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Aug 15, 2008 -- Legal Center Weekly Report: August 15, 2008
The Campaign Legal Center launched a Voting Rights Enforcement Project this week with the aim of protecting the fundamental rights of all citizens to vote during this year's elections. The staff of the Legal Center will be providing generic drafts of potential court filings to individuals, organizations, and political parties who must resort to the courts during election season.
The use of such legal templates will allow individuals, as well as advocacy groups, political parties, and candidates to obtain pre-election or Election Day relief for a host of problems, including extension of polling hours, insufficient ballots, and prevention of voter harassment or intimidation. The legal template documents will be accessible on the Legal Center's website next month, and they will also be distributed via email to persons and groups across the country upon request.
In a letter Legal Center Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert alerted the attorneys for the major party committees and the presidential campaign of Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) that the templates would be made available to them in the coming weeks.
Legal Center Files Amici Brief to Defend FEC Rules
On August 14, 2008, the Legal Center, together with Democracy 21, filed an amici brief with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia in The Real Truth About Obama (RTAO) v. FEC. Plaintiff RTAO, a "527 organization," seeks to enjoin the enforcement of several FEC regulations and policies that establish when a political group such as RTAO must register as a "political committee" and comply with federal campaign finance laws. The recently formed organization wants to run ads criticizing presidential candidate Barack Obama's position on abortion in the weeks before the general election without disclosing its donors or adhering to federal contribution limits.
The challenged regulations include the so-called "subpart (b)" definition of "expressly advocating" (11 C.F.R. § 100.22(b)), and a rule defining "contribution" as funds received in response to a solicitation that "indicates" that the funds received "will be used to support or oppose" the election of a federal candidate (11 C.F.R. § 100.57). RTAO is also challenging the FEC regulation implementing the recent Supreme Court decision in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC (WRTL II) that governs when a corporation is prohibited from using general treasury funds to pay for an "electioneering communication" (11 C.F.R. § 114.15).
Amici CLC and Democracy 21 oppose RTAO's request for a preliminary injunction and argue that the challenged regulations are constitutional and within the FEC's statutory authority. The amici brief points out that neither the "subpart (b)" definition of "expressly advocating" nor the definition of "contribution" at 11 C.F.R. § 100.57 need conform to a "magic words"-style express advocacy standard. Amici also argue that the FEC correctly applied the "major purpose" test to determine that certain 527 organizations were "political committees" in past enforcement actions, and properly codified at 11 C.F.R. § 114.15 the standards established by WRTL II regarding application of the "electioneering communication" funding restrictions.
Virginia County Becomes Fourteenth Jurisdiction to Obtain Voting Rights Act Bailout
On August 13, 2008, a three-judge federal court in Washington, DC approved a consent judgment and decree in Amherst County, Virginia, v. Mukasey, exempting the county from its obligations to submit all proposed voting changes for preclearance approval to the Department of Justice (DOJ) or to the DC court. CLC's Executive Director Gerry Hebert served as legal counsel for Amherst County in the matter.
Legal Center Blog Highlights
Each week, the Campaign Legal Center staff posts blog entries on its site, www.clcblog.org. To read this week entry, "Rattling the Vote Cage - Part II" or to sign up for the blog, click here.
Week in the News
To read a variety of this week's editorials and articles on a variety of Campaign Legal Center issues, please click here. |
