Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Arthur Gary, General Counsel of the Justice Management Division at the Department of Justice, sent a letter to the Census Bureau requesting the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Then-Secretary of Commerce relied on the Gary Letter to direct the Census Bureau to include a citizenship question on the Census questionnaire.Shortly after the Department of Justice sent the Gary Letter, the Campaign Legal Center filed a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request with the Justice Department seeking documents that would explain how and why the agency came to request the citizenship question. The Department withheld more than 100 pages of responsive documents under FOIA Exemptions 5 and 6. The district court held that some of the Justice Department’s withholdings based on the deliberative process privilege were improper, and ordered the Department to produce those documents.   The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment as to all drafts of the Gary Letter and most of the associated emails. The court remanded the withholding decision regarding the five emails identified above for further consideration. The court held that the Justice Department properly withheld non-final drafts of the letter and that most of the Department’s redactions of associated emails were lawful. The court reasoned that the process of drafting the Gary Letter to request the addition of a citizenship question in a way that protected the Department’s litigation and policy interests involved the exercise of policymaking discretion, and so the letter’s content itself was a relevant final decision for purposes of FOIA’s deliberative process privilege. View "Campaign Legal Center v. DOJ" on Justia Law

Appellants, Campaign Legal Center and Catherine Hinckley Kelley filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission (“Commission” or “FEC”). Appellants contended that the Commission’s decision to dismiss their complaint alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (“Act” or “FECA”) during the 2016 presidential election cycle by the political committee Correct the Record (“CTR”) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign committee, Hillary for America, was contrary to law. CTR and Hillary for America (together, “Intervenors”) intervened as defendants in this suit.The court held that Appellants have standing to sue, reasoning that, “a denial of access to information qualifies as an injury in fact where a statute (on the claimants’ reading) requires that the information be publicly disclosed and there is no reason to doubt their claim that the information would help them.” The court found that the information Appellants seek is not currently known and it cannot be gleaned from the disclosures that have already been made by CTR and Hillary for America. The court stated there is no doubt that disaggregation of the existing disclosures would reveal the amounts of any coordinated contributions. It is also clear that the amounts that CTR contributed to the Clinton campaign constitute factual information that is subject to disclosure under the statute.Appellants have demonstrated a quintessential informational injury directly related to their “interest in knowing how much money a candidate spent in an election.” Thus, the court reversed the district court’s dismissal for lack of standing and remand for further proceedings. View "Campaign Legal Center v. FEC" on Justia Law

About seven weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Republican state legislators, individual voters, and organizations representing voters from Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—all states carried by Joseph R. Biden Jr.—sued to prevent Congress from certifying their states’ electoral results. The district court denied their motion to enjoin the counting of electoral votes, and, after the Senate certified Biden as the winner, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their case. In a post-dismissal order cataloging the suit’s “numerous shortcomings,” the district court referred plaintiffs’ counsel, Kaardal, to the Committee on Grievances for possible discipline. “When any counsel seeks to target processes at the heart of our democracy,” the district court reasoned, “the Committee may well conclude that they are required to act with far more diligence and good faith than existed here.”The D.C. Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The district court’s referral is not a final order. Rather than fixing Kaardal’s rights and liabilities, the challenged order merely initiated disciplinary proceedings. View "Wisconsin Voters Alliance v. Harris" on Justia Law

CREW filed a citizen complaint with the Federal Election Commission against New Models, a now-defunct non-profit entity, alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act’s (FECA) registration and reporting requirements for “political committees,” 52 U.S.C. 30109(a)(1). After an initial investigation, the Commission deadlocked 2–2 on whether to proceed; an affirmative vote of four commissioners is required to initiate enforcement proceedings. With only two votes in favor of an enforcement action against New Models, the Commission dismissed CREW’s complaint. Two Commissioners explained that New Models did not qualify as a “political committee” under FECA but stated they were also declining to proceed with enforcement in an "exercise of ... prosecutorial discretion,” given the age of the activity and the fact that the organization appears no longer active.The district court granted the Commission summary judgment, reasoning that a nonenforcement decision is not subject to judicial review if the Commissioners who voted against enforcement “place[] their judgment squarely on the ground of prosecutorial discretion.” The Commission’s “legal analyses are reviewable only if they are the sole reason for the dismissal of an administrative complaint.” The D.C. Circuit affirmed. While FECA allows a private party to challenge a nonenforcement decision by the Commission if it is “contrary to law,” this decision was based in part on prosecutorial discretion and is not reviewable. View "Citizens for Responsibility v. Federal Election Committee" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging a Federal Election Commission Rule requiring some donations known as independent expenditures (IEs) to be publicly disclosed. In the underlying case, plaintiff brought an enforcement complaint before the Commission alleging that a well-known IE-making entity, Crossroads GPS, had violated the Rule by failing to disclose certain contributors.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's determination agreeing with plaintiffs that the Rule conflicts with the plain terms of the Federal Election Campaign Act's broader disclosure requirements. After addressing various jurisdictional and procedural arguments, the court held that the Rule's requirement that IE makers disclose only those contributions aimed at supporting a specific IE conflicts with FECA's unambiguous terms in two ways: first, the Rule disregards 52 U.S.C. 30104(c)(1)'s requirement that IE makers disclose each donation from contributors who give more than $200, regardless of any connection to IEs eventually made; and second, by requiring disclosure only of donations linked to a particular IE, the Rule impermissibly narrows subsection (c)(2)(C)'s requirement that contributors be identified if their donations are "made for the purpose of furthering an independent expenditure." View "Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the CPD routinely endorses and supports Republican and Democratic nominees at the expense of third-party candidates, and that the CPD uses subjective and biased criteria for selecting debate participants. Specifically, plaintiffs challenged the 15% polling criterion, which the CPD used to determine eligibility for participation in the debates preceding the 2012 Presidential election. Plaintiffs also challenged the Commission's denial of its request to initiate a rulemaking to change its rules to prohibit debate sponsors from using public opinion polls as a criterion for eligibility.Applying de novo review, the DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Commission. The court held that plaintiffs failed to show that the Commission's decisionmaking was arbitrary and capricious where the Commission offered detailed explanations in support of its view that plaintiffs failed to show impermissible bias against independent candidates or in favor of candidates from the two major political parties. The court also held that the Commission acted reasonably in determining that a 15% polling threshold is an objective requirement. Finally, because the court has found that the Commission acted reasonably in reaching its decisions, the court held that the Commission did not err by electing not to initiate a rulemaking. View "Level the Playing Field v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the Commission's dismissal of three administrative complaints alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act's disclosure requirements. After determining that plaintiffs had Article III standing, the court held that the Commission provided a reasonable basis for the dismissals. In this case, the Commission (through the statement of the controlling commissioners) provided a sufficiently reasonable basis for its decision not to investigate plaintiffs' straw donor allegations. Furthermore, the Commission provided a reasonable basis for its decision not to investigate plaintiffs' political committee allegations. View "Campaign Legal Center v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap filed suit seeking access to documents from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The DC Circuit held that, because the emails at issue were neither "similar" to the "examples" of covered documents listed in the December 2017 injunction opinion, nor "substantive disclosures" within the plain meaning of that opinion, they were not among the disclosure obligations imposed by that injunction. Therefore, the court held that the January 2019 order that required their release changed the legal relationship between the parties and hence was immediately appealable.On the merits, the court held that Secretary Dunlap could not clearly and indisputably show that the emails he sought fell within the work of the Commission, and thus the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain his request for their disclosure. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's January 28, 2019 order insofar as it required the release of such emails. View "Dunlap v. Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of the SEC's order approving Rule 2030, which regulates the political contributions of those members of FINRA, prohibiting a placement agent from accepting compensation for soliciting government business from certain candidates and elected officials within two years of having contributed to such an official's electoral campaign or to the transition or inaugural expenses of a successful candidate.The DC Circuit held that NYGOP has standing, but denied its petition on the merits, holding that the SEC acted within its authority in adopting Rule 2030; doing so was not arbitrary and capricious because the SEC had sufficient evidence it was needed; and the Rule does not violate the First Amendment in view of our holding in Blount v. SEC, 61 F.3d 938 (1995), in which the court upheld a functionally identical rule against the same challenge. View "New York Republican State Committee v. SEC" on Justia Law

The LNC filed suit alleging that the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which imposes limits on both donors and recipients of political contributions, violates its First Amendment rights. This case stemmed from a dispute regarding how the LNC can spend the $235,000 Joseph Shaber left to it when he passed away. The LNC argued that FECA violates its First Amendment rights in two ways: first, by imposing any limits on the LNC's ability to accept Shaber's contribution, given that he is dead; and second, by permitting donors to triple the size of their contributions, but only if the recipient party spends the money on specified categories of expenses.The DC Circuit held that the current version of FECA—both its application of contribution limits to Shaber's bequest and its use of a two-tiered contribution limit—has achieved a constitutionally permissible balance. Although the court denied the Commission's motion to dismiss for lack of standing, the court rejected LNC's constitutional challenges on the merits. View "Libertarian National Committee v. FEC" on Justia Law