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New York, NY – This week, a U.S. District Court judge erroneously decided to allow Mick Mulvaney to remain Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In response, Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos, issued the following statement:

“The court’s erroneous decision to allow President Trump’s unlawful appointment of Mick Mulvaney to continue as acting CFPB Director is a loss for American consumers.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard our Ohio voter purge case, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute. At issue in the case is Ohio’s Supplemental Process, an unjust practice of removing infrequent voters from its registration rolls.

WASHINGTON – Demos and the American Civil Liberties Union presented arguments today to the U.S. Supreme Court in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), a case focusing on Ohio’s practice of purging voters from its registration rolls. The groups argued that the Supplemental Process directly violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

Six other states — Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — have similar practices that target voters for removal from the rolls for not voting, but Ohio’s is the most extreme.  

“The National Voting Rights Act sought to eliminate practices such as Ohio’s that penalize people who exercise their right not to vote,” Stuart Naifeh, senior counsel at the liberal think tank Demos, said in a call with reporters last week.

"None of these voters had become ineligible to vote by reason of a change in residence or otherwise," the voting rights group Demos, representing the A. Philip Randolph Institute, argued in court papers. "Nonetheless, all had been purged from the rolls." [...]

But Stuart Naifeh of Demos says about four in five voters who receive the notices don't send them back. “People don’t look at their mail all that closely,” he says.

“They want the ability to use non-voting to remove people,” Demos senior counsel Stuart Naifeh, who is representing the Ohio challengers, told TPM.  “And in these cases that they’ve brought or threatened to bring, they want counties or states to adopt that as a practice.”

The D.C. Council unanimously backed publicly financed campaigns Tuesday, a move lauded by clean-government advocates in a city long plagued by its association with a pay-to-play culture.[...]

As the Trump Administration takes the unprecedented action of de-legalizing nearly a million residents, a Clean DREAM Act with TPS is urgent—leaders of both parties in Congress must act.

Immediately following oral arguments on the case, the legal team and voting rights advocates will give remarks on the courthouse steps.