Abuse of Power

It would be dangerously irresponsible for the social media platforms to restore Donald Trump’s accounts and risk the further spread of disinformation, hate speech, and the potential for real-world violence. The former president proved himself a clear and present danger on social media on January 6th – and in fact well before that infamous day. He utilized Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms to assemble and incite the mob of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol that day with tragic and deadly results.  

Today, Common Cause and more than 20 other government accountability groups urged every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to codify the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) into law. The letter follows a recent move by House Republicans to hobble the independent ethics watchdog in the new rules package for the 118th Congress. The letter emphasizes that voters made it very clear in the midterm elections that they are demanding more accountability from their elected representatives in Washington, not less.

Despite Pennsylvania voters’ overwhelming rejection of hardliner policies this past November, as the new legislative session begins, it’s clear very little has changed in Harrisburg. Lawmakers are still using sleight-of-hand tricks to force their hardliner agenda on Pennsylvanians because they can’t pass it through regular legislation. As they have for so many years, these lawmakers have ignored the voice of the people and are trying to circumvent the legislative process by forcing through constitutional amendments that limit voting rights, create unnecessary and expensive bureaucracies, and upset the balance of power in the state government.

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, said the bills would also hamper election worker recruitment. “The potential for prosecution if you mess something up, that Ken Paxton just decides is not a mistake but a violation of the law, is going to dissuade voters and also the people who are qualified to do those [election administration] jobs from wanting to do those jobs,” he said.

Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, said Monday the changes would “handcuff” and “significantly weaken” the OCE.

“It’s a state by state fight,” Dan Vicuna, the national redistricting manager of Common Cause, a voting rights organization, told Yahoo News. “In this country, there's a long history of using the redistricting process to discriminate against people of color or to discriminate against voters of one party.” According to voting rights advocates, a wave of racial gerrymandering is impacting maps across the country. The 2020 U.S Census Bureau reported that the overall racial diversity of the United States increased since 2010, and the Black population was the most prevalent in parts of the South. “But just because communities of color may drive population growth, that doesn't mean they have a seat at the table,” Dan Vicuna, the national redistricting manager of Common Cause, a national organization fighting for fair redistricting, told Yahoo News. “Unfortunately, in this country, there's a long history of elected officials in power using that power to either pack Black, Latino, Native American Asian voters into as few districts as possible or alternatively cracking those communities to spread voters throughout a bunch of different districts, so they have no power in any one district.”