Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC), and a Republican Former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), released the following statement:

 

“Today, the United States Senate once again failed to advance, or even allow debate on, the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. This failure, coming despite a decade of tireless work from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the bill’s lead sponsor, disappoints those of us who have been fighting against the influence of secret spending.


 

More importantly, it deprives voters of important information about who is attempting to influence their vote and allows corruption to prevail by permitting special interests to continue anonymously rigging the system in their favor.


 

It is past time for Congress to enact legislation that bolsters transparency requirements and fulfills voters’ right to know who is spending on election influence – a right that has repeatedly been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, even as the Court has struck down other campaign finance and election-related laws.


 

Special interests may prefer secret election spending through opaque nonprofit groups because they can run political ads that mislead and manipulate voters without being accountable for those messages. But voters need to know who is funding these ads so they can weigh their credibility and cast an informed vote. As the late Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote, ‘The premise of the First Amendment is that the American people are neither sheep nor fools, and hence fully capable of considering both the substance of the speech presented to them and its proximate and ultimate source.’


 

It is time Congress took that premise to heart.”

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 8873 to update the Electoral Count Act (ECA), the outdated law that provides the primary framework governing how presidential electoral votes are cast and counted. Bad actors exploited ambiguities in the ECA in 2020 in an attempt to overturn the election results. 

Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Liz Cheney (R-WY)  introduced the Presidential Election Reform Act (PERA) this week. Rep. Lofgren chairs the House Administration Committee and both Reps. Cheney and Lofgren sit on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack. 

In July, a bipartisan group of 16 Senators introduced the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) (S. 4573), which is currently under consideration in the Senate and would update the ECA to prevent partisan politicians from manipulating presidential elections. 

Trevor Potter, founder and president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Republican Former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, issued the following statement:

“Today’s vote in the House of Representatives demonstrates the bipartisan, bicameral recognition of the urgent need to improve the Electoral Count Act. This law has not been updated since its enactment more than 130 years ago and is rife with gaps and ambiguities that open the door for bad actors seeking to manipulate our presidential elections. We thank Reps. Lofgren and Cheney for developing this proposal, and we commend the House for taking swift action on this critical issue. With a serious bipartisan effort rapidly advancing in the Senate, we call on lawmakers in both chambers to pass the strongest possible legislation that can become law before the end of this year. The next presidential election could be one of the most contentious ever, which is why the time to update the Electoral Count Act is now. Our democracy depends on it.”

Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC), and a Republican Former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), released the following statement: 

“This week, the Senate will hold a procedural vote to open debate on the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act – a bill that is crucial to the First Amendment right of all Americans to have our voices heard. Since my time with the FEC, the amount of money spent by corporations and other special interests seeking to influence our elections has risen dramatically, with much of that spending coming from donors who deliberately hide their identities from voters and the public at large. 
 

Voters have a fundamental right to know who is spending money to influence our elections – knowledge regarding who is funding political ads allows us to weigh their credibility and cast an informed vote. Secret spending, sometimes known as “dark money,” undermines voters’ right to information necessary to meaningfully participate in the democratic process - a right identified by the Supreme Court in their ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This is why the need for the DISCLOSE Act is so great and so urgent. This bill would mandate transparency from 501(c)(4) organizations and other entities that seek to influence our vote (by directly spending on political ads or funding super PACs that do so) while concealing their true funding sources. 

As the Senate moves toward this procedural vote, I urge every single member of the chamber to vote in the affirmative and advance this bill. American voters deserve transparency in their elections, and they deserve a public debate on this long overdue legislation.” 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released an updated, 50-state version of a report about states’ early voting and mail voting laws. Like the original report, this version examined the changes to laws that states have made since the 2020 election, using a 10-point scale to grade whether these methods of voting are accessible to voters. The new version also includes regional comparisons, clarifications on how to measure restrictions around distributing unsolicited mail ballot applications and prohibiting drop boxes, and potential implications for the upcoming 2022 midterm elections.  

Click here to view the report. 

“Many states need to do more to protect the freedom to vote and make this basic American right truly accessible to all citizens,” said Valencia Richardson, legal counsel for voting rights at Campaign Legal Center. “We need to understand the sharp shifts in voting access that have occurred across the country over the last few years to address significant and widespread obstacles to voting. Our country’s democracy works best when all voters can participate without barriers.”  

CLC’s main findings include:  

• Racial Disparities: Among the 10 states with the highest Black populations, only Virginia received a strong score for voting access. The other nine states, which are primarily located in the South and are home to tens of millions of Black voters, fell woefully behind the rest of the country in providing early voting and mail voting access. 

• Access for Disabled Voters: These voters are disproportionately impacted by state laws that expand or limit access to mail voting. CLC’s updated report reflects this by awarding a full point to states that maintain permanent mail voting lists for disabled voters, even if nondisabled voters are not eligible to be on these lists. 

• Upheavals and Divides: Several new voting laws were enacted in 2021 and 2022. During the 2022 elections, voters will find themselves navigating these laws and processes for the first time. These changes have created divides between states that have made voting easier, states that have made it harder and states that have done some of both. 

• National Trends and Room for Improvement: While laws vary greatly from state to state, there are both positive and concerning national trends in access to these methods of voting. Currently, thirty-two out of 50 states have substantial room for improvement to ensure access to universal early voting and mail voting.