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Groups Urge Census Changes to Accurately Count Prison Populations For Redistricting

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Groups Urge Census Changes to Accurately Count Prison Populations For Redistricting

Today, Common Cause and the Prison Policy Initiative urged the U.S. Census Bureau to change how it counts prison populations each decade. The Bureau’s use of differential privacy, the intentional infusion of inaccurate information into population data, creates unnecessary miscounts in data used by state and local officials for redistricting. In a letter to Director Robert L. Santos and other senior officials, the groups emphasized that the populations of correctional facilities are already publicly available and that differential privacy is...

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David Vance

National Media Strategist
dvance@commoncause.org
240-605-8600

Katie Scally

Communications Director
kscally@commoncause.org
408-205-1257

Ariana Marmolejo

Regional Communications Strategist (West)
amarmolejo@commoncause.org

Jennifer Garcia

Regional Communications Strategist (South)
jgarcia@commoncause.org

Kenny Colston

Regional Communications Strategist (Midwest)
kcolston@commoncause.org

Common Cause’s network of national and state democracy reform experts are frequent media commentators. To talk with one of our experts, please reach out to any member of the press team above.

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Associated Press: Exodus of election officials raises concerns of partisanship

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Associated Press: Exodus of election officials raises concerns of partisanship

Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for Common Cause, which advocates for expanded voter access, said that while the statewide positions come with more power, local officials generally have much discretion over how to solve common Election Day issues such as long lines, voter roll problems or trouble with voting machines.

“If you have an elections official who doesn’t want to expand access to the ballot, who finds democracy disturbing to them, they’re not going to fix problems and then they’re going to...

Associated Press: Lawmakers eye more exemptions to target “abuse’” of FOIA

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Associated Press: Lawmakers eye more exemptions to target “abuse’” of FOIA

Claire Snyder-Hall, program director for Common Cause Delaware, a good-government group, said the bill would allow public bodies to deny FOIA requests that they consider “inconvenient or embarrassing.”

“How will ambiguous and expansive words like “unduly burdensome,” “intended to disrupt” and “abusive” be interpreted in practice?” she asked.

“The problem is that the language in the bill is so broad that it could easily be used by corrupt officials to hide information they do not want public...

Daily Beast: State GOPs Can’t Explain Millions In ‘Trump Victory’ Cash

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Daily Beast: State GOPs Can’t Explain Millions In ‘Trump Victory’ Cash

“There are layers of problems here, but the basic question is whether the state parties complied with federal disclosure requirements,” Paul Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at election reform advocacy group Common Cause, told The Daily Beast.

“A ‘knowing and willful’ violation of federal campaign finance law is punishable by a fine of up to 200 percent of any contribution or expenditure involved in such violation,” Ryan said.

There’s another twist: the bank accounts. In April, Axios...

New York Times: Democrats’ Improbable New F.E.C. Strategy: More Deadlock Than Ever

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New York Times: Democrats’ Improbable New F.E.C. Strategy: More Deadlock Than Ever

“All the Republican commissioners need to do is include the magic words ‘prosecutorial discretion’ and a court will then decline to review the action,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president for litigation at Common Cause, who has regularly filed F.E.C. complaints.

Indeed, Republican commissioners recently deployed that exact phrase — twice — in dismissing an investigation into whether Mr. Trump violated election laws with the payment of $130,000 to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her from...

The Guardian: Joe Manchin’s hard no on voting bill leaves Democrats seeking new path

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The Guardian: Joe Manchin’s hard no on voting bill leaves Democrats seeking new path

“Republican intransigence on voting rights is not an excuse for inaction and Senator Manchin must wake up to this fact,” said Karen Hobart Flynn, the president of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, which backs the bill.
“If Senator Manchin thinks there should be more input from Republicans – as there was in last month’s Senate markup, when several Republican amendments were adopted by the committee – you do that by advancing the bill through the legislative process,” Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public...

Fight for Voting Rights Does Not End with Senator Manchin’s Op-Ed

Press Release

Fight for Voting Rights Does Not End with Senator Manchin’s Op-Ed

The fight for voting rights does not end with an op-ed. The For the People Act (S. 1) has overwhelming bipartisan support nationwide and in West Virginia 79% of Senator Manchin’s constituents support the bill – including 76% of registered Republicans. Leader Schumer should advance the bill to a full Floor debate. If Senate Republicans try to filibuster such a motion to proceed to a full Floor debate, Senator Manchin should not join such a filibuster. He should vote to allow the debate to take place on the Floor and not just in the op-ed...

NBC Think (Op-Ed): FEC’s Trump hush money fine is a win for democracy — with a bittersweet aftertaste

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NBC Think (Op-Ed): FEC’s Trump hush money fine is a win for democracy — with a bittersweet aftertaste

Common Cause has always maintained that Trump cheated en route to winning the 2016 election by violating campaign finance laws. Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, was sentenced in 2018 for, in part, orchestrating payments to help to cover up Trump’s alleged affairs. Now the other big player, AMI, has been fined. But to date there’s been no accountability for Trump. Here’s the backstory on Trump’s alleged crimes and why they matter.

The Hill: Court sides with Ted Cruz in campaign finance lawsuit

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The Hill: Court sides with Ted Cruz in campaign finance lawsuit

“With this limit struck down, officeholders can raise money after an election and that money effectively goes straight into their pockets in the form of a loan repayment,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy & litigation at Common Cause. “This is the most potentially corrupting money in all of politics.”

New York Times: 2 Leading Manhattan D.A. Candidates Face the Trump Question

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New York Times: 2 Leading Manhattan D.A. Candidates Face the Trump Question

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group, said in an interview that while Ms. Farhadian Weinstein would not have been required to disclose the meeting publicly in the district attorney’s race, the information was “certainly relevant to the job she’s applying for.”

“It’s information that voters will want to consider, and it’s up to them to decide how this factors into their ultimate choice,” Ms. Lerner said.

The Guardian: Texas Democrats set example by facing down Republican voting rights assault

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The Guardian: Texas Democrats set example by facing down Republican voting rights assault

“I hope it sends a really strong message to Democrats in Congress, especially in the Senate, that these fights are especially important. Democracy is literally at risk and you have to do absolutely everything you possibly can do,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “This wasn’t Democrats shutting down the rules. This was them using every single thing to their advantage, taking a stand to protect voting rights.”

Washington Post: FEC spares Trump but fines tabloid publisher for hush-money payment to ex-Playboy model who claimed affair with him

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Washington Post: FEC spares Trump but fines tabloid publisher for hush-money payment to ex-Playboy model who claimed affair with him

Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause’s vice president for policy and litigation, hailed the news as “a win for democracy.” But he argued that the FEC’s “failure to hold former-President Trump and his campaign accountable for this violation lays bare the dysfunction at the FEC.”

He noted that the decision comes on the heels of a similar decision by the agency to drop an inquiry into whether Trump violated campaign finance laws when Cohen paid adult-film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the days leading up to the 2016...

Reuters: U.S. voter advocates face tough fight despite Texas triumph

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Reuters: U.S. voter advocates face tough fight despite Texas triumph

"The Texas Democratic Party is holding back the levy with a temporary band-aid, but they don’t have the resources to be able to hold it back permanently," said Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for good-government watchdog Common Cause.

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