Alabama faces another election on December 12, while the state continues to deny as many as a quarter of a million Alabamians their right to vote

WASHINGTON –  Many people with past felony convictions won’t be able to vote in Alabama’s special election on December 12 due to the state’s discriminatory felony disenfranchisement laws. Campaign Legal Center today released a video highlighting stories of voters whose voices are silenced in the state. Their stories represent a nationwide problem.

Watch the video.

“We need to move toward a system that is free and fair and everyone’s voice is heard,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “Our clients are tax-paying, hard-working citizens with a stake in their communities but without a voice in their government. Our democracy works best when all citizens can vote without barriers, and all people deserve a second chance. Citizens who have served their time deserve to participate in our democracy.”

Alabama is still one of 12 states that restrict voting rights even after a person has served his or her prison sentence and is no longer on probation or parole. An estimated quarter of a million Alabamians or more in the state are disenfranchised because of the state’s law. According to most recent estimates, that is up to 7.6 percent of the entire statewide voting-age population and 15.1 percent of the black voting-age population. It affects six million people throughout the United States.

“I work, I pay taxes, I do all the things that everybody else does, but when it comes down to voting, I can’t voice my opinion on anything that matters,” said Treva Thompson, a disenfranchised Alabama citizen who is the named plaintiff in CLC’s lawsuit and who is featured in the video.

Thompson is trying to pay off her restitution to regain the right to vote, but according to her estimate, it would take her 73 years to pay off fines and fees necessary to vote under current law. Alabama is one of several states that hinge restoration of rights on an individual’s ability to pay past fines and fees. CLC  challenges this requirement as nothing more than a modern day poll tax in a lawsuit before a federal district court, Thompson v. Alabama.

This video shows the real world impact of felony disenfranchisement laws in Alabama and nationwide. “It’s not about black or white, it’s not about Democrat or Republican, it’s about right or wrong,” said Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, leader of the Ordinary People Society, who is featured in the video.

Alabama’s law not only disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of people with past convictions but its confusing and haphazard application has threatened the rights of many more.

Alabama disenfranchises individuals with certain felony convictions, so-called “crimes of moral turpitude.” For many years, the state did not define “moral turpitude” or create a complete list of felonies that disqualify a voter. This led to widespread confusion and many people being wrongly told by registrars that they could not vote, when they should have never lost their rights.

On May 17, 2017, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill that defined what crimes involve "moral turpitude" for the purposes of determining which citizens can vote. However, the state has not made a significant effort to correct many years of registrars erroneously denying the right to vote to people who were convicted of crimes that are not considered disqualifying under the new law. The state voter registration form still does not include the list of disqualifying crimes.

CLC is working with advocates on the ground – including the Ordinary People Society, Greater Birmingham Ministries, Alabama Nonviolent Offenders Organization and others – to educate Alabamians about their rights since the law was clarified, because the state has refused to allocate state resources for such outreach.

CLC developed a voting rights restoration toolkit for Alabama citizens to determine if they have the right to vote and follow a simple process to restore their rights, if eligible. While the registration deadline passed for this election, citizens can begin the process for 2018.

CLC’s filed its lawsuit challenging Alabama’s felony disenfranchisement law eight months before Alabama clarified its law. The passage of HB 282 was a step in the right direction but does not address the underlying discrimination of Alabama's system or its conditioning restoration of the right to vote based on wealth. CLC represents individuals in Alabama who are U.S. citizens with past felony convictions, seeking the right to vote.

Read the stories of our plaintiffs and learn more about the case.

Watch and share the video.

A federal appeals court ruled in Holmes v. FEC that under the First Amendment, Congress can separate contribution limits for primaries and general elections. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case to protect contribution limits from a legal challenge from a group that opposes regulation of the campaign finance system.

“The court was right to uphold contribution limits,” said Tara Malloy, senior director of appellate litigation at CLC. “Reasonable limits in election spending are necessary so government doesn’t just respond to wealthy donors and special interests when it should be responding to all Americans.”

Read the opinion.

Read our blog about the case.

CLC Litigators and Policy Experts Weigh in on the Upcoming State Fights, from California to Connecticut

This event took place on December 14, 2017. To listen to a recording of the call, click here.

In 2017, we have seen an administration with unprecedented conflicts of interest, foreign actors exploiting loopholes in our political disclosure laws, legislative and regulatory failures and skyrocketing “independent” campaign spending.

Americans are concerned about where our democracy is headed, and we’re fighting on more fronts than ever before. But with federal legislative reform stalled, and in the face of misguided Supreme Court decisions, our fight in states and localities across the nation is arguably equally important to saving our democracy.

In advance of the 2018 election, CLC is engaged in policy reform and litigation nationwide to support and defend strong transparency laws, contribution limits and public financing measures. Learn about why these state and local laws and initiatives are crucial to the future health of our democracy. 


Thursday, December 14 from noon to 1 p.m. EST

Featuring:

Catie Kelley, CLC director, policy and state programs
Tara Malloy, CLC senior director, appellate litigation
Adav Noti, CLC senior director, trial litigation (moderator)

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.