Last night, the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, urged the State Ethics Commission of New Jersey to investigate possible violations of the state’s ethics and conflict of interest laws by Governor Chris Christie.  The Governor accepted chartered flights and free tickets to games from Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who is a significant stakeholder in a company awarded lucrative contracts with the Port Authority.  According to press reports, Governor Christie personally pushed for the Port Authority to award the contract to Legends Hospitality LLC to operate the observation deck on the top floor of One World Trade Center.  Further, the Governor has extensive dealings with the National Football League, including the granting of more than seventeen million dollars in state funds in the form of sales tax breaks and security costs surrounding the State’s hosting of the 2014 Super Bowl.

“There's no doubt that once he became governor, a lot of people looking to do business with New Jersey wanted to be Chris Christie's friend,” said Larry Noble, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “But that's not the type of friendship that justifies lavishing gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars on the governor.  The ‘personal friendship’ exemption is understood to mean longstanding friendships, not ones cultivated after one is elected to high public office and with those who have a business relationship with the government.  We urge the State Ethics Commission to quickly launch an investigation to determine whether these actions were appropriate and legal, and we urge the commission to make public its findings and reasoning.”

New Jersey ethics laws prohibit public officials and their families from accepting any gifts offered in an attempt to influence them in the performance of the public duties and responsibilities.  

The letter urges the commission to address the claimed “personal friendship” exemption and determine whether Gov. Christie and Mr. Jones’ friendship stemming from the performance of the former’s official duties is sufficient grounds for accepting the gifts under the exemption.

To read the letter to the State Ethics Commission of New Jersey, click here.

Today, Campaign Legal Center Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert began teaching a semester-long voting rights class at New York Law School (NYLS).  Through the study of constitutional amendments, Supreme Court jurisprudence and legislative action, including the Voting Rights Act, the course will trace the history of voting rights in the United States.  The course will also examine federal, state and local efforts to restrict voting rights, including new laws passed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.  Under Mr. Hebert’s guidance, students in the class will evaluate pending court cases involving voting rights and determine whether participation in the litigation is appropriate.

"I am honored to be a part of New York Law School with its long and rich tradition of bold and innovative academic excellence,” said Hebert.  “I look forward to providing students with practical experience in actual pending cases to advance the cause of justice in the field of voting rights." 

Founded in 1891, NYLS has been a "vibrant, diverse and forward-thinking center of legal studies" for well over a century.  Early lecturers at the law school included Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes. Notable alumni are vast in number and include U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, poet Wallace Stevens, and Justice Emilio Nunez, the first Latino to be named to the bench in New York State.

The Campaign Legal Center is pleased to announce that Scott Thomas, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), has joined the organization’s Board of Directors.  Mr. Thomas is currently co-leader of the Public Policy and Political Law Practice at the law firm Dickstein Shapiro.

First appointed to the FEC by President Reagan in 1986, Mr. Thomas was reappointed by President Bush in 1991 and by President Clinton in 1997 and served until 2006.  While at the FEC, Mr. Thomas was involved with efforts to require disclosure of party soft money and to strengthen the Commission’s enforcement process. 

“Scott brings to our board a wealth of experience and expertise from his decades in the field of campaign finance, including twenty years as an FEC Commissioner where it was my great pleasure to serve with him in the 1990s,” said Trevor Potter, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission and president of the Campaign Legal Center.  “He will be a tremendous asset to our board and we look forward to working with him for many years to come.”

“I look forward to serving on the Board,” said Mr. Thomas.  “The Campaign Legal Center has provided a valuable service to the public over the years by promoting transparency in government and laws that encourage broad participation in our democratic process.”

Mr. Thomas served for nine years as an attorney in various capacities at the FEC before his appointment as a Commissioner.  He is a member of the District of Columbia bar and admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  He has served on the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Election Law as well as the Elections Committee of the ABA’s Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.  A native of Wyoming, Mr. Thomas graduated from Stanford University and received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  

Yesterday in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, groups concerned about impartial justice filed an amici brief in the United States Supreme Court in support of a Florida law barring the personal solicitation of contributions by judicial candidates.  The brief argues that personal solicitations by candidates undermine public faith in the judicial process and that the state has a duty to safeguard judicial integrity through a reasonable and targeted response like the ban on those solicitations.

“Allowing judicial candidates to personally solicit campaign contributions undermines public confidence in the judicial process, and makes litigants question whether judges can remain impartial before those they have asked for money in order to gain office,” said Megan P. McAllen, Campaign Legal Center Associate Counsel.  “States have a duty to protect judicial integrity and the public’s faith in fair courts, and the state of Florida’s solicitation ban is a reasonable and targeted bulwark to safeguard the public trust.”

Currently, Florida judicial candidates must create a committee to solicit contributions on their behalf.  The brief argues that personal solicitations by judicial candidates create the perception that judges may favor their contributors in court.  

The brief also emphasizes that under Florida’s rule, judicial candidates are in no way inhibited from communicating about their fitness for office or speaking on issues of public concern. The rule thus protects a vital interest in judicial impartiality but imposes only a minor restriction on the conduct of judicial candidates. 

The groups joining in the brief in support of the solicitation ban include the Campaign Legal Center, Justice at Stake, the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and Demos.  The Campaign Legal Center gratefully acknowledges the work of the attorneys of Kaye Scholer LLP.

To read the brief, click here.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on January 20, 2015. 

BACKGROUND:

Thirty-nine states use elections to select judges. In order to protect the impartiality of the courts, the state of Florida, like 29 other states, prohibits judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions. Instead, a special campaign committee solicits and collects contributions. This case involves a challenge by Lanell Williams-Yulee, who was disciplined by the Florida Bar and charged a fine for professional misconduct after sending a mass-mail fundraising letter in 2009 to launch her county court judge campaign. Williams-Yulee challenged Florida’s canon as an infringement of her right to free speech. The Florida Supreme Court rejected that challenge, reasoning that prohibiting personal solicitation by judicial candidates serves to preserve the existence and appearance of a fair and impartial judiciary. In October 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Williams-Yulee’s First Amendment challenge to Florida’s canon.

In the last 12 years, the Supreme Court has twice considered cases about judicial campaign activity. In 2002, the Court decided, 5-4, in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, to strike down Minnesota’s “announce clause,” a canon of judicial conduct prohibiting judicial candidates from discussing disputed and controversial legal and political issues. In another significant case, Caperton v. Massey, the Supreme Court recognized that spending in judicial campaigns could create an appearance of bias, requiring a judge to recuse himself.

In response to a petition filed by the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to require cable, satellite and radio to post online the political file the providers are already required to maintain on paper.

“The FCC is getting serious about dragging the television and radio industry into the 21^st Century with regard to their political files,” said Meredith McGehee, Policy Director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “The public has a right to this information and these outlets should not be allowed to hide it from them in corporate offices in distant locales.  We hope the Commission will move forward to finalize the rule as soon as possible after the comment period.  We also are urging the Commission to now take the next logical step and require that the information submitted online is in a uniform format which is searchable, sortable and downloadable.  Such a move is consistent with the Commission’s stated interest in modernizing its procedures and ensuring the data is useful and meaningful.”

A 30-day public comment period on the proposed rule will begin as soon the notice is published in the Federal Register.

To read the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, click here.

To read the petition for rulemaking, click here. 

Today in Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) v. Gessler, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado denied motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction stemming from a challenge to the state’s electioneering communications disclosure provisions. The federal court declined to exercise jurisdiction over the claims, ruling instead that the issues should be addressed in state administrative and/or state court proceedings.

In November, the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, filed an amici brief urging the court to reject the constitutional challenge and deny a preliminary injunction. The brief emphasized that the state law is materially identical to the federal “electioneering communications” disclosure statute, which has been repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court has been steadfast in its support for this type of electioneering communications disclosure provision,” said Megan P. McAllen, Campaign Legal Center Associate Counsel. “These provisions require nothing more than transparency. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, the electorate has a keen informational interest in knowing who is speaking about candidates shortly before an election. Courts nationwide have recognized the same, and have overwhelmingly rejected similar challenges from ‘dark money’ groups seeking to influence voters without revealing the sources of their funding.”

In October, in Independence Institute v. Gessler, the same Colorado district court dismissed a challenge to the same provisions of Colorado law as they applied to broadcast advertisements. The Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, also filed an amici brief in that case in defense of the law.

In June 2014, within the thirty-day electioneering communications window for primary elections, plaintiffs RMGO and Colorado Campaign for Life each spent more than $1,000 sending mailers to voters identifying candidates and their policy positions, thus triggering Colorado’s electioneering communications disclosure provisions. A local watchdog group, Colorado Ethics Watch, filed an administrative complaint against the groups for their failure to file the required disclosure reports, and the groups moved to enjoin the ensuing state administrative proceedings in federal court.       

The Colorado provisions closely track the federal “electioneering communications” disclosure law, which Congress enacted in 2002 to curb widespread evasion of earlier disclosure requirements that applied only to “express advocacy” ads. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld this law: first in a facial challenge in McConnell v. FEC (2003), and more recently in an as-applied challenge in Citizens United v. FEC (2010).

The Legal Center was assisted in the filing of the amici brief by Steven K. Imig of Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese P.C.

To read the order, click here.

To read the amici brief filed last month, click here. 

Reform groups today sent a letter to President Obama stating that if the Omnibus Appropriations legislation becomes law, it includes the most corrupting campaign finance provisions ever enacted.

The full text of the letter is below.

Dear President Obama,

The Omnibus Appropriations legislation, if it becomes law, includes the most corrupting campaign finance provisions ever enacted.

The provisions authorize massive increases in the allowable contributions to political parties that can only be made by millionaires and billionaires. These huge contributions would be solicited by federal officeholders with the ability to provide access, influence and results to the donors.

A single individual is authorized under the provisions in the Omnibus Appropriations bill to give a total of $777,600 to the three committees of a national party per year or a total of $1,555,200 in a two-year election cycle.  Such massive federal contributions have been prohibited for more than four decades to prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the nation’s leading opponent of campaign finance laws, has spent his career in the Senate working to gut existing campaign finance laws and block campaign finance reforms. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had final authority for Senate Democrats on what went into the Omnibus bill.

In a “bipartisan” unholy alliance, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell joined with House Speaker John Boehner to secretly insert into the Omnibus bill the destructive campaign finance provisions, which were unknown to the public and members of Congress until the day the bill was filed in the House. These provisions eviscerate the existing party contribution limits.

We were extremely disappointed that the White House issued a statement on Thursday saying that you intend to sign the Omnibus Appropriations bill.

If you do sign the bill, you will join with Senator Reid, Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner in being responsible for destroying critically important anti-corruption campaign finance laws enacted to protect the interests of more than three hundred million Americans.  You also will join with Senator Reid, Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner in being responsible for the national corruption scandals that are bound to follow the enactment of the campaign finance provisions.

We strongly urge you to veto the bill if and when it reaches your desk.

Respectfully,

Campaign Legal Center

Common Cause

Democracy 21

League of Women Voters

Public Citizen