports and may raise additional questions about personal use.

“A campaign’s most basic legal obligation is to publicly disclose its major donors, so the Zinke campaign’s failure to provide that information is very concerning,” said Adav Noti, senior director, trial litigation and strategy at CLC, who previously served as the FEC’s Associate General Counsel for Policy. “And selling a major campaign asset to the candidate’s friend at half price is inherently suspect. The FEC must enforce the longstanding ban on using campaign money for personal benefits.”

“The Zinke campaign failed to disclose thousands in contributions, misreported thousands of dollars in spending, and may have misused campaign funds,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal and FEC reform at CLC. “The public has a right to know who is funding a candidate and how a candidate is spending that money, but Zinke has disregarded even these basic accountability requirements.”