More Challenges Launched Against Trump Voting Commission
As a federal judge in D.C. weighs whether to rule against President Donald Trump's voter integrity commission, two new challenges against the commission have been filed in the same court.
July 10, 2017 at 03:35 PM
3 minute read
As a federal judge in D.C. weighs whether to rule against President Donald Trump's voter integrity commission, two new challenges against the commission have been filed in the same court.
In a complaint filed Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union alleges that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is in violation of a federal statute that requires advisory commissions to publish notices prior to their meetings and make documents available to the public. Another lawsuit, filed by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, makes similar allegations.
The lawsuits were filed exactly one week after another group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, known as EPIC, asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District of D.C. to block the commission's attempts to gather voter data from the states. Kollar-Kotelly will also oversee the ACLU lawsuit, according to the case docket.
“The commission held its first meeting without notice or making it open to the public,” Theresa Lee, a staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said in a statement, “This process is cloaked in secrecy, raising serious concerns about its credibility and intent. What are they trying to hide?”
A Justice Department spokeswoman said the DOJ is reviewing the ACLU complaint and has no further comment.
It was not immediately clear who the assigned judge would be for the Lawyers' Committee case. Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer partner John Freedman is co-counsel in the suit.
“Federal law demands that the president's commissions operate in an open and transparent manner,” Freedman said in a written statement. “That principle is of paramount importance when, as here, the commission seeks to impact the fundamental right to vote. We are proud to stand with the Lawyers' Committee in this fight.”
In both lawsuits, the groups argued that the commission, created by Trump via an executive order in May, broke the Federal Advisory Committee Act by holding a meeting without first issuing a public notice in the Federal Register or making it open to the public. The ACLU and Lawyers' Committee also say the commission has failed to make any of its records public, in violation of the law, and plans to hold a meeting July 19 without publicizing its records.
Both groups also filed motions for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to require the commission to comply with the FACA ahead of the July 19 meeting.
EPIC's lawsuit also alleged FACA violations, but focused mainly on privacy issues concerning the commission. EPIC alleged that the commission failed to conduct required privacy impact statements before issuing requests to each state for personal voter data, in violation of the E-Government Act. They've asked the judge to rule that the commission's authority to ask for the data is unlawful and to stop the commission from further data collection.
The DOJ argued that EPIC did not have standing and that the commission was not subject to the law and was not required to make a PIA. The DOJ also said the commission had only asked for information from states that was already publicly available.
Though Kollar-Kotelly was expected to rule in that case last week, EPIC filed an amended complaint Friday after a hearing to add the U.S. Department of Defense as a defendant. The judge has now allowed further briefing on the issue.
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