Campaign Legal Center
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) that works to reduce the influence of money in politics and to support unrestricted access to voting[1]. CLC has a four-star Charity Navigator rating[2] and in 2014, CLC received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions][3]
CLC supports strong enforcement of United States campaign finance laws. CLC attorneys track and participate in a variety of cases around the country involving campaign finance law at the federal, state and local levels.
CLC also directly represents individuals in fighting for their right to access the ballot.
CLC's website allows users to track the activities of the Federal Election Commission, campaign finance legislation, and good-government issues such as lobbying, ethics, and redistricting reform, while its blog offers expert opinion on such matters. The center also supports the need for free media access for candidates in order to dampen the need for incessant political fundraising.
Trevor Potter is the CLC's founding President. He served as General Counsel to John McCain's 2008 Presidential campaign (while on leave of absence from the CLC) and also held that position with the McCain 2000 campaign. Potter is also a practicing lawyer and Chairman of the Political Practice Group of the international law firm Caplin Drysdale. J. Gerald Hebert serves as the CLC's Senior Director, Voting Rights and Redistricting.[4]
Activities
In 2018, CLC launched a website RestoreYourVote.org[5] for citizens felony convictions to understand their voting rights in all 50 states.
In 2017, CLC attorneys represented[6] Wisconsin voters in a case to the U.S. Supreme Court, Gill v. Whitford. CLC’s Paul Smith argued the case[7] before the Court on October 3, 2017. CLC attorneys represent [8] North Carolina voters in the gerrymandering case Rucho v. League of Women Voters, before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019.[9]
In 2004, it was a party to complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission against groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and America Coming Together, for trying to directly influence federal elections.
CLC was critical of former Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards's use of charity organizations which he had founded, complaining they were being used chiefly to keep himself in the public eye in preparation for a possible 2008 Presidential run.[10]
The group filed an amicus brief in the 2007 landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, unsuccessfully urging the Court not to strike down a provision of McCain-Feingold which prevented unlimited political contributions to organizations not directly affiliated with Federal candidates.[11] The following year it again filed a brief with the Court over a rule in the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that raised contribution limits when candidates faced a self-funding opponent; the group favored the rule, which was struck down by the Court.[12]
In 2010, CLC joined with another watchdog group, Democracy 21, in asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a tax exempt social welfare group run by Karl Rove.[13]
The group filed an amicus brief in 2011 on behalf of eight public interest groups in support of challenged provisions of Arizona's clean election law, the Citizens Clean Elections Act. After the Court struck down the provisions,[14] a spokesperson for the group declared that the decision undermines "the integrity of our elections."[15] Later that year, the Center highlighted concerns before the FEC that Stephen Colbert's satirical Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, had serious imitators exploiting the regulations on politicians with television contracts. The organization's President, Trevor Potter, served as Colbert's lawyer in establishing the PAC.[16] In August, it asked the U.S. Justice Department to probe the behavior of W Spann LLC.[17]
The group advocated for more legal restrictions on campaign giving and lobbying during the 2012 Presidential primaries.[18][19][20][21][22][23]
[SB1]https://www.macfound.org/grantees/1510/
[SB2]https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=17522
[SB3]https://www.macfound.org/grantees/1510/
[SB4]Footnote to link https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/08-08-AL-Voting-Access.pdf Page 18; Footnote to https://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/Veaseyemergencyapp.pdf: Footnote to link https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/north-dakota-voter-id-tribe.html
[SB5]If this needs evidence to delete, Meredith now is Executive Director of Issue One – https://www.issueone.org/staff/meredith-mcgehee/ --
and no longer appears on CLC staff page https://campaignlegal.org/about/staff
[SB6]https://www.thedailybeast.com/millions-of-felons-are-getting-their-votes-back-now-theyre-learning-to-cast-them
[SB7]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/magazine/the-new-front-in-the-gerrymandering-wars-democracy-vs-math.html
[SB8]http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/
[SB9]https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-422/68611/20181031145004774_18-422%20Motion%20to%20Affirm.pdf
[SB10]http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/rucho-v-common-cause-2/
- ^ "Campaign Legal Center - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
- ^ "Charity Navigator - Rating for The Campaign Legal Center". Charity Navigator. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
- ^ "Campaign Legal Center - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
- ^ "Meet CLC's Staff". Campaign Legal Center. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
- ^ Pitner, Barrett Holmes (2018-08-12). "Millions of Felons Are Getting Their Votes Back. Now They're Learning To Cast Them". Retrieved 2019-01-22.
- ^ Bazelon, Emily (2017-08-29). "The New Front in the Gerrymandering Wars: Democracy vs. Math". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
- ^ "Gill v. Whitford". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
- ^ https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-422/68611/20181031145004774_18-422%20Motion%20to%20Affirm.pdf
- ^ "Rucho v. Common Cause". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved 2019-01-22.