“There’s a lot that’s just not being said,” said Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a nonpartisan group that focuses on government accountability. “When we talk about politics getting ugly, I think redistricting is at the center of all of it.” ...

Common Cause’s Antoine said redistricting presents a bad look for the state.

“Voters have no reason to trust the redistricting process. The process is riddled with problems,” she said. “We continue to punt to this idea of a...

“It’s really outrageous on a number of fronts,” said Beth Rotman, money in politics and ethics program director at Common Cause, a national group that promotes government accountability.

“This ethics agency has a job to do for everyday Americans,” Rotman said. “They have a job to do for we the people who have these laws in place, and they have a job to do and if there has been any potential issue they need to investigate, they need to be able to start to do their jobs and go forward with this without potential...

Common Cause Florida, FairDistricts Now and five individual voters filed a motion late Tuesday asking 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Allen Winsor to recuse himself from the lawsuit the groups filed March 11, asking the federal court to set the new congressional districts.

Winsor, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, is one of three judges named by Chief Judge William Pryor to a panel to handle the case. Also on the panel is U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, a George W. Bush...

“At the heart of the map that the governor is pushing, is to dismantle a district that has given Black communities in northern Florida the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The governor’s actions are an effort to bully the Legislature or the courts into adopting a map that takes away people’s voting rights and is unconstitutional,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for Common Cause, a nonpartisan pro-democracy watchdog group.

“Florida voters overwhelmingly adopted some of the...

"Texas was already the hardest state to vote in before Republicans passed these laws that made it even harder," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, in a statement to Salon. "What we're seeing today is a small preview of what we can expect to see at a far wider scale in November unless the federal government finally takes real action to intervene."

Gutierrez said the Texas secretary of state's office was repeatedly told about the potential for these problems when the voting-restriction bill was...

“The winner is chosen in the primary and the primary draws, for lack of a better way of saying it, the most extreme and emotional voters,” said Bob Phillips, who leads the redistricting reform group Common Cause NC.

He said he’s heard state legislators on both sides of the aisle complain that their party’s leaders instruct them not to even mingle with the other side when they’re in Raleigh, let alone vote with them.

“We’ve seen it in Raleigh and seen it in Washington,” he said. “Folks that come...

The Paid Jailer report suggests that industry donations to sheriffs are not only likely damaging to justice and democracy but also incredibly common. Construction companies contribute tens of thousands of dollars and then go on to build bigger jails. Legal firms fund races and end up representing the sheriff’s office in misconduct cases. Our research uncovered more than $6 million in contributions from donors with potential ethical conflicts. More than 40 percent of contributions to sheriffs we studied came from conflicted donors whose...

"The current process right now will not even inform the public that anything is happening one way or the other," Heather Ferguson, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico.

She said the process is "completely behind closed doors and out of public view. That does not instill trust in the public in the process itself."

Nor will it encourage others who may have similar complaints against lawmakers to come forward, Ferguson added.

Voters should prepare in advance if they want to cast an absentee ballot this year, said Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a government accountability organization.

“Start the process early to be as prepared as possible so you don’t have to face hurdles that may come,” Dennis said. “We don’t know just yet what the impact is going to be until we actually have the primary.”

"Anytime you add a step to the process ... you lose voters who are making a good-faith effort to cast their ballot," said Katya Ehresman, the grassroots organizer for Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan group that advocates for government reform.