Abuse of Power

Common Cause is pleased to announce that two Common Cause veterans have stepped into the role of vice president at the government watchdog. Longtime Common Cause leader Kathay Feng will step into the role of Vice President for Programs and Stephen Spaulding is returning to Common Cause from his role as Policy Director of the U.S. Senate Rules Committee and will serve as Vice President for Policy & External Affairs. Together the two will help lead Common Cause’s national efforts to reduce barriers to a more representative democracy. They will also support efforts for the organization’s 30 state operations working to create a 21st Century democracy that works for everyone.

“We saw that it has a lot more restrictions on third-party voter registration organizations," said Amy Keith, program director for Common Cause Florida, an organization that works to ensure fair and free elections. "When you put more rules, when you put more fines, you restrict their work." "When you restrict a small community organization, and you put more of a burden on them, they don't have the ability to comply," Keith said.

“Attorney General Morrisey should know better,” Aaron Scherb, senior legislative affairs director at Common Cause, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group, said in a phone interview. Common Cause filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission against Trump in 2018 alleging a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic actress known as Stormy Daniels, was an unreported in-kind contribution to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign committee in violation of federal law. “[T]he former president deserves the same treatment as any American,” Scherb said. Scherb argued that some Republican elected officials attacking Trump’s indictment are pandering for his support with their eyes on higher office.

Common Cause’s senior director of legislative affairs, Aaron Scherb, said it would be reasonable for U.S. lawmakers to have Thomas testify as to “why he didn’t put any of these trips on his personal financial-disclosure forms.” Scherb said that move could come from the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. Durbin said on Thursday that his committee “will act” to respond to the ProPublica report. Scherb also described the lack of disclosure by Thomas as “extremely serious.” “Having a billionaire Republican donor wining and dining a Supreme Court justice through use of a private jet, luxury stays at his vacation retreat — not just one or two times but over the course of 20 years — and not have [the] Supreme Court justice disclose any of this, as he’s required to on personal financial-disclosure forms, is a huge scandal,” the Common Cause expert said.

At the height of the Watergate crisis, the Department of Justice determined that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.” That policy has not changed, but that is not the policy for candidates for the nation’s highest office. Running for president cannot and must not serve as a shield to allow criminal conduct to go unpunished.

Sailor Jones, associate director of Common Cause North Carolina, alluded to those setbacks in addressing the audience. “This time, my friends, the courts will not save us,” Jones said. “Who will?”