| Formation | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Lawrence Lessig |
| Purpose | Promote citizen equality and reform institutions that currently defeat that equality |
| Location | |
| Methods | Litigation and advocacy |
Executive Director | Adam Eichen |
| Charles Kolb, Celinda Lake, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Painter, Robert Reich | |
| Website | equalcitizens |
Equal Citizens is an American non-profit, non-partisan group that is "dedicated to reforms that will achieve citizen equality".[1] It was founded in late 2016 by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig to continue the effort to bring about the set of reforms he proposed during his 2016 presidential campaign. Notably, as its inaugural campaign, the group launched "Electors Trust" immediately after the 2016 general election. They did this to provide free and strictly confidential legal support to any elector who wished to vote their conscience. Working together with several other groups, such as the Hamilton Electors and celebrities, the campaign resulted in the largest number of "faithless" electoral votes ever cast in a single presidential election.[2]
Equal Citizens has engaged in other high-profile legal cases across the U.S. on topics ranging from altering the campaign finance system with litigation to end super PACs, to amending the presidential election system with litigation that challenges the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College, to expanding vote-by-mail access [3] to young voters.
As of 2021, Equal Citizens is a coalition partner in the Declaration for American Democracy coalition[4] advocating for the passage of the For the People Act, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and D.C. Statehood.
Equal Citizens also hosts the podcast Another Way,[5] hosted by Lawrence Lessig. The podcast is part of the Democracy Group,[6] a network of podcasts organized and funded by The McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State.
In August 2015, Lawrence Lessig announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation and stated that, if elected, he would serve as president with these proposed reforms as legislative priorities. Specifically, the main focus of Lessig's presidency would be to pass the Citizen Equality Act which has three main objectives: (1) Equal right to vote, which includes implementing automatic voter registration and moving voting days to a national holiday; (2) equal representation, achieved through the passage of the Fair Representation Act; and (3) citizen funded elections, or public financing of congressional elections. In November 2015, Lessig ended his presidential campaign, and created Equal Citizens from the campaign infrastructure. Equal Citizens serves as the operational hub for accomplishing the reforms proposed in the Citizen Equality Act.
The group comprises two sister organizations: EqualCitizens.US, a 501(c)(4) organization, and Equal Citizens Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization. EqualCitizens.US carries out grassroots advocacy campaigns, while the Equal Citizens Foundation focuses on educational and litigation projects. Both organizations aim to achieve the same mission of citizen equality.
Lessig is the founder and president of Equal Citizens.
The following individuals serve as the Board of Directors of Equal Citizens Foundation:
Charles Kolb (2018–present), President and CEO of DisruptDC
Celinda Lake (2018–present), President of Lake Research Partners
Lawrence Lessig (2018–present), Professor at Harvard Law School
Richard Painter (2018–present), Law Professor at the University of Minnesota, US Senate Candidate
Robert Reich (2018–present), Professor at UC Berkeley, former US Secretary of Labor
Funding for Equal Citizens comes from small-dollar online donations and grants from philanthropic foundations. Equal Citizens does not accept funds from governments, intergovernmental organizations, political parties, or corporations.
In September 2017, Equal Citizens launched a 30-day crowdfunding campaign to fund their litigation to challenge winner-take-all in the Electoral College. In those 30 days, over 35,000 people signed up, over 5,000 people donated, and the crowdfunding goal of $250,000 was met several days before the deadline.[7]
Equal Citizens' mission is to "end the corruption of our representative democracy by restoring the core promise of citizen equality in our Constitution".
The group has three main issue areas:[8]
In 2017, Equal Citizens launched three high-profile litigation projects that sought to reform the Electoral College and campaign finance. Two of the litigation projects have concluded, while one is currently being processed in the federal court system.
Equal Votes was a legal challenge to the constitutionality of a state's ability to allocate their electoral votes in a winner-take-all basis.[9] Lessig argued that based on the "one person, one vote" principle already articulated by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, the winner-take-all system is unconstitutional—it is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause that ensures all votes must be treated equally under the law.[10] By allocating their Electoral College votes according to winner-take-all, Equal Citizens believes states effectively discard the votes of United States citizens in the vote for president.
The Equal Votes litigation team is led by Bush v. Gore lawyer David Boies and includes attorneys from distinguished law firms across the country such as Alston & Bird and Steptoe & Johnson. The litigation strategy advisory team includes former White House chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter, and legal scholars Samuel Issacharoff and Guy-Uriel Charles.
In September 2017, Equal Citizens launched a 30-day crowdfunding campaign to raise $250,000 to fund the beginning stages of the Equal Votes project, and succeeded in meeting the funding goal before the deadline.[11] During the campaign, the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner volunteered to lead the litigation pro bono.[12]
On February 21, 2018, under the leadership of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, the litigation team filed four lawsuits in four states—California, Texas, Massachusetts, and South Carolina—on behalf of a diverse group of Democrats and Republicans whose votes for president do not matter in the general election under the winner-take-all system. All four cases raised constitutional claims grounded in the 14th and 1st Amendments. In addition, the suits in Texas and South Carolina claimed the present system violates the Voting Rights Act by disenfranchising minority voters.[13] Lessig said that he hoped one of the four cases will get to the Supreme Court "before too far into the 2020 presidential cycle".[14] The Supreme Court denied[15] certiorari on the Equal Vote cases in 2021.
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Further information: Chiafalo v. Washington |
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See also: Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election |
In the 2016 United States presidential election, ten electors voted or attempted to vote contrary to their pledges in the Electoral College. In Washington state, three electors were each fined $1,000 for their vote, and in Colorado, one elector was removed and two others were threatened for breaking their pledge. In 2017, Equal Citizens filed the case Baca v. Colorado Department of State[16] on behalf of three electors in Colorado and Guerra v. Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings[17] on behalf of the three electors who were fined by Washington State.
In explaining the litigation, Equal Citizens' chief counsel Jason Harrow argued that "the framers of the Constitution intended presidential electors to be able to exercise independent judgment in casting their votes for president of the United States".[18] In March 2017, an administrative law judge rejected the arguments of the Washington plaintiffs. Thurston County Superior Court Judge Carol Murphy later denied their claim in December 2017.[19] After the ruling, Harrow said that Murphy's decision did not affect Equal Citizens' goal of eventually taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.[20] The Washington Supreme Court later upheld the fines. In April 2018, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Wiley Y. Daniel rejected the Colorado plaintiffs' case, declaring that they lacked standing.[21][22] Equal Citizens appealed the judge's decision,[23] and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled 2–1 in favor of the electors, finding that Colorado's faithless elector law is unconstitutional.[24] The Washington electors further appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, while Colorado also appealed the decision of the Tenth Circuit. On January 17, 2020, the Supreme Court agreed to hear both cases during the 2019–2020 term.[25] On July 6, 2020, the Court ruled unanimously against the electors, deciding that states have the power to force electors to follow the state's popular vote.[26][27] Lessig said following the decision:[28]
When we launched these cases, we did it because regardless of the outcome, it was critical to resolve this question before it created a constitutional crisis. We have achieved that. Obviously, we don't believe the Court has interpreted the constitution correctly. But we are happy that we have achieved our primary objective—this uncertainty has been removed. That is progress.
Alaskan law limits contributions to independent political groups.[29] But these limits are no longer enforced because of a federal court decision, SpeechNOW.org v. FEC. Alaska, however, permits residents to file a lawsuit if the state election management body, the Alaska Public Offices Commission, is not enforcing its election law. Under these rules, on January 31, 2018, Equal Citizens brought a complaint on behalf of three Alaska citizens, including James Barnett, a former Anchorage municipal politician, claiming the Alaska Public Offices Commission did not enforce the law by letting two Alaskan super PACs accept contributions greater than the amount stipulated by Alaska law.[30] The two super PACs involved are Interior Voters for John Coghill, an outside group that supported the election of Republican state Senate majority leader John Coghill, and Working Families of Alaska.[31] The goal is to relitigate the federal court decision SpeechNOW.org v. FEC that created the legal entity of super PACs.[32]
The case is currently at the Alaska Supreme Court, where it was argued in January 2021.[33]
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig, Mark Lemley, and Michael Hawley established The Electors Trust with the backing of Equal Citizens, to provide pro bono legal counsel and a secure, anonymous communications platform for the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who could potentially become faithless electors to prevent the election of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.[34][35] The goal of the organization was also to help electors determine whether there was sufficient support to prevent Donald Trump's election.[36] In December 2016, Lessig claimed that there were between 20 and 30 Republican electors considering voting against Trump.[37]
The Electors Trust offered counsel through California law firm Durie Tangri.[38] On December 15, 2016, Lessig told reporters that The Electors Trust had spent $20,000 for security for its lawyers due to threats from Trump supporters.[39]
Lessig and The Electors Trust represented Christopher Suprun, an elector from Texas, who announced he would vote against Donald Trump regardless of how his state voted.[40]
Working together with several other groups such as the Hamilton Electors as well as celebrities, the campaign resulted in seven "faithless" electoral votes, the most ever cast in a single presidential election.[2] However, five of these seven faithless electors defected from voting for Hillary Clinton, while two of these seven faithless electors were pledged for Trump. This meant that the campaign fell 35 faithless Trump electors short of the 37 needed to potentially change the outcome.
In June 2018, Equal Citizens launched an advocacy campaign partnered with Demand Progress, the EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Internet Archive to pressure Congress to change provisions in the Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society Act (The CLASSICS Act).[41] Their main demand, articulated in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, was to add a registration requirement to any copyright extension, so as to allow unregistered works to pass into the public domain.[42]
In May 2018, Equal Citizens, in partnership with musician Bassnectar and the electronic music festival Electric Forest, launched the Creative Democracy Contest, in which online users could enter art depicting facts about American democracy for prizes.[43] Judges for the contest included Lawrence Lessig, actress Bridgit Mendler, and artist Sebastian Wahl.[44]