The Republican National Lawyers Association — which received an influx of money ahead of the 2010 elections and calls their efforts ahead of the midterms “unprecedented” — is holding events this year in states across the country where lawyers can receive Continuing Legal Education credits for attending seminars on election law led by their experts, at least some of whom are professional politicians.
Back in 2008, the RNLA was also doing anti-voter-fraud seminars featuring a mix of politicians and legal experts. Their National Summer Election Law Seminar that year featured some big headline political speakers from the right of the aisle at an event where lawyers were also able to get CLE credits.
According to a reposted line-up, speakers included Rep. Roy Blunt, the then- Republican Whip; former Sen. John Ashcroft, who had also been the U.S. Attorney General; Trevor Potter, who was John McCain 2008 general counsel and a former chair of the Federal Election Commission; and John Fund of the Wall Street Journal.
The line up also included Mark Braden, who was a lawyer with the Ohio Elections Commission, the Secretary of State in Ohio and Republican National Committee before going into private practice. His specialty is redistricting law.
The agenda of the Missouri seminar included “How To” classes taught by “National Election Law Experts” and “state-specific Election Law Breakout Sessions with leading state Republican lawyers.” The seminars ran on Aug. 8 and 9 at the Ritz-Carlton in St. Louis, Missouri.
The GOP-affiliated RNLA group has raised the threat of voter fraud from groups like ACORN, but says on their website that the “utmost care is taken to provide instruction that stresses the protection of the constitutional right to vote and avoids any activity that would limit or discourage the right of anyone to cast a legal vote, including racial minorities.”
The classes were no small potatoes for the lawyers attending.
The annual CLE Seminar is a professionally-taught school for attorneys who wish to receive basic or advanced election law training. You can earn up to 10 CLE credit hours, including 1 Hour of Ethics.
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