The RNC Keeps Filing Lawsuits Intended to Prevent Voting. Who’s Paying For These Lawyers?

Hint: As If You Couldn’t Guess

On its website, the Republican National Committee states “To date, in the 2023-2024 Cycle, the RNC’s legal team has engaged in a total of 78 lawsuits in 23 states.”

That’s not exactly true, according to the research group Democracy Docket, which states that “A recent RNC-produced memo obtained by Democracy Docket reveals that the RNC is inflating its involvement in anti-voting lawsuits nationwide. ..Democracy Docket’s own litigation tracker has found the RNC to only be involved in 28 active election-related lawsuits as of (April 1, 2024).”

Among the lawsuits the RNC did engage in are:

• New York, challenging the state’s new mail-in voting law that lets voters send in their ballots by mail during the early voting period.

• Mississippi, where the RNC sued over a law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted so long as they are received within five days of the election

• Arizona, the RNC claims it is involved in a lawsuit defending a state law that requires purging voters from a permanent mail-in ballot list if they haven’t voted in two consecutive elections.

• Nevada, Nevada Voter Roll Maintenance Challenge challenging the state’s maintenance of its voter rolls.

• Michigan, challenging the state’s voter roll maintenance.

In Arizona, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) has filed suit against the Arizona Secretary of State in an attempt to halt the use of ballot drop boxes. As of April 25, the Court granted the Secretary of State’s Motion for Summary Judgment, and that’s the end of that attempt to block early voting in Yavapai County. But that is not the end of the story. Seven lawsuits have been filed in Arizona that attempt to block voting; AFEC has filed 3 of them. And AFEC is also trying to void a measure approved by voters in 2022, which requires public disclosure of the source of funds spent to influence elections. Proposition 211, which passed by a margin of nearly 3-1, is designed to end “Dark Money,” the ability of donors to hide their identity by giving cash to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures through other organizations.

So who is the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC)? And who is their co-plaintiff, the Virginia nonprofit corporation known as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections? And what is their relationship to the Republican National Committee?

Because AFEC is a 501(c)(4) organization, it is not obliged to reveal the names of its donors. Which is probably why they are fighting Proposition 211, requiring public disclosure of Dark Money.

However, in response to a Motion to Intervene in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v Adrian Fontes, Arizona Secretary of State, a lawsuit in which AFEC challenges the state Elections Procedures Manual, Counsel for Plaintiff AFEC is given as Richard P. Lawson and Jessica Steinmann of the America First Policy Institute.

Per Wikipedia , the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) is a nonprofit think tank founded in 2021 to promote former U.S. President Donald Trump's public policy agenda.

So, AFEC’s attorney in challenging Arizona’s election laws is Donald Trump’s shill.

Wikipedia states that “The organization was founded by Brooke Rollins, who serves as president and CEO and was formerly the acting director of the United States Domestic Policy Council under Trump, and Larry Kudlow, who serves as vice chair and formerly served as the Director of the National Economic Council under Trump. Linda McMahon, who formerly served as Administrator of the Small Business Administration under Trump and then as chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC, is the organization's chairperson. Trump's Save America PAC has donated $1 million to the (America First Policy) Institute.”

And who is RITE? According to the research group Monitoring Influence, RITE was founded in 2022 by “disgraced billionaire Steve Wynn, Republican political consultant Karl Rove, and former Trump lawyer Bobby Burchfield.” Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr is on their board of directors. In 2021, Burchfield represented the Republican National Committee and Trump’s reelection campaign in a pre-election legal challenge to North Carolina extending the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots in the 2020 race. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case. Per Monitoring Influence:

RITE primarily spends its time attacking voter accessibility measures. The group is involved in lawsuits in six battleground states seeking to uphold gerrymandering, stop ballot curing, and overturn same-day voter registration laws.

RITE has worked with Leonard Leo’s Honest Election Project to undermine election laws in Arizona.

RITE President and CEO Derek Lyons previously worked for the Judicial Education Project, now known as the 85 Fund. The Honest Elections Project operates as a “fictitious” entity within the 85 Fund. The group launched a $250,0000 ad campaign to oppose mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 election and pushed for voter roll purges in Colorado, Florida, and Michigan based on misleading claims about “bloated voter rolls.”

RITE worked with the Honest Elections Project and Heritage Action in a lawsuit against Arizona election laws.

Democracy Docket has provided a convenient list of the lawsuits challenging voting rights. https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/