Articles Posted in Election Law

The Supreme Court issued an order  yesterday upholding a US Federal District Court decision  that requires, effective immediately, more transparency in the naming of of donors to non-profit groups which run advertisements for or against political candidates. The lawsuit, brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) against the conservative group…

On Monday, September 10, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found a Missouri law that banned donations between political action committees ("PACs") violated the First Amendment. Judge Steven Colloton wrote that the law "limits the donor-PAC's speech and associational rights under the First Amendment." 

A federal district court judge in Illinois has granted preliminary approval to a settlement between State Farm and a class of plaintiffs claiming that the insurance giant created a RICO enterprise to bankroll the election of a judge to the state's high court. Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier was elected in 2004, and in 2005 voted to overturn a $1.05 billion verdict against the insurer stemming from breach of contract claims regarding its alleged use of non-original parts in vehicles damaged in accidents. State Farm will not admit liability through the recently-proposed settlement, but will pay $250 million to class members. 

The North Carolina legislature historically has been dominated by Republicans, but times may be changing in a state known for extremely conservative lawmaking. While the Governor is a Democrat, the Republican supermajority in the legislature has pushed many laws past his veto over the last two years. One of the most notable…

On Friday, September 7, US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied an application to preserve straight-ticket voting on Michigan state ballots. The brief order indicated that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have granted the application. The denial of the application will mean that on the November 6 ballot, voters in Michigan will have to vote individually for numerous partisan offices, in accordance with a law passed by the Republican-majority legislature in 2015. Until today, that law had been stalled in litigation.

With the November elections looming, North Carolina may be required to reorganize its congressional districts. Three federal judges in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the legislature had violated the Constitution by gerrymandering districts to favor Republicans over Democrats, as openly acknowledged by Republican state legislators. The judges…

On Friday, the law firm representing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) served WikiLeaks with a lawsuit via Twitter. Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll set up a Twitter account this month and has so far delivered this single tweet with service of process to WikiLeaks.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Russian Government, numerous top officials in the Trump Campaign, and the WikiLeaks organization. The lawsuit alleges that Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and releasing the information found.

Former Georgia State Bar President and longtime Justia friend and client Kenneth Shigley recently announced that he was running for Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals in the statewide nonpartisan judicial primary on May 22, 2018.

Noted litigator David Boies is coordinating a multi-state effort to challenge the Electoral College in federal court. Led by Boies, several prominent law firms and professors have filed four lawsuits in four different states challenging the voting system as unconstitutional.