WASHINGTON – U.S. Supreme Court arguments in the Ohio voting purge case, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, have been rescheduled for Jan. 10, 2018. Paul M. Smith, vice president of litigation and strategy at the Campaign Legal Center, will argue the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“Smith has spent the last three decades defending our democracy and protecting civil rights in court, including arguing numerous voting and civil rights cases in front of the Supreme Court. Smith will be a valuable member of our legal team as we seek to put a stop to Ohio’s illegal voter purge. We look forward to oral arguments next year, and we are confident that the Supreme Court will affirm that the right to vote cannot be treated as a use-it-or-lose-it right,” said Stuart Naifeh, senior counsel at Demos.

Smith has argued before the Supreme Court 20 times, securing victories in cases such as Lawrence v. Texas. Most recently, he argued Gill v. Whitford, a Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case that was argued before the Supreme Court earlier this fall. 

Ohio’s Supplemental Process targets voters who fail to vote in a two-year period for eventual removal from the voter roll — even if they have not moved and are still fully eligible to vote. A federal appeals court struck down the state’s controversial purge process after finding it violates the National Voter Registration Act. Ohio appealed to the Supreme Court.

“This case is about breaking down barriers to participation in our democracy and protecting the right to vote,” said Smith. “Low-income, disabled, and elderly citizens all face particular burdens on exercising that sacred right. Voters should not have their right to vote put at risk just because they missed a trip to the polls.”

"Paul Smith is a superb addition to our team. We look forward to the Supreme Court validating the law - that Ohio's practice of purging eligible voters violates the National Voter Registration Act, and is illegal,” said Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio. 

Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Ohio are co-counsel in this case.

Nielsen was guided through confirmation process by a consultant with hundreds of millions in contracts tied to the same agency she is nominated to lead

WASHINGTON – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) called for an investigation of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary nominee Kirstjen Nielsen for potential violations of ethics laws, following news reports that she is being shepherded through the process by a consultant who represents DHS contractors.

The consultant, Thad Bingel, has reportedly been assigning government employees to prepare policy memos and coordinate Nielsen’s Senate paperwork in connection with her confirmation hearings. Government officials typically play this “sherpa” role, and it may violate government ethics laws for Nielsen, who now serves as the principal deputy White House chief of staff, or the White House to accept Bingel’s services without compensation.

“The consultant has clear financial incentive to assist in the nomination of an agency secretary who would have the power to steer government contracts in his direction,” said Larry Noble, senior director and general counsel at CLC. “Government employees aren’t permitted to receive gifts or free services – especially from people with business before their department – because it calls the integrity of government decision-making into question. This unusual arrangement should be investigated because of the clear potential conflict of interest, and the danger that Nielsen can be compromised as DHS Secretary.”

If Nielsen accepted Bingel’s professional services on behalf of the White House, Nielsen is likely violating the Antideficiency Act, which provides that a government employee “may not accept voluntary services for [the] government or employ personal services.” Alternatively, to the extent Bingel’s services were provided to Nielsen in her private capacity, Nielsen (as a current White House official) may be violating the executive branch gift ban.

Bingel’s extensive client list totals hundreds of millions worth of contracts before the agency Nielsen has been nominated to lead. One of these is a $145 million DHS deal that includes funding for a border wall. The arrangement between Bingel and Nielsen has reportedly caused “heartache” at the department.

Nielsen’s confirmation vote before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was delayed on Thursday and rescheduled for tomorrow morning.

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.