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The Arizona State Legislature is challenging a voter-passed state constitutional amendment creating an independent redistricting commission.
In August 2010, plaintiffs filed suit to challenge multiple aspects of Hawaii state campaign finance law, including the statutory definitions of “political committee” and “expenditure,” several disclosure provisions and the state restriction on contributions from government contractors. On March 21...
The state Republican parties of New York and Tennessee challenged an SEC rule barring investment firms from managing state assets for two years after a firm or its associates make more than de minimis contributions to officeholders or candidates who have or would have power to award investment...
Plaintiffs filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of Mississippi’s campaign finance disclosure requirements as they apply to small groups and individuals intending to support or oppose state constitutional ballot measures.
On September 2, 2014, the Independence Institute filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Colorado’s “electioneering communication” disclosure provisions, which require a group spending over $1,000 on television, radio or print ads that mention the name of a state candidate within 60 days of...
The Campaign Legal Center represents a group of voters whose lawsuit challenging Albuquerque’s city council redistricting has exposed them to possible liability for the city’s attorneys’ fees...
This case involved the question of whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires redistricting authorities to draw election lines that allow a racial minority group to elect a candidate of choice when the minority group constitutes less than 50 percent of the voting-age population and elects...
The League of Women Voters of Florida filed this lawsuit in state court claiming that redistricting plans adopted by the Florida legislature violated the Florida Constitution’s provisions that provide that district boundaries not be drawn so as to favor any incumbent or political party over another...
In November 2008, the RNC brought a constitutional challenge to the “soft money” restrictions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) that bar the national parties from raising or spending soft money and prohibit state parties from using soft money for activities that affect federal elections...
In 2009, Vermont Right to Life Committee (VRLC) challenged Vermont’s campaign finance law's disclosure provisions and contribution limits as applied to VRLC's fund that allegedly makes only independent expenditures. The district court upheld the challenged disclosure provisions and contribution...
Plaintiffs, Black residents of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, brought this Voting Rights Act challenge to the 2012 redistricting plan for Hattiesburg’s City Council. Due to shifts in population, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is now a majority-Black city. Black voters comprise the largest voting group in...
The Republican National Committee and donor Shaun McCutcheon brought suit to challenge the $74,600 aggregate limit on contributions to non-candidate committees and the $48,600 aggregate limit on contributions to candidate committees in a two-year election cycle. On April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court...
On April 21, 2011, Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) sued the FEC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that a 2007 regulation improperly narrowed the scope of federal disclosure requirements connected to electioneering communications...
In 2009, an unsuccessful candidate for Arizona judicial office filed suit to challenge canons of the Arizona Code of Judicial Conduct, alleging that the canons violate his First Amendment rights...
In March 2010, plaintiffs filed suit to challenge Montana’s corporate expenditure restriction, M.C.A. § 13-35-227, claiming that the ban was unconstitutional under Citizens United v. FEC. On June 25, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari and summarily reversed the Montana Supreme Court’s...
In 2009, Plaintiffs filed suit to prevent Washington State from making petitions connected to a state ballot measure publicly available under the state Public Records Act. Plaintiffs argued that the state records law was facially unconstitutional in connection to ballot measure petitions, and the...
In Valdes v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviewed the conviction of a police officer under the federal gratuities statute accepting cash from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for searching law enforcement databases for information. The D.C. Circuit, sitting en...
In February 2008, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) challenged a provision in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) that requires a lobbying coalition, such as NAM, to disclose any member organizations of the coalition that fund the coalition’s lobbying activities and...
On January 10, 2007, Unity08, a self-described “nascent political party,” brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging a FEC advisory opinion finding that it was a “political committee” under FECA even though it had not yet nominated its presidential and vice...
These consolidated cases, initiated in 2006, challenged the constitutionality of Connecticut’s campaign finance reform legislation, which included a public financing system and pay-to-play restrictions which prohibited contributions from lobbyists, state contractors, and members of their immediate...