The acting House Oversight Committee chair will be Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York City Democrat. It was unclear whether she will continue in that role, as others are expected to vie for the job.
“There’s no clear ascendant” to the oversight chair, said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs at Common Cause.

"The charges of conspiracy to funnel foreign dollars into U.S. elections against Florida businessmen Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman paint a troubling picture of the free flow of foreign money into our elections due to insufficient safeguards and lax enforcement," Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation for Common Cause, another watchdog group, said in a statement. "[Thursday's] indictments, though, likely represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of foreign meddling. Both men were also heavily involved in the efforts by the...

“It’s extremely troubling,” said Beth Rotman of Common Cause, a group that filed complaints Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice complaints about the Parnas and Fruman donations. “The money should absolutely be returned. It shows a really problematic appearance of a conflict [of interest].”

Karen Hobert Flynn, the president of the activist group Common Cause, says McConnell’s decision to support funding is a “step in the right direction”, but that the funding “still falls far short” of what is needed to solve the problem.
“Election systems across the country have been breached by Russian intelligence assets and those attacks continue to this day,” she adds.
“These attacks and those of other hostile foreign powers will continue to ramp up as we approach the 2020 elections, and cash-strapped local...

As the Campus Outreach Coordinator for Common Cause North Carolina, an organization dedicated to fighting for voting access while also championing political reforms for fairer elections, 30-year-old Alyssa Canty, a recipient of the 2019 MTV Leaders for Change grant, is currently empowering students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in North Carolina to stay informed and participate in local, state, and presidential elections. She is gearing up to take on a new role with Common Cause National, where she will work with...

“This is part of a very clear strategy by the Texas GOP to keep the demographic changes we’re seeing in Texas from being reflected at the ballot box,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas branch of the government watchdog group Common Cause. “This is one of the ways they could use a third-party candidacy to knock off a percentage point or two from a Democrat, allowing Republicans to retain power for a bit longer than maybe they otherwise would have.”

Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, said that far more is needed to secure the election system.
"Providing $250 million in additional election security funding is like asking an army to go fight a war with horses and bayonets," Scherb said.
The House passed a bill that would give states nearly three times more — $600 million.

“Andrew Yang’s use of campaign funds to give ‘freedom dividends’ to supporters would push the boundaries of, and perhaps break, campaign finance law,” said Paul Seamus Ryan, a vice president at Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that promotes government accountability. “This unprecedented use of campaign funds would give rise to a bunch of novel legal questions.”

Lawyers for Common Cause, which won the recent lawsuit forcing this new redistricting session, say Senate Republicans violated a court order by ordering members of the media and the public to stay out of the area where senators and staff are drawing maps. “As a result of Sen. Hise’s order removing citizens and journalists from the map-drawing area, members of the committee were sitting at computers and amending maps without the public able to know how or why legislators were making changes to proposed districts,” Common Cause deputy...