Your voice matters, and our campaign finance laws protect it.

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From the Desk of Trevor Potter
Dear John,

American democracy is facing challenges on multiple fronts — attempted election sabotage by supporters of the former President, new barriers to voting, gerrymandering and unethical actions in Congress, to name a few.

Campaign Legal Center continues to advance democracy through law and is fighting each of these challenges.

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While we are paying close attention to developments in voting and redistricting (where CLC continues to see victories, including in Kansas yesterday), ([link removed]) we are continuing our long-running, top-notch campaign finance work.
Enforcement of our campaign finance laws is crucial for protecting the voices of everyday Americans in our political process.

I am delighted to share a few recent campaign finance victories with you, and I thought you’d like to know more about them and why they matter.

We all need good news these days!

First: the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review two cases means two wins for transparency: Transparency of contributions and spending is crucial in our political system. We saw two wins for political transparency recently when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of two lawsuits CLC attorneys represented clients in.

The Court first declined to hear an appeal of a challenge to a local transparency rule in which CLC attorneys were serving as counsel to the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico. ([link removed]) Like many other states and municipalities, Santa Fe, New Mexico requires basic disclosure from those spending money to support or oppose ballot measures in local elections, to enable voters to assess and understand the interests vying for their votes.

The Court also declined to take up a constitutional challenge to a Rhode Island ([link removed]) law that promotes transparency in state elections by providing disclosure from groups that spend large sums to influence voters. CLC served as outside co-counsel to the state defendants in the Supreme Court, along with the Rhode Island Office of Attorney General.

The Supreme Court has long recognized that disclosure is a crucial and constitutional means of protecting voters’ right to know about the sources of election-related spending, and the Court’s decision not to hear these appeals leaves important transparency provisions in place. CLC is proud of these important victories.

Second: successful enforcement of our campaign finance laws: The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is the only federal government agency solely tasked with ensuring the integrity of political campaigns for the presidency and Congress. However, for the past decade, it has routinely failed to do its job, resulting in an explosion of secret spending, and our politics increasingly rigged in favor of special interests.

However, breaking with its pattern of dysfunction, the FEC recently issued its third-largest fine in its history, based on hard evidence of illegality that CLC provided. Following a complaint CLC filed in 2019, the FEC found “reason to believe” that a Canadian billionaire illegally funneled $1.75 million to a super PAC aligned with former President Donald Trump. The foreign donor agreed to settle the case with the FEC. By imposing this $975,000 penalty, this time the FEC has done its job of protecting the First Amendment rights of American voters ([link removed]) to participate in our elections without foreign influence.

Third: efforts to hold the FEC accountable are moving forward: While the FEC imposed a serious penalty in the above-mentioned instance, it still routinely fails to enforce the law in important cases. One remedy for that is for groups which file complaints with the FEC alleging wrongdoing — as CLC does — to sue the Commission when it fails to act.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently issued a decision clearing a path for one of CLC’s lawsuits to challenge the FEC’s failure to act against a massive coordination scheme between the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and Correct the Record, ([link removed]) a super PAC.

The refusal of the FEC to enforce campaign finance laws creates a pathway for secret campaign giving — its failure to hold the Clinton campaign and this super PAC accountable for $9 million in coordinated spending sets a dangerous precedent that could be replicated by other campaigns. Thus, we are encouraged that our lawsuit can move forward, so we can prevent that from happening.

Fourth: CLC continues to blaze a trail of holding campaign finance violators accountable directly, after the FEC fails to do so. Our most recent example is a lawsuit we filed on April 22 against a secret money group called the 45Committee, which spent as much as $38 million ([link removed]) to help elect former President Donald Trump and failed to register as a political action committee (PAC).

The group reportedly was created to fill a need for a “nondisclosing vehicle” through which donors who wished to support then-candidate Donald Trump, but found doing so publicly “embarrassing,” could anonymously spend money to elect him — the exact sort of secret funding which the campaign finance laws exist to prevent.

Voters have a right to know which special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our vote and our government, and in the absence of FEC action, CLC is exercising its legal opportunity to ensure 45Committee complies with federal law.

These are exciting developments, and they illustrate that there is still a lot we can do to advance democracy and protect the voices of voters in this challenging national environment.

As the bulk of the primaries and midterms approach, we all can do our part to ensure voters’ voices are heard, and I hope we can celebrate more exciting developments for democracy in the coming months.
Sincerely,

Trevor Potter
President, Campaign Legal Center
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The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center is dedicated to advancing democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process.

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