CLC President Issues Statement Ahead of January 6th Congressional Hearings

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The House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on our country will begin a series of public hearings on June 9, 2022, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Trevor Potter, founder and president of Campaign Legal Center and Republican Former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, issued the following statement ahead of the January 6th committee hearings:

“The January 6th attack on our country is a harrowing example of what happens when partisan actors sow distrust in our elections. These same bad actors have capitalized on this distrust to pass numerous state laws that would allow them to subvert our elections and undermine our freedom to vote. We must support the January 6th Committee's work to fully investigate, seek justice and hold accountable the bad actors involved in the attack to ensure this never happens again.”

Mr. Potter submitted a statement to the committee earlier this year, highlighting what's at stake for the future of our elections. In his statement, he calls on Congress to close a loophole in the Electoral Count Act (ECA), which hasn't been updated in more than 130 years. Leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, partisan actors exploited ambiguities in the ECA that, in part, led to the subsequent attack. A poll conducted in 2021 showed strong bipartisan support for updating the ECA, and that most voters believe there is a real threat to overturning the results of an upcoming presidential election if nothing is done. 

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Voting and Elections

CLC Steps Up to Promote Enforcement of Federal Campaign Finance Law

At a Glance

The FEC routinely fails to enforce campaign finance laws. Congress anticipated the possibility of FEC inaction and authorized lawsuits to compel agency enforcement actions. Realizing that FEC delays may persist even in the face of a court order, Congress authorized citizen enforcement suits to ensure protracted delays don’t undermine our political system.

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Campaign Finance
About This Case/Action

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is tasked with enforcing federal campaign finance law. Congress designed the Commission to ensure partisan fairness. But Congress also understood that the FEC’s bipartisan structure could lead to gridlock and prevent enforcement of campaign finance laws when the Commissioners are unable to agree on what actions to take. Indeed, over the past two decades partisan gridlock at the FEC has ground enforcement nearly to a halt. But Congress anticipated this problem and created a solution to ensure that the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) did not become dead letter. When the FEC fails to take action on a complaint alleging that the law has been violated, FECA authorizes the complainant to challenge that inaction in federal court. If the complainant succeeds in showing that the FEC has unlawfully delayed, the court can order the Commission to take action. If the FEC fails to do so, FECA gives the private complainant the right to sue the violator directly in federal court to enforce the law.

Over the past few years, groups like Campaign Legal Center (CLC) have increasingly turned to FECA’s direct suit provision as a means of ensuring that federal campaign finance laws are enforced, notwithstanding the agency’s inaction. As a result, there are a growing number of cases in federal court where pro-democracy groups like CLC have stepped in to enforce FECA in the wake of the FEC’s dysfunction.

Federal law requires campaigns and outside organizations to be transparent about the who is spending money to influence federal elections. FECA also imposes contribution limits to protect against the corrupting influence of money in politics. To ensure these contribution limits are enforced, FECA prohibits almost all coordination between candidate campaigns and purportedly independent outside groups. In the past two years, Campaign Legal Center and its affiliated 501(c)(4) Campaign Legal Center Action have won a number of judgments, on behalf of CLC and other affected organizations, against the FEC for its failure to act on administrative complaints alleging violations of FECA. As a result, CLC and CLC Action are now representing several plaintiffs —including CLC itself — who have exercised their right under FECA to sue violators directly in federal court.

What’s At Stake

Federal campaign finance laws protect every American’s right to participate in the political process by requiring transparency about who is funding election ads and other political spending, so voters can properly weigh different speakers and messages and cast an informed vote. Our campaign finance laws are also supposed to limit actual and apparent corruption by restricting the amounts and sources of money given directly to support candidates and their campaigns. But these laws are meaningless if they aren’t enforced.

Enforcement of campaign finance laws is important not only to compel compliance by individual political actors but also to send a clear message to others that there are consequences for violating the rules. All too often the exact opposite has occurred. Organizations that wish to conceal the sources of their political spending or coordinate their ostensibly “independent” spending with the candidates they support know the gridlocked Commission is unlikely to enforce the law. This means that these actors, and others who emulate their activities, face little to no consequence for violating the law, and thus have no reason to comply. These increasingly flagrant violations of federal campaign finance laws undermine trust in the democratic process, as the public also learns to view the rules as meaningless.

Voters are entitled to a fair, transparent and accountable political process and a government agency that enforces our campaign finance laws. In the absence of FEC action, groups like CLC are stepping up to ensure that federal campaign finance law is enforced.

Associated Cases & Actions

CLC v. Iowa Values
Pushing the FEC to Enforce the Law Against the NRA for Illegal Spending Coordination — Giffords v. FEC
Holding 45Committee Accountable for Violating Disclosure Laws — CLC v. 45Committee
Holding the Heritage Foundation Accountable for Violating Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws — CLC v. Heritage Action
Opposing Unlawful Campaign Coordination Between Candidates and Super PACs — CLC v. Correct the Record and Hillary for America
Pushing for More FEC Accountability — End Citizens United v. FEC (Trump Campaign)

Campaign Legal Center Files FEC Complaint Against Shell Company Used to Funnel Money into Alabama Senate Race

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The complaint alleges that that Free Market, LLC, served as a “straw donor” for a $250,000 contribution to the super PAC Alabama Conservatives Fund. By making the contribution through Free Market, the donors were able to conceal their true identity.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Free Market, LLC, an obscure entity with no apparent income, employees or assets (also known as a shell company) appears to have been used to secretly funnel $250,000 to a super PAC that spent over $1.9 million in the 2022 U.S. Senate race in Alabama.

The complaint alleges that the "straw donor” scheme involving Free Market, LLC violated federal laws that make it illegal for a person or entity to give money to another person or entity for it to make a political contribution in its own name.

The super PAC in question, Alabama Conservatives Fund (ACF), reported receiving a $250,000 contribution from Free Market, LLC on Jan. 27, 2022, just three months after the LLC was organized. Because the LLC had no apparent income, assets or commercial activity, no discernable online or physical presence, and no financial activity from which it could have made this six-figure political contribution, it appears that these funds had to have come from another source.

“Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending to influence their vote. By passing a quarter of a million dollars through Free Market, LLC, to a super PAC supporting a candidate in the Alabama Senate race, the forces behind this secret spending denied that right to Alabama voters,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal reform at Campaign Legal Center. “It is extremely concerning that unknown actors can simply create an LLC and, just two months later, use that company to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence our elections and rig the political system to suit their needs – all while keeping their identities completely hidden.”

ACF, which has been exclusively supporting Republican candidate Katie Britt in the Alabama Senate race, appears to have reported the contributor’s name that it was given. However, all publicly available information indicates that Free Market was not the true source of the $250,000 contributed in its name to ACF, but was, in fact, a “straw donor” used to hide the true source of those funds.

The power of wealthy special interest money in our politics threatens our First Amendment right to have our voices heard. The FEC must investigate this LLC and enforce the federal straw donor ban in order to uphold transparency in our elections.

At Campaign Legal Center, we are advancing democracy through law. Learn more about our work.

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Campaign Finance
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