WASHINGTON – The legal team representing 12 Wisconsin voters in the case Gill v. Whitford filed a brief today urging the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm a lower court ruling striking down Wisconsin’s 2011 State Assembly map as unconstitutional. The brief responds to Wisconsin’s call to reverse the district court’s decision.

Lawyers from the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) along with co-counsel represent the Wisconsin voters in the case.

“A three-judge panel in Wisconsin federal court rightfully held that Wisconsin lawmakers drew these maps for the benefit of their own political party, with little regard for the will of the voters,” said Paul Smith, vice president of litigation and strategy at the Campaign Legal Center. “Partisan gerrymandering of this kind is worse now than at any time in recent memory. The Supreme Court has the opportunity to ensure the maps in Wisconsin are drawn fairly, and further, has the opportunity to create ground rules that safeguard every citizen’s right to freely choose their representatives.”

The question now before the Supreme Court is whether it will affirm the ruling of the lower court and agree to standards that will safeguard the fundamental right of all Americans to have their vote count. The Supreme Court will have the opportunity to take up the case in conference later this spring before it adjourns for the summer recess. Because of the unique procedures for redistricting cases, the Supreme Court must consider the case, either summarily affirming, summarily reversing or hearing the case on the merits. 

On Nov. 21, 2016, Judge Kenneth Francis Ripple, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote for a three-judge district court panel that Wisconsin’s State Assembly district map violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The panel reached this conclusion after conducting a full trial on the matter, hearing extensive evidence from both sides.

“The threat of partisan gerrymandering isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue; it’s an issue for all American voters,” said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, and former Republican Chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “Across the country, we’re witnessing legislators of both parties seizing power from voters in order to advance their purely partisan purposes. The Supreme Court should take this opportunity to adopt a clear legal standard that would ensure our democracy functions as it should.”

Wisconsin’s partisan gerrymander – created in 2011 by legislative aides and hired consultants in a secret room in a private law office – employed the latest mapping technology to create a district plan that is one of the most extremely gerrymandered state legislative plans in the last four decades.  As a result, in the first election under the plan, Republicans won a supermajority of 60 out of 99 seats in spite of losing the statewide vote for the Assembly. In 2014 and 2016, Republicans extended their advantage to 63 and 64 seats, respectively, even though the statewide vote remained nearly tied.

Learn more about CLC’s efforts on behalf of the 12 plaintiffs in Whitford here.

Learn more about the redistricting process, how it works, and the everyday impacts of partisan gerrymandering on our democracy here.

Private counsel working with CLC in representing the appellees includes Douglas M. Poland of Rathje & Woodward, Peter G. Earle, Michele L. Odorizzi of Mayer Brown, Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos of the University of Chicago Law School and Jessica R. Amunson of Jenner & Block.

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.