Seattle, WA – In a victory for the voters of Washington, a federal judge ruled yesterday that Washington state’s redistricting plan violates Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) and dilutes the voting strength of Latino voters in the Yakima Valley region. 

Campaign Legal Center (CLC), MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), the UCLA Voting Rights Project, and attorney Edwardo Morfin of the Morfin Law Firm in Washington filed the lawsuit in January 2022 on behalf of individual Latino voters in the Yakima Valley area.  

The case, Soto Palmer v. Hobbs, was the last racial vote dilution case to go to trial before the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Section 2 of the VRA in June’s Allen v. Milligan decision. 

“The Court’s ruling helps to ensure that Latino voters in the Yakima Valley and Pasco regions can make their voices heard,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “Multiple times before, federal and state courts invalidated election systems that discriminated against Yakima Valley’s Latino voters. After decades of racial discrimination with a long-lasting impact on the ability of Latino voters to participate in the political process, Latino voters in the region can now elect state legislators who will best serve their communities.” 

“The State of Washington drew a legislative redistricting map that ignored Latinos’ immense growth in the Yakima Valley over the last decade and denied them the ability to elect representatives of their choosing,” said Ernest Herrera, MALDEF Western Regional Counsel. “Today’s decision is a first momentous step in addressing that injustice and protecting Latinos’ right to representation in Washington state government.”

“For the first time in Washington’s history, the historic Latino community in the Yakima Valley and Pasco region will be able to elect their preferred candidates to the State Legislature and have their voices heard.” said Sonni Waknin, Program Manager and Voting Rights Counsel at the UCLA Voting Rights Project (UCLA VRP). “This was the first statewide Federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit against Washington and the Court’s ruling affirms that voters must have real electoral opportunities, not just bare, ineffective districts."

In November 2021, the Washington State Redistricting Commission drew its adopted state legislative district plan in such a way that Latino voters were not able to elect state legislative candidates of their choice in the 15th Legislative District. Specifically, the plan for Yakima Valley, which covers multiple counties with large Latino populations, dispersed Latino voters across several legislative districts with white majorities, a practice known as “cracking.” 

In this lawsuit, attorneys successfully argued that the enacted Legislative District 15 violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, ethnicity and language. Commissioners should have initially drawn a legislative district that gave Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in the Yakima Valley. Now, because of this Court ruling, Latino voters in the region will be able to make their voices heard.  

More information on the case can be found here. 

Washington state law protects the rights of voters by requiring online platforms like Facebook to make publicly available information about political ads disseminated on their platforms. The law is an important tool for addressing digital political messages and their unique capacity to micro-target carefully cultivated audiences. Facebook parent company Meta repeatedly violated the law, received an extraordinary fine for its violations, and is challenging Washington’s transparency requirements as unconstitutional. Campaign Legal Center, joined by a coalition of good government groups, has submitted a brief supporting the law. 

Seattle, WA – Campaign Legal Center, joined by the League of Women Voters of Washington, Fix Democracy First and the Brennan Center for Justice, today filed an amicus brief in State of Washington v. Meta Platforms supporting a Washington state law that advances voters’ right to know who is spending in their elections.
 
Meta Platforms, Inc. has challenged the constitutionality of Washington’s Disclosure Law, which provides the public with vital information about spending in state elections by requiring commercial advertisers, including online platforms, to keep and make available records related to the election ads they accept. This measure is critical in light of the dramatic rise in spending on digital political advertising in recent elections and ensures that online ads are held to equivalent standards of transparency as other political advertising. When Facebook allows political candidates and groups to pay for election ads on its platform, it is responsible for disclosing who paid for them and who was targeted and reached.

Meta’s previous failures to comply with this law resulted in a $25 million penalty in 2022 and a decision by the Washington Superior Court ruling that “This is clearly a very appropriate subject for disclosure, and the law is very constitutional.” Meta has appealed the decision to the state Court of Appeals, pressing its argument that the law violates its First Amendment rights. This assertion ignores decades of Supreme Court precedent recognizing that campaign finance transparency laws are constitutional and an important tool to enable voters to make informed decisions when they vote. 

“Voters across the country have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to influence their vote and their government. This case gets to the heart of why that right is essential,” said Tara Malloy, Senior Director for Appellate Litigation and Strategy at CLC. “Thankfully, the state of Washington has made an effort to fulfill that right by passing laws that make information about political ads easily accessible – the result is a more robust debate from a more diverse set of voices, more accountability and less corruption.”

"Meta, and all digital communication platforms, must comply with state disclosure laws and respond to public requests including who bought the ads and what audiences are being targeted," said Mary Coltrane, President, LWV of Washington. “Without the guardrails provided by disclosure laws, the potential harms of digital electioneering will only multiply as technologies continue to advance."

"The people of Washington state need to know who is buying ads for political campaigns, and that includes any political advertising on social media platforms." said Cindy Black, Executive Director of Fix Democracy First. "Fix Democracy First believes disclosure in political campaigns is vital information for voters to make informed decisions. Social media platforms should not be exempt from disclosing the details about who’s behind an ad, as well as who’s being targeted in political advertising."

"Whether a political ad is on TV or a website, citizens have the right to know who's spending money to influence their vote," said Mekela Panditharatne, Counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “Digital ads should be held to the same transparency standards as other political advertising. Washington’s disclosure law makes that possible, and it is backed by decades of legal precedent.”

A government that is truly by the people and responsive to the people can only exist if everyone is able to meaningfully participate by choosing their elected officials and holding those officials accountable once in office. If wealthy special interests can avoid disclosure and drown out the voices of everyday Americans by spending millions of dollars on election influence, the values underpinning the First Amendment are significantly undermined.

As political advertising moves increasingly online, disclosure laws like those in Washington have become an indispensable resource to voters. Such laws make it harder to spread disinformation without accountability and easier to assess both who is behind each advertisement as well as the full range of advertisements being fielded – a key piece of an ever-growing puzzle as online platforms give advertisers the ability to microtarget ads to specific, narrow audiences.

Reasonable campaign finance laws, like Washington’s, help ensure that we can live up to the core principles of our constitution and protect the voices of all Americans.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against “SHBT, LLC” and any unknown person(s) that made a $1 million contribution to the super PAC Tell It Like It Is PAC (“Tell PAC”), which is supporting former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s 2024 presidential candidacy.  

The complaint alleges that SHBT—organized in Texas in June 2022 as a domestic limited liability company—was used to conceal the true sources of a $1 million contribution made in its name to Tell PAC on June 30, 2023. This contribution, which is the single largest contribution Tell PAC has received to date, represents about 17 percent of the $5.88 million raised by this super PAC.  

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits “straw donor” contributions, which mislead the public about the true sources of election spending and deprive voters of accurate information regarding who is spending money to influence their votes.  

“Straw donor schemes like SHBT, LLC undermine transparency in our elections and risk undermining voter confidence in our political system,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at Campaign Legal Center. “Voters have a right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and this transparency is particularly crucial at a time when super PACs routinely spend millions of dollars on elections — often paid for with contributions from a small number of wealthy individuals and special interests.” 

Publicly available information indicates that SHBT, LLC could not have made a $1 million political contribution without money being provided to it for that specific purpose. The LLC appears to have been used solely to purchase and hold a small portfolio of undeveloped real estate, with a collective total value of just $7,002.  

There is no evidence that SHBT, LLC sold any of these properties or engaged in any other income-generating activity, and even if the LLC had sold the properties, their collective value of $7,002 would have been nowhere near enough for the LLC to make a seven-figure political contribution. Therefore, it is virtually impossible that SHBT, LLC was the true source of the million-dollar contribution made in its name to Tell PAC. 

Secret election spending funneled through straw donors is a serious violation of the federal campaign finance laws. The integrity of our electoral process depends on transparent public disclosure of who is spending money on elections. In recent years, violations of these laws have led to both civil fines and criminal indictments. The FEC must not delay in doing its job by fully investigating this matter and enforcing the federal laws prohibiting straw donor schemes.

Madison, WI – Today, several Wisconsin voters from across the state filed a lawsuit to block further use of Wisconsin’s extremely gerrymandered state legislative map.  

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center (CLC) partnered with Law Forward, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, and Arnold & Porter to file the lawsuit on behalf of individual voters who have had their voices silenced by the illegally gerrymandered map.  

13 years ago, Wisconsin Republicans took control of the state legislature and, behind closed doors and in defiance of the state constitution, drew new district lines that essentially guaranteed one-party control of the legislature. This was borne out in 2018 when, despite winning 53% of State Assembly votes cast statewide, Democrats only ended up with 36% of the seats.  

After the 2020 census, partisan politicians crafted a similarly extreme gerrymander that continues to silence the voices of voters – and now Wisconsinites are fighting back in court.  

“Gerrymandering is a stain on our democracy no matter which party does it. It’s common sense: Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around,” Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center. “For far too long, Wisconsinites have had their voices illegally silenced by extreme gerrymandering. When districts are drawn fairly, all Wisconsin voters will have an equal chance to elect leaders who will best serve their communities. Wisconsin’s courts can help make sure every vote counts and every voice is heard.”  

The suit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and other defendants was filed on behalf of 19 plaintiffs. It argues that the state legislative map is an extreme partisan gerrymander which violates the Wisconsin constitution and retaliates against voters for their political views and that the map has other constitutional flaws under the state constitution.  

Attorneys from CLC, Law Forward and the Harvard Election Law Clinic will hold a press call TODAY, August 2, at 11:30am CT/12:30pm ET via Zoom to discuss the lawsuit. RSVP here. 

More details about the lawsuit can be found here.