Tomorrow, the Voting Rights Institute, a joint project of the Campaign Legal Center, the American Constitution Society (ACS) and Georgetown University Law Center, will conduct its latest voting rights training session in Nashville, Tennessee.  The ongoing Institute training sessions are helping to help meet the critical need for a new generation of voting rights lawyers, experts, and community activists. At the session, being held at the Nashville offices of Bone McAllester Norton, practitioners and law students will learn the ‘ins and outs’ of protecting the right to vote through the enforcement of voting rights laws.  A particular focus of the training will be cases brought to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and currently pending voting rights cases in the United States Supreme Court.  The training program will feature a panel of instructors with decades of experience in the field of voting rights.

“A key provision of the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court in its infamous Shelby County decision and, as a result, states and municipalities across the country have rushed to pass new laws designed to restrict who is able to vote on Election Day,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Since 2013, the Voting Rights Institute has been working to train the attorneys needed to defend the right to vote wherever it is under attack.  The need for a new generation of voting rights lawyers has not been so great since President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, but it has become very clear that, unless and until Congress restores the Voting Rights Act’s special provisions, the battle to protect every American’s right to vote must once again be waged in the courts.”

Experts in the field will provide background on the Voting Rights Act and relevant federal court cases to participants and will then focus on their experiences in voting rights cases.  Campaign Legal Center Executive Director, J. Gerald Hebert, will serve as lead instructor and will be joined by several veteran voting rights litigators and advocates.

In addition to Mr. Hebert, the Institute’s panel will include: Anita Earls (Executive Director, Southern Coalition for Social Justice), Dale Ho (Director, Voting Rights Project, ACLU), and Steven J. Mulroy (Associate Dean & Professor, University of Memphis School of Law).

Financial support for the Voting Rights Institute has been received from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund (rbf.org), Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund.  

Background

The Voting Rights Institute at Georgetown Law offers opportunities for students, recent graduates and fellows to engage in voting rights work, including active litigation, and will train the next generation of attorneys and expert witnesses in the field of voting rights.  The VRI will also maintain a website with information about voting rights cases and matters available to the general public, and a legal resources library for voting rights litigators and expert witnesses.  The VRI will also promote increased local and national focus on voting rights through events, publications and the development of web-based tools; and provide opportunities and platforms for research and data analysis of voting rights issues.

Voting Rights Institute training sessions held across the country since 2013 have instructed practitioners, law students and activists on the ‘ins and outs’ of protecting the right to vote through the enforcement of voting rights laws.  Cases brought to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have been a particular focus of the trainings.  Each session has featured a panel of instructors with decades of experience in the field of voting rights.

The first students in the Voting Rights Institute are currently enrolled in Georgetown Law’s Institute of Public Representation (IPR) and are working on several cases identified by the Campaign Legal Center and the American Constitution Society.  The Institute has hired a clinical fellow to supervise students working on these cases and to manage legal matters within the Institute with a particular focus on voting rights issues.  A legal fellow will also assist in developing training materials for voting rights lawyers and leaders, overseeing use of the Voting Rights Institute website, and identifying appropriate voting rights cases for the clinic. To date, over 400 attendees representing a diverse group of attorneys, law students and voting rights activists and advocates have taken part in these activities. 

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, Public Citizen and Common Cause expressed strong support for a proposed revision of House regulations governing permissible reimbursements for automobile mileage, private aircraft use and office decoration.  The groups are urging the full House Administration Committee to vote in favor of the revisions to the rules which were introduced in the wake of a number of reimbursement scandals in Congress.   

The proposed Committee Resolution 114, which is expected to be voted on by the full Committee on Wednesday, addresses misuse of taxpayer dollars through the rules governing the Members' Representational Allowance (MRA).  The proposal would prohibit Members from using taxpayer dollars to pay for private or charter aircraft from the Washington DC area to any location without prior written approval from the House Administration Committee.  Also, any use of private or charter aircraft valued at more than $7,500 would require prior written approval by the Committee.  The new regulation also does not permit mileage reimbursements for the use of vehicles “owned or leased by the principal campaign of a Member, a political-action committee, or a political party.”  The proposal would also make the provisions available online in a searchable, sortable format rather than pdfs.

The highest profile scandal involved former Representative Aaron Schock (R-IL) who initially attracted attention for a “Downton Abbey” inspired re-decoration of his Washington office.  Subsequent investigations revealed a pattern of misuse of reimbursements of taxpayer funds for automobiles and chartered aircraft by Schock.

“It is vital that Members be publicly accountable for their use of taxpayer funds to prevent abuses and for the House to have rules to ensure compliance,” said Meredith McGehee, Policy Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Scandals like those surrounding former Representative Schock undermine public confidence in our democratic institutions and feed an unhealthy cynicism about out system.  Putting the reports on congressional spending online in a ‘searchable, sortable format’ (instead of pdf’s) is overdue and a win for increased government transparency.  The House and Senate still need to address the inadequate rules and loopholes governing privately financed travel, but this proposal appears to be a good faith effort on reimbursements.”

“Hopefully, the Schock scandal is a rarity in Congress, but it does highlight what can go wrong when there is insufficient transparency,” said Public Citizen Government Affairs Lobbyist Craig Holman.  “These proposals offer very useful improvements in the management of Members’ Representational Allowances, especially by making the disclosures ‘searchable, sortable and downloadable’ on-line for easy access by the public. It could have mandated greater detail of travel itineraries, but at least the proposal would eliminate the general category of ‘travel subsistence’ and replace it with some specificity.  The proposed improvements are indeed welcome.”

“These new House rules take significant steps forward in transparency and accountability,” said Common Cause president Miles Rapoport. “Common Cause applauds the bipartisan leadership of Representatives Rodney Davis and Zoe Lofgren for addressing these important reforms.”

The groups commended the task force, headed by Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), that developed the proposal, and urged the House Administration Committee to move this measure through the Committee expeditiously. 

Yesterday in Sacramento, the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) adopted amendments to the state’s regulations on “Independent versus Coordinated Expenditures” that strengthened the regulation in a number of ways.  At the hearing, the Campaign Legal Center’s Senior Counsel Paul S. Ryan offered testimony in support of the measure and in earlier written testimony urged the FPPC to adopt broader standards, some of which were incorporated before the vote.

“The changes will help curb the widespread and blatant coordination between Super PACs and the candidates they seek to elect,” said Ryan.  “This is a victory for California voters over special interests that have been able to exert massively disproportionate influence in elections by avoiding campaign contribution limits enacted to prevent corruption.”

In written comments filed on Tuesday, the Campaign Legal Center expressed general support for an earlier draft of the proposed rules, but urged the FPPC to expand their scope beyond “express advocacy” ads, to also include sham “issue” ads about candidates and coordinated with candidates.  The final draft approved Thursday addressed this concern to some extent, removing explicit reference to the weak “express advocacy” standard and making clear that the new rule also applies to ads simply mentioning candidates within 45 days of an election.

The new FPPC rule modifications define as coordination situations where candidates solicit for outside groups, where former staffers or family members occupy senior positions with outside groups and when candidates or committees share common consultants with outside groups.  CLC’s written comments emphasized that the FPPC rule changes reflect sound public policy and are clearly constitutional.  Unfortunately, however, the new rule relies on the weak “express advocacy” standard for most of the election cycle and does not apply the new fundraising restrictions to individuals claiming to be in a “pre-candidacy” stage who later become declared candidates.  CLC hopes to see the rule strengthened through a future rulemaking to address these issues and prevent the sort of blatant abuses that have become the “new normal” at the federal level.

“The FPPC has once again shown its leadership on effective campaign finance enforcement and regulation. The Commission is committed to updating its regulations in a timely manner in order to address constantly evolving campaign practices.  We hope the Federal Election Commission will take note and consider what can be done to combat candidate-super PAC coordination at the federal level,” Ryan said.

To read the new regulations, click here.

To read the comments filed by the Legal Center, click here. 

Today in Sacramento, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel Paul S. Ryan will offer testimony urging the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to adopt proposed amendments to the state’s regulation on “Independent versus Coordinated Expenditures” and to further strengthen the regulation in a number of ways.

“The FPPC’s proposed rule changes would directly address one of the biggest money-in-politics problems we face today—blatant coordination between so-called ‘independent’ groups and the candidates they support,” said Ryan.  “The Supreme Court in Citizens United unleashed a flood of unlimited money in our elections, while promising the money wouldn’t corrupt candidates because it’d be independent of candidates.  The new FPPC coordination rule will help deliver on the Court’s promise and protect against corruption by maintaining the integrity of California’s candidate contribution limits.”

In written comments filed on Tuesday, the CLC expressed general support for an earlier draft of the proposed rules, but urged the FPPC to expand their scope beyond “express advocacy” ads, to also include sham “issue” ads about candidates and coordinated with candidates.  A draft of the proposed rule issued late Wednesday addresses this concern.  In live testimony today, Ryan will urge the FPPC to further strengthen the new rule by clarifying that “coordination” restrictions—particularly those regarding fundraising for super PACs and other “independent” groups—apply to individuals claiming to be in a “pre-candidacy” stage, who then become declared candidates.  This extension of the rule is necessary to prevent blatant abuses we have seen on the federal level by 2016 presidential hopefuls who delayed officially announcing their candidacies in order to raise tens of millions of dollars for super PACs solely dedicated to their election.

The FPPC’s proposed rule modifications would define as coordination situations where candidates solicit for the outside groups, where former staffers or family members occupy senior positions with the groups or when candidates or committees share common consultants with the outside groups.  CLC’s written comments emphasize that the FPPC’s proposed rule changes, as well as those offered by the Legal Center, reflect sound public policy and are clearly constitutional.

“While federal campaign finance regulators at the FEC stand idly by, permitting rampant abuses of law that will undoubtedly lead to scandals and corruption, the FPPC is showing the leadership that Californians expect and deserve,” Ryan said.

To read the comments filed by the Legal Center, click here. 

Late yesterday, the Campaign Legal Center filed an amici Memorandum on behalf of Common Cause and New Virginia Majority in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, urging a three-judge court to select a remedial congressional redistricting plan that effectively remedies the unconstitutional racial gerrymandering that the court previously found present in a plan that had been passed by the Virginia Legislature. 

Last year, the court declared Virginia’s congressional map unconstitutional because race predominated the creation of the majority-black Third Congressional District.  After the Virginia General Assembly failed to enact a remedial plan, the federal court announced that it would proceed to draw a new plan and a number of remedial redistricting proposals have been submitted to the court by a variety of interested parties. 

The Memorandum filed today by Common Cause and New Virginia Majority submitted an analysis of the proposed plans undertaken by professors of political science, Robin Best, Jonathan Krasno, Daniel B. Magleby, and Michael D. McDonald at the State University of New York at Binghamton.  Their analysis found that some of the proposed plans do not result in partisan gerrymanders, while several other plans are partisan gerrymanders.  The Memorandum urges the court to weigh the partisan impact in its selection of a remedial redistricting plan to avoid imposing a map that is infected with extreme partisan bias.

“To ensure the integrity of congressional elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia, it is vitally important that the new maps avoid both racial and partisan gerrymanders in keeping with U.S. Supreme Court precedent,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Campaign Legal Center Executive Director.  “The new plan must resolve the existing racial gerrymander that the court ruled unconstitutional and further must comply with the Voting Rights Act, as well as the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions.”

“In state after state where Legislatures and party insiders have drawn their own political districts, we see how We the People have been silenced in elections,” said Kathay Feng, Common Cause’s national redistricting director.  “We call on the court to establish a new standard for fair redistricting that counts all voters, of every partisan stripe.”

To read the Memorandum and Appendix, click here and here. 

Today at noon at the National Press Club, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Constitution Society (ACS), and Georgetown Law will formally launch the Voting Rights Institute (VRI) at Georgetown Law.  The Institute has held training sessions across the country since 2013 to help meet the critical need for a new generation of voting rights lawyers, experts, and community activists.  The trainings were originally launched in the lead-up to the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which nullified a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

“We wanted to establish a Voting Rights Institute devoted to one of the most important issues of our time, voting rights for all Americans,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Georgetown University Law Center was the perfect location for the Institute because it possesses a well-deserved reputation for academic excellence and is a place where we can focus nonpartisan analysis and constructive engagement on the right to vote, while training the next generation of lawyers and leaders.”

Former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis will deliver remarks on the historic occasion, as will Dean William M. Treanor of Georgetown Law, Caroline Fredrickson, President of the American Constitution Society, and Gerry Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center.

The Voting Rights Institute at Georgetown Law offers opportunities for students, recent graduates and fellows to engage in voting rights work, including active litigation, and will train the next generation of attorneys and expert witnesses in the field of voting rights.  The VRI will also maintain a website with information about voting rights matters available to the general public and a legal resources library for voting rights litigators and expert witnesses.  The VRI will also promote increased local and national focus on voting rights through events, publications and the development of web-based tools; and provide opportunities and platforms for research and data base analysis of voting rights issues.

Voting Rights Institute training sessions held across the country since 2013 have instructed practitioners and law students on the ‘ins and outs’ of protecting the right to vote through the enforcement of voting rights laws.  Cases brought to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have been a particular focus of the trainings.  Each session has featured a panel of instructors with decades of experience in the field of voting rights.

The first students in the Voting Rights Institute are currently enrolled in Georgetown Law’s Institute of Public Representation (IPR) and are working on several cases identified by the Campaign Legal Center and the American Constitution Society.  The Institute has hired a clinical fellow to supervise students working on these cases and to manage legal matters within the Institute with a particular focus on voting rights issues.  A legal fellow will also assist in developing training materials for voting rights lawyers and leaders, overseeing use of the Voting Rights Institute website, and identifying appropriate voting rights cases for the clinic.

To date, over 400 attendees representing a diverse group of attorneys, law students and voting rights advocates have taken part in these activities.  Georgetown Law will provide a venue for future training institutes, and already hosted its first on Friday, September 25.

For more information on today’s event or to RSVP, click here.