A report released today reveals that the House Ethics Committee has until Friday October 30, 2009 to empanel investigative subcommittees or to release reports compiled by the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) related to ethics questions raised about Members of the House. The third quarter report issued by the OCE revealed the impending deadline for action by the Ethics Committee.

According to the report, the recommendations to the Committee may include "among other things, findings of fact and citations to laws, rules or regulations that may have been violated."

In a statement, the reform groups, U.S. PIRG, Public Citizen, Common Cause, Campaign Legal Center, The League of Women Voters, and Democracy 21 said:

"Friday is the first benchmark of the new transparency that was promised in the creation of the OCE on the heels of Speaker Pelosi's commitment to 'the most honest , most open , and most ethical Congress in history.' We look forward to this milestone in the OCE's brief history."

The independent OCE was created by the house to increase transparency and accountability in the House ethics process. It first began operating during this Congress,

The quarterly report issued today explained that the OCE had referred several of its preliminary investigations into potential ethics violations to the full House ethics committee ("Standards Committee"). The report further indicated that the deadline for ethics committee action in several cases would be Friday.

"Under House rules, the House ethics committee has two options upon reaching this deadline: it can release the OCE reports or it can formally open an investigation of the referred cases, or empanelling a subcommittee," the statement continued. "The OCE was created as part of an effort to restore integrity and public credibility in the House ethics process. We hope this October deadline will be the beginning of a new level of transparency of the ethics process."

To view the report, click here .

Three Commissioners have announced their refusal to seek higher judicial review of a court decision declaring FEC regulations unconstitutional. This is a sad dereliction of their duties, though not a surprising one given their history of placing their own personal views and philosophy ahead of the statute and regulations they are obliged to enforce by virtue of holding office as Commissioners.

The regulations at issue were validly enacted by the Commission--though not by these three Commissioners, who clearly would not have voted for them. However, having been approved by a majority of the then-serving Commissioners, and duly published, they become legally binding and the Commissioner's obligation is to defend the agency's regulations, and to seek en banc and/or Supreme Court review, so that the highest-possible definitive judicial decision can be obtained.

Even in cases where Commissioners personally believe the regulations are unconstitutional, the issues are important and deserve full consideration by the entire court of appeals. That is especially true in case like this, where the panel decision decided issues not before the court and not fully briefed and argued by the parties to the case. Ultimately, any appeal to the Supreme Court in this case would be more fully developed if such an en banc review had taken place.

We are deeply disappointed that the three Republican Commissioners have rejected their own General Counsel's recommendation and have voted to block further review of a decision by the panel that declared important FEC regulations unconstitutional. It appears these Commissioners are under the false impression that they have been appointed to the federal bench, and given the power to rule on the constitutionality of federal laws and regulations, rather than being paid by a government agency to represent its interests. This placement of their personal views ahead of their responsibilities to their agency, and the resulting creation of yet another 3-3 deadlock at the FEC, only points up their failure to properly carry out their official duties.

Today the Campaign Legal Center and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) requested a full investigation of a series of allegations of public corruption and possible violations of the Voting Rights Act by a Texas State Representative and a local election official. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, J. Gerald Hebert of the Legal Center and Melanie Sloane of CREW outlined the allegations against Representative Dwayne Bohac (District 138) and Harris County elections office employee Ed Johnson. The letter emphasized that the known facts "strongly suggest public corruption in Texas and in Harris County, but may also include violations of the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws."

"The evidence indicates Mr. Bohac and others conspired to interfere with voting rights in violation of the law," said CREW's Melanie Sloan. "Because our democracy depends on free and fair elections, the Department of Justice should investigate."

"The facts speak for themselves and when there is such a clear conflict of interest for local prosecutors, the Department of Justice must step in to see that the laws on the books are enforced," said J. Gerald Hebert of the Legal Center. "We hope that DOJ will thoroughly investigate the facts in question in order to safeguard the process and to restore public confidence that elections are conducted freely and fairly."

The full letter to the Attorney General and a link to the attachments are below.

October 21, 2009

The Honorable Eric Holder

Attorney General

United States Department of Justice

10^th and Constitution Ave. NW

Washington DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

We write to request that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation into alleged illegal activity by Texas state representative Dwayne Bohac and an employee of the Harris County (Texas) elections office, Ed Johnson. The facts are set forth below and additional information is set forth in the attached documents. The basic facts are as follows:

1. Texas State Representative Dwayne Bohac (District 138) served as the vice chair of the Elections Committee in the Texas House of Representatives. As such, he has a substantive role in drafting state election laws. Bohac continues to serve on the committee as a member drafting election laws. However, Bohac has kept hidden his outside business interest as a Republican political consultant. Accusations have recently surfaced concerning his role in the Elections Committee, asserting he has crafted laws to help his Republican clients win elections. See attached.
2. Bohac is listed on the articles of incorporation as a principal of the Campaign Data Systems (CDS), a Republican campaign consulting firm that has charged its clients over $200,000 for its services. See attached articles of incorporation.One of CDS's clients is the local DA in Harris County, Pat Lykos, making it unlikely that the local DA would pursue an investigation and prosecution.Over the years, Bohac has worked in conjunction with Ed Johnson, his business partner at CDS. Johnson has testified at least eight times before the Elections Committee including bills that Bohac authored without disclosing their business relationship. Bohac also voted on this legislation, apparently in violation of the Texas Constitution, which states that any person who has a personal or private interest in any proposed or pending bill before the Legislature must reveal the relationship. Furthermore, such a person is forbidden from voting on any legislation in which they have either a personal or private interest.
3. Bohac's questionable actions taken as a member of the Texas Legislature are numerous. During the 2005 legislative session, Bohac authored HB 1268, which requires a voter to check a new box when providing a Social Security number instead of a driver's license number. Although this does not seem nefarious on its face, the new law allowed voter registrars to reject any application in which new voters mistakenly checked or did not check the box (regardless of whether they met all other formal state law requirements for becoming a registered voter). Using this technical provision of HB 1268, Bohac's business colleague at CDS who also served as the Associate Voter Registrar in Harris County (Ed Johnson), rejected an estimated 70,000 registration applications from January 2006 through October 2008. About 40,000 of these rejections resulted from the provisions of Bohac's new bill. Conversely, Dallas County rejected only 1,800 applications during the same time period.
4. CDS's website stated that the company's voter data file was bolstered by information taken from driver license records. See attached. The evidence suggests that Bohac may have obtained those records through Ed Johnson in an illegal manner. Texas law states that driver license records can only be obtained from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) upon signed agreement that they will not be sold or distributed to other individuals or groups. Records show that the Harris County Elections Department obtained and updated a database of Texas driver license records. Upon requesting those records from DPS, Ed Johnson in his official capacity as a Harris County election official signed an agreement on behalf of Harris County that he would not provide the information to others. Given that neither CDS, nor Bohac (nor any CDS client) requested or received records from the DPS, the evidence strongly suggests that that Johnson, together with Bohac, took the records requested by the Harris County Elections Office and then converted those data for their personal and business use at CDS, their private business entity. Neither Bohac nor Johnson has offered evidence that their political consulting company obtained the records from the DPS, which suggests that they illegally obtained the information to use for commercial purposes. Such an act would appear to violate both federal law and Texas law.
5. During the 2008 election, Bohac's business partner Ed Johnson engaged in further activities that may have violated federal and state law. Harris County voter registrar Paul Bettencourt and his staff were in charge of reviewing about 7,000 provisional ballots that were cast by citizens in 2008 who were not listed on the Election Day voter rolls. Republican ballot board chair Jim Harding has alleged Bettencourt's staff, which includes Ed Johnson, altered numerous voting records using white correction fluid and also altered other information on voting records.
6. Several elections were close enough in Harris County to have been affected by the 7,000 provisional ballots that Johnson and the registrar staff processed. For example, Republican Pat Lykos won her election for District Attorney by 4,784 votes, less than one-half of one percent. Candidate Lykos has ties with Bohac's business: she paid CDS over $7,000 for their consulting services. Similarly, Republican Ken Legler won the seat for State House District 144, winning the election by 902 votes. He also had ties with CDS, paying the firm $8,000 for their services.

These actions and other activities described in more detail in the attached documents, not only strongly suggest public corruption in Texas and in Harris County, but may also include violations of the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws. We respectfully request that the Department of Justice investigate these matters and take appropriate action.

Sincerely,

J. Gerald Hebert

Executive Director and Director of Litigation

Campaign Legal Center

Melanie Sloan

Executive Director

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

To view the attachments, click here.

Today a broad range of reform, business, and taxpayer organizations urged House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) to hold hearings on the Fairness and Independence in Redistricting (FAIR) Act (H.R. 3025). The legislation to improve the corrupted redistricting process that allows politicians to handpick the voters they will represent was introduced by Representatives John Tanner (D-TN) and Mike Castle (R-DE) last month.

Previous versions of the FAIR Act were introduced by Rep. Tanner in the 109^thand 110^th Congresses as were separate redistricting reform bills from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). None of the bills was ever granted a hearing.

The reform groups calling for hearings include the Campaign Legal Center, Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, FairVote, iSolon, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, National Taxpayers Union, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG.

The full letter to the Chairman and the Ranking Member follows:

August 21, 2009

The Honorable John Conyers

House Judiciary Committee

2138 Rayburn HOB

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Lamar Smith

House Judiciary Committee

2142 Rayburn HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member Smith:

We, the undersigned groups, strongly urge you to hold hearings this fall on the issues affecting congressional redistricting reform.

Earlier this summer, a bipartisan group of Members introduced H.R. 3025, the Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act. The bill seeks to fundamentally improve the congressional redistricting process by, among other things, permitting only once a decade redistricting absent a court decision striking down the districts, and by creating independent commissions in the states to conduct congressional redistricting.

As you know, the post-2000 redistricting cycle saw unprecedented efforts to use the redistricting process purely for partisan purposes. This was done through severe gerrymandering, and the creation of districts that lacked any serious level of competitiveness, as districts were carefully calibrated to protect the powerbase of incumbent officeholders and marginalize their political opponents. When necessary to maximize their political advantage, some states even resorted to re-redistricting by repeatedly shifting voters among districts in order to weaken the minority political party and shore up the majority's political base. The effect of all this was a clear undermining of democracy and voter confidence in the integrity of our political process. In short, the redistricting process became an effective tool for making a highly partisan power grab.

House action is needed to ensure that competitiveness, accountability and fair representation remain healthy parts of our democratic process, and to keep the overly partisan and unchecked redistricting process from spinning out of control. Our nation will be irretrievably weakened if we continue with a system that undermines our representative democracy by allowing elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than a system where voters choose their elected officials.

It is time for the Judiciary Committee to hold hearings as a means of starting the critical conversation inside and outside of Congress on potential solutions to fixing the broken redistricting process. Although some of our individual organizations may not necessarily agree with all of H.R. 3025's provisions, we do agree that the legislation is a good starting point for this important conversation. Accordingly, we urge you to schedule hearings on redistricting reform.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter that is so critically important to the future of democracy in the United States.

Sincerely,

Campaign Legal Center

Committee for Economic Development

Common Cause

FairVote

iSolon

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

National Taxpayers Union

Public Citizen

U.S. PIRG

Cc: Full Judiciary Committee

The Campaign Legal Center, the League of Women Voters and Americans for Redistricting Reform announced a "Statement of Essential Principles on Redistricting" supported by a diverse set of reform groups, civil right organizations, and academics. Many of those signing on gathered last month at the Pocantico Redistricting Conference late last month. The Legal Center, in partnership with the League, convened the meeting to explore ways that the public can best participate in the redistricting process in 2011 and beyond.

"The primary reform that redistricting stakeholders can agree on is that elected officials should not be choosing their voters in smoke filled rooms; at the very least voters must be given a view and a voice in the process," said J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center. "The 2010 Census and the next round of redistricting are nearly upon us so the time to ensure that citizens have the ability to impact the process is now, or once again we're all going to be standing around looking at the new gerrymanders muttering to ourselves 'I can't believe they did this to us again.'"

The conference brought together organizations and individuals from across the nation to discuss ways to increase the role citizens play in the process, problems with the system in general and potential short- and long-term fixes to the process of redistricting. Those signing on to the principles ranged from Common Cause and the League of Women Voters to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

"It is so important to bring a broad cross-section of stakeholders to the table because as Proposition 11 in California clearly showed, redistricting reform can be incredibly controversial - pitting against each other groups that all agree the current process is broken," said Hebert. "Quite a few of the individuals and organizations gathered for the conference fought on opposite sides of hotly contested Prop 11 ballot initiative and yet were able to agree that more transparency and public participation is needed in the redistricting process."

The groups agreed to continue working together through the 2010 Census and the next round of redistricting to expand the public's role in the process to help restore the ideals of a representative democracy. The principles themselves and the organizations and individuals signing on are included below.

STATEMENT ON ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES ON REDISTRICTING

AS FORMULATED AT POCANTICO REDISTRICTING CONFERENCE JULY 2009

The statement below was agreed upon by attendees of the Pocantico Redistricting Conference on July 22-24, 2009. Additional organizations and individuals have signed on as well. All signatories are listed below.

The essential principles are:

1. An accurate and complete count in Census 2010 is an essential building block for all redistricting efforts.

2. The process used for redistricting must be transparent to the public.

3. The redistricting process, at all levels of government, must provide data, tools and opportunities for the public to have direct input into the specific plans under consideration by the redistricting body.

4. In order to achieve representative democracy, redistricting plans must be drawn in a manner that allows elected bodies to reflect the diversity of the populace, especially racial and ethnic diversity.

Organizations (in alphabetical order)

Meredith McGehee

Project Manager

Americans for Redistricting Reform (and Campaign Legal Center)

Margaret Fung

Executive Director
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)

Justin Levitt
Counsel
Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law

J. Gerald Hebert
Executive Director
Campaign Legal Center

Malcolm Rich,
Executive Director
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice

Terry Pastika
Executive Director
Citizen Advocacy Center

Bob Edgar
President
Common Cause

Ellen Freidin
Campaign Chair
FairDistrictsFlorida.org

Cynthia Canary
Executive Director
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform

Mary G. Wilson 
President 
League of Women Voters of the United States

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

Rich Robinson
Executive Director
Michigan Campaign Finance Network

Arturo Vargas
Executive Director
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO)

Catherine Turcer
Executive Director
Ohio Citizen Action

Christopher Brook
Staff Attorney
Southern Coalition for Social Justice

Dan McGrath
Executive Director
TakeAction Minnesota

Mike McCabe
Executive Director
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign

Individuals (in alphabetical order)
The intent of these individuals is only to speak for themselves and not for their institution.

Kristen Clarke
Co-Director, Political Participation Group
NAACP LDF

Edward B. Foley
Professor of Law
Ohio State University

Heather Gerken
J. Skelly Write Professor of Law
Yale Law School

Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University