Lobbying Spend Reduced For Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Why It Matters

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is one of the country's most prominent civil rights coalitions, coordinating advocacy across more than 240 member organizations. Its lobbying activity reflects the broader policy environment facing civil rights advocates, including executive actions affecting diversity and inclusion programs, immigration enforcement, and federal agency oversight. But the absence of disclosed issue areas in this quarter's lobbying activity report makes it difficult to assess what specific legislative priorities the organization is currently pursuing.

The Big Picture

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights filed a lobbying disclosure for the first quarter of 2026, reporting $240,000 in in-house lobbying activity. The filing lists six lobbyists but discloses no specific issues or legislation, a notable departure from prior quarters when the organization detailed an extensive agenda spanning civil rights, immigration, housing, and federal budget policy.

By the Numbers

The first quarter of 2026 in-house filing reports $240,000 in lobbying expenditures. That figure is down sharply from prior quarters. The organization's in-house filings reported $660,000 in the first quarter of 2025, $470,000 in the second quarter, $530,000 in the third quarter, and $170,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025.

This is one of two lobbying disclosures filed for the Leadership Conference this quarter. NVG LLC, an outside lobbying firm that has worked for the organization across multiple quarters, filed a separate first quarter 2026 report disclosing $60,000 in activity focused on civil rights and the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for 2026.

The Leadership Conference terminated its relationship with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in the third quarter of 2025. That firm had been lobbying on issues related to funding and accuracy of the 2030 Census.

The in-house lobbying team on this filing includes six lobbyists: Maya Wiley, Rahul S. Randhava, Meeta Anand, Frank Torres III, Jonathan Walter, and one unnamed lobbyist. That is a reduced team compared to prior quarters, when the in-house lobbying roster included as many as 15 lobbyists. Wiley, Randhava, Anand, Torres, and Walter have each appeared across multiple filings for the organization over the past two years.

Randhava has a confirmed prior congressional staff record, having served as a legislative assistant to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) during the 106th Congress.

The Agenda

The first quarter 2026 lobbying disclosure lists no specific issues lobbied and references no legislation.

In prior quarters, the organization's federal lobbying filings covered an extensive range of issues. The fourth quarter 2025 in-house filing identified priorities including opposition to the Department of Education's removal of "Significant Disproportionality" data collection under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, oversight of data sharing between ICE and the IRS, support for the Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act, rulemaking on disparate impact under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, fair housing enforcement funding, and Census Bureau appropriations.

The third quarter 2025 in-house filing disclosed lobbying on H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Medicaid protections, immigration enforcement policy, AI procurement oversight, cuts to HHS and SNAP, and S.Res. 240, a resolution affirming diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as fundamental American values.

Given the blank disclosure, it is not possible to confirm what the organization is lobbying on this quarter. Based on its recent history, issues such as civil rights enforcement, federal budget policy, and immigration could be among the areas of continued focus, but that is not confirmed by this filing.

Broader Context

The Leadership Conference has been publicly active in the weeks surrounding this filing. On April 21, 2026, one day before the filing was signed, Maya Wiley issued a public statement condemning what she described as legal intimidation against civil rights coalition members, specifically in response to actions targeting the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The organization has also been engaged on birthright citizenship. In April 2026, the Leadership Conference and 45 co-signing organizations issued a formal statement opposing what they described as efforts to undermine birthright citizenship in the United States, in response to Executive Order No. 14,160 signed in January 2025. That order has since reached the Supreme Court.

On Census issues, the organization has urged Congress to protect the 2026 Census Test, a preparatory step for the 2030 Census, citing concerns about the Census Bureau's capacity to conduct the test.

The organization was also mentioned in a September 2025 congressional hearing on oversight of the District of Columbia, where Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton entered into the record a letter from 150 groups led by the Leadership Conference in support of D.C. voting rights and statehood. Norton has been a long-standing advocate for H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which has appeared in prior Leadership Conference lobbying filings.

Congressional members have also been active on issues aligned with the organization's mission. Senator Raphael Warnock reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in July 2025. Representative Brad Sherman and House Democrats reintroduced the Equality Act in April 2025. Senator Cory Booker issued a statement in December 2025 raising concerns about the direction of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

The Bottom Line

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights remains an active lobbying presence in Washington, with a multi-year track record of in-house and outside federal lobbying filings covering a wide range of civil rights priorities. The first quarter 2026 in-house disclosure reflects a reduced spend and a smaller lobbying team compared to prior quarters, and it discloses no specific issues or legislation. Whether that reflects a strategic shift, a timing issue in the filing, or a change in approach is not clear from the disclosure alone.

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