Kramer Levin played a leading role in winning a federal injunction barring Florida from enforcing a new state law that had forced non-partisan groups to stop registering voters. Judge Patricia Seitz of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida enjoined the enforcement of the Florida voter registration law in August 2006, finding that the law unconstitutionally violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment speech and associational rights of plaintiffs League of Women Voters and other non-profit organizations and individuals. The ruling — the first by a federal court to find the First Amendment violated by a voter registration restriction — cleared the way for the immediate resumption of registration efforts in anticipation of the November 2006 elections.

Kramer Levin teamed up with two public interest law firms, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and the Advancement Project, to launch the lawsuit, League of Women Voters of Florida v. Cobb (Case 06-21265-CIV-Jordan). During the 2004 presidential election, it is estimated that third-party groups like plaintiff League of Women Voters registered more than 500,000 new voters in Florida, but the new law forced many of these groups, including the League, to suspend their registration drives by imposing potentially ruinous strict liability fines.

Following a two-day hearing at which associates Craig Siegel and Erin Walter took the lead for plaintiffs, Judge Seitz found that the state has "not provided any evidence much less an explanation for the necessity" for the burdensome provisions that halted plaintiffs' registration of voters in Florida, including "heavy fines" and "the imposition of joint and several liability on volunteers [and] their organizations." The Court further held that the Florida law's exemption of political parties from its definition of third party voter registration organizations is "based on...unjustified underinclusiveness and Defendants' failure to identify any relevant, real world differences between political parties and non-partisan groups" with respect to voter registration and also "discriminates against third party organizations based upon their non-association with political parties."

The Kramer Levin team, led by partner Eric Tirschwell and Craig, also included associates David Landman and Emily Groendyke, and paralegal Sandra Wong. Partner Jeff Trachtman assisted at the preliminary injunction hearing. Then-summer associates Pamela Swidler, Kathleen Pirozzolo, Amelia Martella, Joseph Shifer, and Abdul-Rahman Lediju also assisted on the matter.

Home: Pro Bono Annual Report