Lawsuit Says Commission Has Violated Federal Law
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and their election fraud commission in U.S. District Court. In its Monday filing, the ACLU is alleging the commission had violated federal public access requirements by holding its first meeting in private, without public notice.
The civil rights group, technically the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, is arguing that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, (FACA) (Pub.L. 92–463, 86 Stat. 770,) a 1972 federal statue, which governs the behavior of all federal advisory committees including presidential commissions. In particular, it has special emphasis on open meetings, chartering, public involvement, and reporting. which requires all advisory committee meetings to be open to the public and timely noticed in the Federal Register. Â
According to the ACLU’s suit, the commission chairman, Vice President Pence, had conducted its first meeting via a 90-minute telephone conference with members on June 28. The ACLU is also alleging that the second meeting of the commission is now scheduled to take place in a building generally inaccessible to the public, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building within the White House complex, and none of the documents already relied upon by the Commission have been made available to the public. Both actions are in violation of FACA’s explicit rules governing these official bodies according to the ACLU.Â
The ACLU also notes that the Vice Chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, had told members the commission was sending a letter to the 50 states and the District of Columbia requesting information on registered voters, including full names and addresses, political party registration and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
According to press reports, as many as 44 states and the District of Columbia have so far refused to turn over the requested information, in some cases responding to the request in an angry fashion.
In an interview last week with The Hill, Susan Dudley, a former administrator with the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) under President George W. Bush, said that Trump’s voter fraud commission may have violated the law by ignoring federal requirements governing requests for information from states. Dudley noted that the commission’s failure to submit its request to states on their voter registration rolls through OIRA violates a 1980 law known as the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). Other experts agreed with Dudley’s assessment and noted that failure could be significant, since states could argue it means they are under no obligation to respond.
“If the commission gets heavy-handed with them, it seems to me that the states are within their right to say, ‘No, we don’t have to respond because you didn’t go through [OIRA],’†Dudley told The Hill.
The suit also notes that under FACA guidelines, the commission must be balanced, which the ACLU notes is not the case, as its membership is primarily comprised of persons who have previously endorsed President Trump’s public and unproven claims of voter fraud coupled with the fact that no provisions have been instituted to insulate the commission’s advice and recommendations from the president’s influence.
In addition to the ACLU suit, the Washington Post has reported the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center has also filed a lawsuit to block the commission from collecting state voter records from across the country.
The group claims the government should have assessed privacy concerns before making the request, should be using a secured website to receive the information and should not make public partial Social Security numbers.
Brody Levesque is the Chief Political Correspondent for The New Civil Rights Movement.
You may contact Brody at Brody.Levesque@thenewcivilrightsmovement.com
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