The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released the following statements based on reports that the White House plans to sign an executive order today aimed at weakening the enforcement of the measure prohibiting tax-exempt religious institutions from engaging in political activities:

“For decades, the charitable political activities prohibition has kept tax-exempt religious institutions focused on their religious missions, freeing them from the pressures associated with partisan political campaigns,” said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center. “The charitable political activities prohibition was adopted and has been supported on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties since the 1950’s. Opening the door to a flood of unaccountable political money will undermine the purely charitable purpose of religious institutions.”

"Rolling back enforcement of limitations on partisan activity by religious institutions could offer wealthy donors a way to not only influence elections anonymously, but also get a charitable tax deduction for doing so," said Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC reform program director at the Campaign Legal Center. “Religious leaders are already allowed to discuss political matters; they are just not able to use tax-deductible resources to engage in partisan electoral activity.”

The so-called “Johnson Amendment” refers to language that bars organizations incorporated under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code – which includes religious institutions, but also an array of charities – from endorsing candidates and participating in political campaign activities.

Read our white paper on the history of the Johnson Amendment and the consequences of today’s action.

FEC should penalize committee for failing to accurately collect and report donor information

WASHINGTON – The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that the inaugural committee for President Donald Trump violated federal law by failing to collect and report essential information about donors, in many cases failing to even ask for required information like addresses.

“The Trump inaugural committee raised more money than any other in history but recklessly disregarded the law’s disclosure requirements,” said Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC reform program director at the Campaign Legal Center. “It appears that Trump’s inaugural committee failed to collect information from some donors, failed to verify false addresses from others, and may have even made up information that it certified to the FEC as true and correct. Ignoring the law’s reporting requirements prevents the public from exercising their right to know who is seeking to influence the administration through donations to the inaugural committee. The FEC should ensure that committees take transparency more seriously in the future.”

“It appears that the Trump Inaugural Committee did not take even a minimal level of care to meet its legal obligation to submit accurate financial disclosure reports to the FEC identifying the sources of the millions of dollars it raised,” said Donald Simon, general counsel of Democracy 21.  “This failure deprived the public of important information it is entitled to about who contributed what to pay for President Trump’s inauguration.  It also violates the reporting provisions of the law.  The FEC should investigate the Committee’s shoddy reporting, ensure that the Committee file accurate reports and impose sufficient sanctions to deter similar violations in the future.”

The complaint follows reporting by the Huffington Post and other outlets that showed the Trump inaugural committee’s 500-page report was rife with errors. Inaugural committees must file a disclosure report with the FEC within 90 days of the inaugural ceremony disclosing the name and address of all donors that contribute anything of value above $200.

CLC also filed a complaint with the FEC on March 2 alleging President Trump’s campaign committee attempted to evade contribution limits by falsely reporting donations raised after Election Day for “debt retirement,” even though no such net debt existed. Last month, following CLC’s complaint, the Trump campaign committee altered its FEC filing, redesignating thousands of entries that CLC had flagged.

Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC reform program director at the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released the following statement about today’s hearing on strengthening the Wisconsin Supreme Court judicial recusal rules, which more than 50 former state judges support:

“The Wisconsin Supreme Court must move forward with new rules to assure the public that justice is not for sale. 

The growing role of money in judicial elections and recent changes to the law allowing judges to secretly work with their big money backers make it vital that the court adopt strong recusal rules to protect the integrity of the judiciary. When a judge hears a case involving their biggest financial supporters, there is a real risk of actual or apparent bias, which threatens the public's perception of the court and undermines its legitimacy."

On March 15, CLC filed comments with the Wisconsin Supreme Court in support of the rulemaking.

WASHINGTON - In response to a complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Common Cause with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging President Trump’s campaign was attempting to violate the contribution limits for his 2020 reelection, the latest campaign finance reports show the Trump campaign has redesignated thousands of entries to count against the contributor’s 2020 election limits and not, as originally reported, for the 2016 election.  

The March 2 complaint alleged that Trump’s campaign committee violated federal election law by attributing campaign contributions received after Election Day to 2016 “debt retirement,” even though no debt existed, rather than to the 2020 election. These false reports, which were included on both the post-general and year-end filings, would have had the effect of illegally increasing the amount Trump could accept from contributors for his 2020 reelection campaign.

On Trump’s FEC report filed last week, his campaign backed away from its apparent attempt to evade the 2020 contribution limits by altering thousands of entries that had appeared on its earlier reports, and re-designating those contributions from “2016 debt retirement” to the 2020 primary.   

“By falsely reporting post-election contributions towards 2016 debt retirement on two separate FEC reports, Trump would have illegally doubled what a contributor could give for the 2020 primaries,” said Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC program director at the Campaign Legal Center. “Additionally, for some of these contributions, the law requires that Trump’s campaign committee receive a donor’s written approval to re-designate their contribution for a future election—and it is not clear the Trump campaign has done so. While the FEC has not yet made public whether it is taking or has taken any action, it should demand a civil penalty from the Trump campaign as a deterrent against future attempts to evade the contribution limits.” 

“Regardless of any excuse offered by the campaign for filing false reports, it is clear that future FEC filings by the campaign will require close monitoring for compliance,” said Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause vice president for policy and litigation. “The FEC must police these filings itself as the Trump campaign has clearly abandoned its 2016 primary season criticism of donor contributions as corrupting and is now very much in the business of raising money aggressively for the 2020 election.”

Trump began fundraising for his reelection just days after his Nov. 8 victory. Federal law provides that a candidate may only raise funds after Election Day to retire outstanding debts from the election, or for a future election. But the Trump campaign ended the 2016 election with no outstanding net debt—therefore, all contributions made after Election Day should have either been refunded to contributors or designated for the 2020 primary election. An individual who gave the maximum contribution and had it attributed to 2016 debt retirement might give an additional contribution and have it attributed to the 2020 primary, even though the entirety of both contributions would be used for 2020.

In response to reports that the first contract for a new immigrant detention center under the Trump administration will be awarded to GEO Group – which gave $225,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC, in violation of federal law– Brendan Fischer, federal and FEC reform program director at the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released the following statement:

“For over 75 years, federal contractors have been prohibited from making contributions to federal candidates to protect against the appearance or reality that taxpayer-funded federal contracts are for sale. Private prison contractor GEO Group gave $225,000 to a super PAC closely affiliated with Trump’s campaign, and upon taking office, the Trump Administration reversed an existing policy phasing-out private prisons, then awarded GEO Group a new $110 million federal contract. Are taxpayer dollars being spent based on what is best for the public, or based on what is best for big donors? 

It is incumbent upon the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to enforce the longstanding federal contractor contribution ban and take action against GEO Group.”

Last November, CLC filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that GEO Group’s contributions to the super PAC Rebuilding America Now violated the contractor contribution ban, and filed a supplement in December.  

On March 1, CLC submitted a FOIA Request with the Bureau of Prisons and Office of Inspector General at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to find out more information about how the DOJ reached its conclusion to rescind the Aug. 18, 2016 memo in which President Obama decided to phase-out private prison contracts.