Washington, D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released a report to help lawmakers, experts, activists and citizens look to the lessons of the 2021 redistricting cycle and understand how a well-designed redistricting commission can deliver fair representation and what the process to get there should look like.  

This report focuses on three overarching aspects of redistricting commissions: how they’re designed, how the commissioners are equipped and how the rules governing commissions can ensure they deliver on their promises.

Click Here to View the Report

Through case studies that analyze redistricting commissions in different states and with different structures, the report outlines several features that make redistricting commissions successful and draws attention to issues that tend to prevent commissions from reaching their potential. A two-page summary of the report can be found here.

Redistricting commissions should be:  

• Truly independent and insulated from legislative and other political influence.
• Vested with the full authority of redistricting.
• Made up entirely of citizen commissioners who are broadly representative of the diversity of their state.
• Evenly split between the primary political party, secondary political party, and Independents.
• Large enough to disperse responsibilities, encourage collaboration and compromise, and prevent one or two outlier commissioners from derailing the process.
• Made up of commissioners empowered to understand and make decisions regarding the complexities of redistricting.
• Assisted by trustworthy and knowledgeable staff and advisors, selected through a process designed to give commissions a broad base of options.
• Guided by clearly defined and ranked criteria protective of the rights of every voter.
• Making decisions and drawing maps with processes aimed toward building consensus as opposed to rewarding contention.
• Redistricting through a participatory, inclusive, and transparent process.
• Required to demonstrate how the final maps incorporate public input.
• Ensuring the enactment of fair maps through a clear, specific fallback mechanism.

Background:  

When the people in charge of drawing voting maps are the same people who stand to benefit from influencing those maps, voters lose. When structured correctly, independent redistricting commissions (IRCs) can prevent gerrymandering and deliver fair maps for voters by taking decisions about where to draw district lines out of the hands of politicians and handing that power back to citizens. CLC has long been a proponent of IRCs, having advocated for the creation of independent redistricting commissions across the country and defended them in court.  

For more information, or to speak with the report’s authors, please contact [email protected]. 

Washington, DC — Yesterday, news broke that the Tennessee secretary of state’s office sent over 14,000 letters asking certain voters to prove they are American citizens before the November election. Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) issued the following statement in response:  

“The freedom to vote should be accessible to every American, regardless of where they were born. Tennessee’s use of unreliable data to target and harass new Americans into canceling their voter registration is textbook voter intimidation disguised as list maintenance and only aims to sow fear among voters.    

“There is no place in our democracy for state-sponsored voter intimidation, including by demanding that naturalized citizens ‘show their papers’ to prove they are sufficiently American after they have already affirmed their citizenship through the voter registration process.

“Federal law provides safeguards to protect eligible voters from being wrongfully removed from the voter registration rolls, and states like Tennessee are not permitted to demand additional documentation from voters — including naturalized citizens — based on stale and faulty data. CLC calls on Tennessee election officials to clarify that voters will not be removed from the registration rolls based on unreliable and outdated data so every Tennessean can participate in a free and fair election without fear this November.”

Background:  

Voter list maintenance is a routine practice that, when done correctly, increases the accuracy of voter rolls by removing people who pass away or who no longer live in the state. Voter list maintenance is conducted in every state according to state and federal law to ensure that voter lists are kept timely and up to date without wrongfully removing eligible voters from the rolls.

Federal law, specifically the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), prevents states from systematically removing people from voter rolls based solely on unreliable sources of data — like Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) data. DMV information is not a reliable enough source for citizenship information, as it only reflects an individual’s status at the time of their last interaction with the DMV — not their current citizenship status.  

For example, if someone goes to the DMV to get a driver’s license while they are a legal permanent resident and then later becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen and registers to vote, the DMV’s information about that person’s citizenship status will be out of date. Stale data should not prevent any American from exercising their freedom to vote.  

The NVRA also prevents states from requiring new Americans to provide additional documentation to prove their citizenship beyond the information and affirmation required of all voters.

When voter roll maintenance is done incorrectly, voter purges can occur — which can result in large swaths of eligible voters being incorrectly removed from their state’s list of registered voters and denied the freedom to vote. Voter purges tend to disproportionately target new Americans, people with past felony convictions, low-income voters, young people and voters of color.

CLC sued Texas’ secretary of state over their voter purge effort in 2019, which unlawfully targeted tens of thousands of naturalized citizens for removal from voter registration rolls based on stale and unreliable citizenship data.  

Read a first-hand account of how voter purges targeting new Americans intimidate voters and undermine their freedom to vote here: “I’ve Been a U.S. Citizen Since 2015. My State is Threatening to Purge Me from the Rolls,” by Texas voter Julie Hilberg.

Tennessee’s use of overly broad criteria for denying Americans their right to vote is also the subject of another lawsuit, Tennessee NAACP v. Lee. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee recently ruled that Tennessee’s practice of denying voter registrations from all applicants with prior felony convictions and demanding documentary proof of eligibility violates the NVRA because — like people who at one time were non-citizens — not all people who have been convicted of felonies are disqualified from voting in Tennessee. Tennessee’s practice of requiring certain citizens to provide additional burdensome documentation before being able to register and vote is a clear violation of federal law.

Washington, DC — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is pleased to announce that Bruce V. Spiva, a distinguished election law and voting rights attorney and community leader, has joined CLC as a senior vice president. Bruce will work closely with CLC’s Senior Vice President Paul Smith to provide guidance to the voting rights, redistricting and strategic litigation teams through the 2024 election and beyond.

“We are proud and pleased to welcome Bruce to CLC during this critical juncture for our organization and nation,” said Trevor Potter, founder and president of Campaign Legal Center. “Bruce’s expertise and abilities will play a vital role in helping CLC address the significant challenges facing our democracy, and we are glad to have him on board.”

“I am beyond thrilled to be joining such a dynamic and committed team of advocates seeking to protect every American’s right to participate equally in the democratic process,” said Bruce V. Spiva, senior vice president at Campaign Legal Center. “CLC has built a policy and litigation powerhouse at a time when it is needed most. I am eager and ready to put my shoulder behind the wheel.”

Bruce brings a wealth of litigation experience to CLC from his 30-year career fighting for civil rights, civil liberties and voting rights. He has led trial teams and argued many appeals in voting rights and redistricting cases across the country, including arguing against vote suppression in the United States Supreme Court in 2021.  

Through his service on the boards of several nonprofits and advocacy organizations, Bruce has partnered with Black and Brown communities and young people to protect and strengthen the freedom to vote. He has also steadfastly advocated for the right of D.C. residents to full and equal representation in Congress through statehood.

Bruce is also familiar with electoral politics, having mounted a competitive run in the primary election for Washington, D.C. attorney general in 2022. Bruce previously served as the managing partner of the D.C. office and on the national executive committee of Perkins Coie LLP, where he also had an active election law practice.

Bruce graduated from Harvard Law School in 1992, where he was the treasurer (now called vice president) of the Harvard Law Review and graduated with a B.A. in history from Yale University in 1988. After law school, Bruce clerked for the late Honorable Jerome Farris on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.  

Please contact [email protected] to get connected with Bruce.