Prominent Political Party Lawyer Urges Donors to Limit Voting

The Washington Post:

A top Republican legal strategist told a roomful of GOP donors over the weekend that conservatives must band together to limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters

In an audio recording (verified by The Washington Post) of a presentation titled “A Level Playing Field for 2024,” GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell advocated for the above restrictions with justifications essentially calling younger voters lazy. “What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed.”

The Hill highlights another section of the audio recording, in which Mitchell expressed her concern with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race that occurred in the weeks prior.

“Wisconsin is a big problem … because of the polling locations on college campuses,” … “There are 501(c)(3)s. Their goal for the Supreme Court race was to turn out 240,000 college students in that Supreme Court race. And we don’t have anything like that, and we need to figure out how to do that and combat that.”

Who is Cleta Mitchell?

Common Dreams points out that Cleta Mitchell “has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association,” citing information from Monitoring Influence.

Monitoring Influence also notes that Mitchell “served as the co-counsel to the National Rifle Association when the NRA and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) mounted legal challenges against the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act,” an act which limited political campaign contributions. Mitchell has additionally represented a variety of Republican congressional candidates and members of the Tea Party movement, has attempted to overturn same-sex marriage in multiple states, and even participated in the phone call wherein Trump pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 additional votes.

Disregard for Democracy

The presentation which Cleta Mitchell gave to these Republican donors seems to have been steeped in contempt for democracy. Her primary concern appears to be with limiting voting access for Democrats while expanding it for Republicans, rather than simply expanding voter access for all. The language she used, citing more people voting as a “big problem,” is antithetical to the highest values of the United States, especially given that the solution she discussed to “combat that” is to place barriers between U.S. citizens and their ability to vote.