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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...

Media Contacts

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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The Plain Dealer: High-stakes Ohio Supreme Court races could influence abortion rights, redistricting in the state

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The Plain Dealer: High-stakes Ohio Supreme Court races could influence abortion rights, redistricting in the state

The courts should be above partisan politics, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good government group. Voters shouldn’t assume that a Republican majority will mean that big business will always win or that a Democratic majority will favor labor unions.

“At the end of the day we want these courts to be independent and impartial and not be caught up in partisan elections,” she said. “And now we have the party labels, so that makes it different.”

Since Brunner and Kennedy are...

Washington Post: You thought the Supreme Court’s last term was bad? Brace yourself.

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Washington Post: You thought the Supreme Court’s last term was bad? Brace yourself.

Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, representing Common Cause in the case, told the court the opponents’ arguments “hang on a hyper-literal reading of the word ‘Legislature’ that ignores that word’s context, constitutional structure, and precedent,” adding, “the original understanding of ‘Legislature’ … contemplated a governing body defined and bounded by state constitutional limits.” It’s hard to have much confidence that such originalist arguments will persuade the court’s self-described originalists.

New York Post: Failed New York panel gets second chance to redraw Assembly lines

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New York Post: Failed New York panel gets second chance to redraw Assembly lines

“We’ve seen this movie before. We know how it ends. Skip to appointment of special master who is familiar with New York immediately and stop wasting New Yorkers time and money with a useless bipartisan commission that defaults to the Legislature,” Susan Lerner, executive director of the good government group Common Cause New York, said in a statement.

Newsweek: Clarence Thomas Failing to Note Wife Ginni’s $680k Side Income Resurfaces

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Newsweek: Clarence Thomas Failing to Note Wife Ginni’s $680k Side Income Resurfaces

Law professor Michele Goodwin shared the 2011 article from The Los Angeles Times on Twitter on Monday and tagged Common Cause, the watchdog group that initially reported on Thomas' failure to disclose his wife's income from the Heritage Foundation.

Retweeting Goodwin, Common Cause wrote: "We reviewed Justice Thomas' financial disclosure filings years ago and found that he failed to disclose his wife's income ($686,589) from the Heritage Foundation. We'll keep calling out Ginni Thomas until we have an ethical Supreme Court."

Insider: Nancy Pelosi’s congressional stock trading ban has a massive blind trust loophole and is too broad, ethics experts warn

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Insider: Nancy Pelosi’s congressional stock trading ban has a massive blind trust loophole and is too broad, ethics experts warn

Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, generally praised the legislation as strong, if imperfect, particularly in its proposed increases in penalties for violating the law.

"It would go a long way to give more than just a slap on the wrist to people who don't comply with the STOCK Act, which should really help compliance overall," Scherb said.

He also said he's glad the bill strengthens rules for all branches of the government, not just Congress, and that he's not concerned that it...

Columbia Journalism Review: The social-media platforms, the “Big Lie,” and the coming elections

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Columbia Journalism Review: The social-media platforms, the “Big Lie,” and the coming elections

“The ‘big lie’ has become embedded in our political discourse, and it’s become a talking point for election-deniers to preemptively declare that the midterm elections are going to be stolen or filled with voter fraud,” Yosef Getachew, a media and democracy program director at Common Cause, a government watchdog, told the Post in August. “What we’ve seen is that Facebook and Twitter aren’t really doing the best job, or any job, in terms of removing and combating disinformation that’s around the ‘big lie.’”

Miami Herald/McClatchy: Republicans block probe of contributions by Chinese elites to Trump PAC through spa operator

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Miami Herald/McClatchy: Republicans block probe of contributions by Chinese elites to Trump PAC through spa operator

Complaints against Li “Cindy” Yang, who raised campaign cash and parlayed persistence to gain access to Republican circles in Florida and get pictures taken with the then-president, were filed by Common Cause, a Washington-based watchdog group, and the Campaign Legal Center. The dismissal of those complaints came three years after the Miami Herald first revealed Yang’s activities in a series of articles titled Trump Tourism.

NPR (AUDIO): In many states, there’s a process to fix an error with your ballot

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NPR (AUDIO): In many states, there’s a process to fix an error with your ballot

Voters make mistakes. Oftentimes ballots don't get returned by the deadline required by the state. But Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, says many voters also get tripped by requirements on a mail ballot.

Depending on where you live, your state might require you to provide a signature that matches one on file, voter ID information such as a driver's license, or a date.

She says all these "little checks" are opportunities for human error.

Plus, Albert says, voting...

Charlotte Observer: NC case at Supreme Court ‘should keep every American up at night,’ ex-AG Eric Holder says

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Charlotte Observer: NC case at Supreme Court ‘should keep every American up at night,’ ex-AG Eric Holder says

Bob Phillips, director of Common Cause North Carolina, said court oversight is important. He noted that every election here in the last decade was held using Republican-drawn maps that were later ruled unconstitutional, for either racial or partisan gerrymandering.

“We feel strongly that the state courts should not be taken out of the equation,” Phillips said in a media briefing this month.

His briefing, as well as Holder’s, focused mostly on turning the national media’s attention toward the North Carolina...

Star Tribune: ‘Rigged’ election defines GOP hopeful

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Star Tribune: ‘Rigged’ election defines GOP hopeful

"Where we take issue is when any candidate utilizes information they know is false, data they know is suspect at best, to try and move a particular policy agenda that they know is in no way, shape or form doing anything to improve access to the ballot," said Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, a nonpartisan voting rights group that typically doesn't weigh in on specific races.

In August, Common Cause Minnesota issued a statement rebuking Crockett for comments she made during a radio...

Associated Press: Democratic proposal would not allow noncitizens to vote in elections

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Associated Press: Democratic proposal would not allow noncitizens to vote in elections

Aaron Scherb, legislative affairs director at Common Cause, a government watchdog group that backed the Democratic bill, dismissed the amendment effort as a “pure ‘gotcha’ moment” by Republicans.

“It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, which House Judiciary Republicans all know,” he said via email.

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