Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn will testify before the House Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on the “Constitutional Means to Prevent Abuse of the Clemency Power.” Her full written testimony was submitted to the Subcommittee in advance of the hearing. Other witnesses include Georgetown University Law Professor Caroline Fredrickson and historian Timothy Naftali of New York University.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the House Republican Conference had a simple choice. They could side with democracy and common decency, or they could embrace racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant, hate, violence, and the untethered conspiracy theories spewed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). McCarthy and his cohorts should have been voting to expel Rep. Greene from Congress altogether, but instead they refused to even strip her of her committee assignments as the conference once did with former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for similar reprehensible behavior.

Minority Leader McConnell’s (R-KY) decision to hold up the Senate’s organizing resolution over the filibuster rule was a trial balloon that failed. Americans voted for change and they expect the new President and the new Congress to address the pressing health, financial, structural racism, climate, and democracy crises facing our nation. McConnell, a fierce architect of obstruction throughout his tenure in Congress, has signaled his plans for the 117th Congress: Delay, deny, and distort the Majority’s right to set the chamber’s agenda at every turn. We have seen this before when McConnell spent six years abusing the filibuster at unprecedented levels during the Obama administration. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

“President Biden has appointed Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as Interim Chair of the Federal Communications Commission.  She is ideal for the job.  I know, because we worked together when she led my staff while I was a commissioner there.  She knows the FCC from the bottom up and she understands how to make good things happen there.  She was called from my staff to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, where she was responsible for telecom and media policy.  Then she was appointed a commissioner at the FCC and has demonstrated a mastery of the issues that has been seldom matched.  Whether it’s bringing broadband to every home in America, encouraging internet availability for our schools, making wise decisions for the utilization of spectrum, contesting telecom and media monopolies, battling mis- and dis- information, she has a combination of vision and practicality that make her perfect for the chairmanship.  She is a true advocate of the public interest.  Congratulations, Jessica.”

Today, our country is headed in a different direction – and we welcome the change.  Today, the nation under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris charted a new course of aspiration and hope for every American regardless of the color of their skin or who they voted for on Election Day. We have turned away from a wayward course that undermined our democratic norms, truth, values, institutions, and the rule of law.

The nation deserved far better than Donald Trump in the White House these last four, very long years. In his final day as President, Donald Trump only continued to show his disregard for our democratic process. Overnight, he pardoned a laundry list of corrupt and convicted politicians, political fundraisers, and rich private citizens, along with still more of his inner circle. The number of Trump’s close political advisers who have been pardoned is staggering. They all join the parade of disgraced Americans and war criminals who were earlier pardoned by President Trump.