Americans looking at their elected officials might struggle to find anyone who genuinely shares their life experiences and day-to-day concerns, as most of our presidents, senators, and members of Congress have been (and continue to be) independently wealthy, and the number of candidates self-funding their campaigns is on the rise.  

A Pew Research s...

After more than a decade of noncontiguous, gerrymandered maps, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the state’s legislative maps as unconstitutional — a win for Wisconsinites and for our democracy. 

The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), in partnership with Law Forward, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law...

By Michael Carter, NARF Staff Attorney, and Mel Neal, Legal Fellow at CLC.

North Dakota has a long and ongoing history of discrimination against Native Americans, including denying Native voters an equal voice in the state’s elections.  

Until 1922, North Dakota barred most Native people from voting. Even after North Dakota finally allowed Native...

American elections have many built-in processes for verification and review before, during and after a vote is cast. This is especially true when voting by mail.  

After a voter fills out and returns a mail ballot, it goes through a host of steps prior to being counted and election results being released to the public. These steps are known as...

Felony disenfranchisement laws, which take away someone’s freedom to vote if they have been convicted of a felony, are the biggest remaining obstacle to a truly inclusive and equitable democracy in America. 

These laws proliferated in the United States as an intentional scheme to strip Black Americans of their freedom to vote and continue to...

Ethics commissions at the state and local levels serve a crucial role in democracy by providing trainings to ensure government officials in every state, city and municipality know how to follow laws and rules that preserve public trust in government.  

Government employees are not the only ones who benefit from ethics training. Journalists...

As state houses across the country wrap up their 2023 legislative sessions, several states have taken important steps to update their election laws to conform with the new Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 (ECRA). Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, North Dakota, Nevada and Michigan enacted legislation this year that aligns their timelines for presidential...

Rep. George Santos has become the sixth member in the history of the House of Representatives to be expelled from the chamber. After two failed attempts to expel him, the third time stuck.  

What made the third time a charm? A deeply incriminating report, issued by the House Ethics Committee, detailing the extent of his wrongdoing.  

It would be...

A new report from Campaign Legal Center (CLC) examines one of the main issues undermining voters’ ability to equitably and meaningfully participate in our democracy: Unchecked coordination between candidates’ campaigns and supposedly independent election spending groups, like super PACs and dark money nonprofits, which pour billions of dollars into...

The freedom to vote and to make your voice heard is critical to the health of our democracy. Michigan’s legislature just took major steps forward to ensure its voters can have their voices heard and respected in future elections. 

This session, Michigan lawmakers have passed major pro-democracy bills to help ensure the state is ready for the 2024...

Our democracy works best when every voter can participate in it, yet tens of thousands of Americans were removed from voter registration rolls just this year due to an unfair practice called voter purging.  

Voter purges, or efforts to remove a significant number of voters from the registration rolls all at once, ultimately threaten Americans’...

On November 13, the Supreme Court of the United States released a "code of conduct" that would seem to govern the behavior of its justices. Coming at the end of a year plagued with reporting on ethical lapses and missteps by these justices, Campaign Legal Center and others who have been long calling for such news should have seen cause to celebrate...

Our democracy works best when everyone can participate in it and when there are as few barriers to participation as possible. But in Montana, HB 892, a state law passed earlier this year, erects new, unnecessary barriers to Montanans trying to register to vote and make their voices heard in our democracy — punishing innocent voter behavior (with...

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has long been calling for ethics reform at the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, justices are appointed for life, but there is little structure in place to hold them accountable when ethics concerns arise and little guidance in place for the justices to follow.

Following a growing national concern (and multiple scandals...

In an op-ed for The Hill, Campaign Legal Center President and Founder Trevor Potter takes a closer look at the risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) being used to create political communications and advertising as we head into the 2024 elections. Potter’s op-ed makes the point that the ease with which AI technology can be used to make...

Last week, Rep. Mike Johnson — a “key architect of Republicans’ objections to certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6,” according to the New York Times — was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.   

It’s important to understand that our elections are safe, secure and accurate. Yet someone who refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy...

The U.S. Senate has a well-established ethics enforcement problem. Campaign Legal Center has been highlighting the Senate Ethics Committee’s inadequacies since 2014, when we found the committee’s enforcement process limited and opaque.  

In early 2021, CLC conducted a comparative study to evaluate 10 years of ethics enforcement in the U.S. House...

Everyday Americans keep our elections fair — and they take this responsibility seriously. In recent years, however, individuals who have spent their careers safeguarding the electoral process are facing unprecedented levels of harassment and are leaving the profession in droves.

A recent poll reveals a high rate of turnover among election workers...

Real transparency about the ever-increasing amount of money spent to influence elections — including the large sums raised and spent by national political parties for things like conventions and party headquarters — leads to more accountability. When voters know who is cutting big checks to help Democrats buy office space or fund a Republican...

Our democracy is meant to be of, by, and for the people — meaning voters have a right to be free from discrimination and to make their voices heard.  

In January, a federal court panel unanimously ruled that South Carolina used racial gerrymandering to discriminate against Black voters in the state’s 1st Congressional District — a clear affront to...

We can't have a fair and inclusive democracy unless all voters have an equal voice. 

Black and Latino voters in Galveston County, Texas have long been denied a voice in county government — an unjust reality considering those groups comprise nearly half of the county’s population. 

But today, in a victory for the voters of Galveston County, Texas and...