Washington, DC – Today, a partial agreement was reached in response to a lawsuit initiated by LULAC, Project Vote, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Law Offices of Brazil and Dunn against Harris County, Texas, challenging the legality of Harris County’s voter purge and voter registration program. 

Earlier this fall, at the suggestion of the Texas Secretary of State, Harris Countysent letters to over 9000 voters that they identified as deceased. The letter further informed that the voter had thirty (30) days to prove they were not deceased or the voter would be removed (purged) from the rolls.  The Harris County Registrar suspended the program in response to numerous complaints from voters claiming they were, in fact, not deceased. However, even though the County did not complete the removals, the voting rights groups filed suit out of concern that recipients of the letters would believe they had been removed from the rolls and would not vote in the election. The state’s initial identification of more than 9000 individuals from Harris County proved to be wildly inaccurate.  In response to the lawsuit, Harris County has agreed to send a written notice letter to each of the more than 9000 voters advising them that they will not be removed from the rolls and may vote in the upcoming general election. The letter states: “The purpose of this letter is to confirm to you my public announcement and personally advise you that you will remain on the Harris County Voter Registration Roll through the Nov. 6 election.”  

“Harris County did not pay any regard to the lives they disrupted or the tax payer money misspent with a voter purge program that wrongly rejected legitimate voter applications through discriminatory practices,” said National LULAC President Margaret Moran. “Today, this action by Harris County in response to the lawsuit sends a message that the Latino community and organizations like LULAC are paying close attention to attempts to dilute minority voter turn-out in Texas.”

“We are encouraged that the County is taking a step toward remedying its mistake,” said Catherine M. Flanagan, Director of Election Administration for Project Vote. “We filed this suit out of concern that these letters would discourage and deter these voters, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color.

Mr. Wade Hughes, a paralyzed veteran and one of the Plaintiffs in the litigation was informed by Harris County that his voter registration 2010 application was rejected. Harris County has now acknowledged that Mr. Hughes met all legal requirements and is a duly registered voter who is eligible to vote in the upcoming election.  With regard to another plaintiff, Ms. Terra Wiggerfall whose voter registration application was also rejected, the County reviewed again her properly completed voter registration application and has forwarded that application to the Texas Secretary of State for approval. If approved, Ms. Wiggerfall will be permitted to vote in the November general election.  

“Although Mr. Wade Hughes and likely Ms. Wiggerfall will be rightly placed on the rolls, we remain concerned about the County’s rejection of applications, particularly those from people of color,” added Flanagan.

J. Gerald Hebert of the Campaign Legal Center said: “The right to vote is a precious and fundamental right for all Americans.” He added:  “While it is unfortunate that a lawsuit had to be brought against Harris County to achieve this result,  Harris County has done the right thing by informing over 9000 voters that they have not been removed from the rolls and can vote in the upcoming election.”  Hebert credited Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan and his office for protecting the right to vote of the more than 9000 Harris County voters who had been informed that they would be removed from the voter rolls, including many Republicans, Democrats, veterans and students.”

To read the settlement letter from Harris County, click here.

To read the letter that will be sent to impacted voters, click here.

Today, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and a number of Houston residents filed suit against Harris County in Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas maintaining that Harris County officials wrongly rejected voter applications through discriminatory practices against Latino and African American applicants. Representing LULAC and the residents who filed suit are attorneys from the Campaign Legal Center, Project Vote, and Chad Dunn of Brazil & Dunn.

Among other things, LULAC filed the suit in an attempt to stop the discriminatory purging of registered Latino and Black voters in Harris County.  In the petition, LULAC asserts the following claims:

• The changes in voting procedures by Harris County have not been pre-cleared by the United States Department of Justice or by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  These actions are “standards, practices and procedures” subject to the preclearance requirements of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c.
• Harris County has disproportionate higher percentage rates of rejected voter registration applications from minority citizens than from Anglo citizens resulting in discrimination against African-Americans and Latino citizens which is in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973.
• Harris County’s voter purge program was based on faulty death matches and is in violation of Section 8(b)(1) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (“NVRA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg-6(b)(I), which provides that any state or local program or activity designed to ensure the maintenance of accurate and current voter registration rolls “shall be uniform, nondiscriminatory, and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” 
• Harris County acted with racially discriminatory intent in denying the right to vote of African-American persons in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
• Harris County deprived a fundamental right to vote protected under the United States Constitution and the First Amendment.

“Harris County has used discriminatory practices in purging otherwise qualified voters and citing minor technicalities for rejecting their registration applications,” said LULAC National President Margaret Moran. “We filed the suit in order to stop these discriminatory practices. Our singular goal is to make sure that all qualified individuals have the opportunity to exercise their Constitutional protected right to vote in this year’s election.”

“Harris County has a lengthy and sad history of voter discrimination and regrettably the only way to bring it into compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution has been through court orders,” said J. Gerald Hebert, Campaign Legal Center Executive Director.  “We hope this complaint will once again serve to bring the county into compliance with federal law and safeguard the rights of Latino and African American citizens.”

"Once again, Harris County zealously seeks to exclude people of color from the electoral process, thumbing its nose at federal statutes, the U.S. Constitution and the quintessentially American belief in one person one vote," said Catherine M. Flanagan, Director of Election Administration for Project Vote.

To read the complaint, click here.

The rush of litigation challenging campaign finance and disclosure laws continues unabated more than two years after the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision.  In addition to these challenges, the upcoming election has spurred a new wave of litigation over state voter purges and controversial voter photo identification laws.  For your reference, the Campaign Legal Center has updated a summary document of recent cases of interest at the federal, state and municipal level. The summary provides a brief description of pending and recently decided cases, and the Legal Center’s involvement in those cases.

The most recent summary of litigation produced by the Legal Center is always available on our Court Cases of Interest page directly beneath the “Active Court Cases of Interest.” 

To view a PDF of the summary, click here.

To view the Court Case of Interest page, click here.

We are pleased the court did not approve this law for the 2012 Election as tens of thousands of registered voters would have been disenfranchised. The state was ill-prepared to implement its photo voter ID law for the 2012 election and it was forced to continually change the law during the course of the trial in order to safeguard voting rights. Ultimately the law that the court has approved for 2013 and beyond is a huge departure from the bill enacted by the South Carolina legislature.

This decision is a victory for the voters of South Carolina over their own elected officials. An unfair and undemocratic law has been drastically improved and the Campaign Legal Center will monitor the State’s implementation of the law in 2013 and beyond to ensure voting rights are protected. The 2012 Election was the most pressing concern and that has been addressed.

The Legal Center serves as co-counsel with the ACLU for a group of Intervenors who would have been harmed if the voter ID law as enacted was allowed to take effect.

To read the opinion, click here.

To read the Defendant-Intervenors' proposed findings and conclusions, click here.

To read the Defendant-Intervenors' reply to South Carolina's response to its proposed findings and conclusions, click here.

An as applied challenge to the constitutionality of disclosure provisions for groups running “electioneering communications” was turned away by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Hispanic Leadership Fund (HLF) v. the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The organization is seeking to air television advertisements criticizing President Obama without complying with “electioneering communication” disclosure requirements. The court upheld the constitutionality of the requirements and rejected HLF’s argument that references to “the White House” and “the Administration” in three of the group’s ads do not constitute unambiguous references to a clearly identified federal candidate—part of the legal definition of “electioneering communication.” The court, however, ruled that two of HLF’s five proposed ads would not meet the definition.

“While we do not agree with the court’s opinion that the use of the President’s recorded voice in an ad would not constitute a reference to a clearly identified candidate to any hearing American with a television set, the court did recognize most of the ads for the bald-faced attempts to evade disclosure that they are,” said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. “It is important to remember that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly and emphatically upheld disclosure laws as vital to the public interest by enabling voters to make informed decisions on Election Day and preventing corruption of elected officials. This case is just one of a string of cases brought by groups attempting to buy influence in Washington while hiding their funders from the public.”

“Electioneering communication” disclosure requirements apply to broadcast ads that refer to a clearly identified candidate in close proximity to an election. The law defines “clearly identified” to include not only ads that explicitly name a candidate, but also ads that make the identity of the candidate “apparent by unambiguous reference.”

The ads proposed by HLF would not mention President Obama by name and instead would use the terms “the White House” and “the Administration” and even audio recordings of the President’s voice. In an attempt to evade the electioneering communication disclosure requirements, HLF argues that its ads do not refer to a clearly identified candidate.

HLF v. FEC was originally filed in federal court in Des Moines, Iowa, but the court dismissed it as an improper venue.

The challenge is based on an advisory opinion request (AOR) filed with the FEC in June by American Future Fund (AFF), asking whether it could run similar ads to those proposed by HLF. The FEC, as it has regularly under the current lineup of commissioners, deadlocked on whether such advertisements constitutedelectioneering communications requiring disclosure reports. The Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, filed comments arguing that the ads clearly constituted “electioneering communications” subject to disclosure laws.

To read the order of the court, click here. 

To read the court’s memorandum opinion, click here.

To read the brief filed today by the Campaign Legal Center, click here.

To read the comments filed by the Legal Center and Democracy 21, click here.