WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a win for transparency, the Washington Court of Appeals rejected an attempt by Facebook parent company Meta to challenge the constitutionality of a state disclosure law for political advertising. 

The court challenge came after Meta had been served a $25 million fine for failing to comply with a provision of Washington state’s political advertising law that requires online social media platforms to disclose who is paying for political ads on their site, and the demographics of audiences targeted and reached by such ads. 

Campaign Legal Center (CLC), along with our partners the League of Women Voters of Washington, Fix Democracy First and the Brennan Center for Justice filed an amicus brief arguing that digital advertising poses new threats to democracy and requires comprehensive transparency laws. 

“Voters have a right to know who is behind political spending that is attempting to influence their vote,” said Tara Malloy, CLC’s senior director for appellate litigation and strategy. “Protecting disclosure laws like Washington states’ is critical for ensuring that information on political ads remains easily accessible to voters and transparency is upheld no matter how the media landscape evolves.” 

CLC’s Tara Malloy and Maha Quadri go into further detail with a newly published blog, available here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has released a new report, “Threat Assessment 2024: Risks and Challenges Facing Ethics Commissions,” which highlights the legal and legislative attempts to weaken state ethics commissions over the past year. This report aims to provide state ethics commissions with the information they need to stay informed about these threats, and insights to help advance their missions and protect their role in our democracy. 

For over 50 years, ethics commissions operating at the state and local levels served as watchdogs to ensure government officials prioritized public service, which is essential for maintaining public trust in government. But in 2024, CLC found that state ethics commissions across the country have faced three major types of threats:

• Enforcement power threats: attempts to limit the ability of ethics commissions to investigation or penalize violations of law; 
• Subject matter jurisdiction threats: attempts to limit the kinds of laws ethics commissions can administer and enforce; and 
• Existential threats: attempts to strip ethics commissions of their power altogether.

Ethics commissions in eleven states were most seriously impacted by legislative and legal threats to their powers: Maine; New York; Georgia; Alabama; Missouri; Texas; Minnesota; Louisiana; Nevada; Florida and Hawaii. 

Oregon, Florida and Vermont expanded the powers of their respective commissions to hold government officials to high ethical standards this year. 

“State ethics commissions play a critical role in securing the public’s trust in ethical government, as evidenced by state and local governments having higher rates of public trust than the federal government,” said Delaney Marsco, CLC’s director of ethics. “While these watchdogs may face administrative and logistical challenges common among government agencies, ethics commissions continue to face novel legal and legislative threats that imperil their missions. Empowering state ethics commissions with information about these threats and tactics to combat them is essential because voters have a right to know that state and local officials prioritize serving the public interest.” 

This report is the fourth in CLC’s annual report series designed to promote the successes of state and local government ethics offices, following 2021’s “Top Ten Transparency Upgrades for Ethics Commissions,” 2022’s “Top Ten Enforcement Upgrades for Ethics Commissions,” and 2023’s “Top Ten Training Upgrades for Ethics Commissions.” 

Read CLC’s 2024 Ethics Commission Report

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against “Save Our Home Planet Action, Inc.” (“SOHPA”) and anyone who provided it with funds to make over $1.4 million in political contributions in “SOHPA”’s name, a blatant violation of federal campaign finance laws. 

The complaint alleges that SOHPA, established on August 6, 2024, was not the true source of contributions made to five different super and hybrid PACs. By using SOHPA as a shell company in their “straw donor” scheme, the individuals behind these contributions violated laws intended to promote transparency, depriving voters of essential information. 

“Voters have a right to know who is spending money to influence their votes, elect their preferred candidates, and sway public policy,” says Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at CLC. “This is just the latest example of how wealthy corporate special interests are using straw donor schemes to secretly spend enormous amounts of money on our elections. The FEC must investigate who really contributed over $1.4 million through this scheme, and hold any violators accountable for depriving the public of this vital information.” 

SOHPA has no online footprint or record of other activities that could explain how it was able to make millions in political contributions, beginning just 10 days after being formed, absent an infusion of funds provided for that purpose. Notably, SOHPA appears to share an address with the corporate headquarters of Patagonia, Inc., according to the financial disclosures of the political committees it contributed to. Even the name of the purported donor entity, “Save Our Home Planet Action,” quotes verbatim Patagonia’s corporate motto “to save our home planet,” a phrase that the company also uses on its merchandise. These connections, CLC alleges, strongly suggest that Patagonia or its executives may be the true source of the contributions made in SOHPA’s name. 

The FEC has previously issued civil fines over straw donor schemes. To protect voters’ rights, CLC has asked it to investigate who is really behind the over $1.4 million in contributions by SOHPA to political action committees.