Congressional Ethics

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 includes Supreme Court justices — a provision that some government reformers say will "poison" the bill among Senate Republicans who might otherwise be inclined to support it. "The House shouldn't project what might or might not happen in the Senate," he said.

Americans deserve to know their votes will be counted and their voices heard in our elections. Reform of the antiquated Electoral Count Act is an important step to safeguard the results of free and fair elections. President Trump and his associates came exceptionally close to engineering an overthrow of the 2020 election, as the January 6th Select Committee’s hearings have made clear. They did so in part by making bogus assertions about how the Congress should discharge its certification duties of the presidential election, inciting a violent mob, and convincing 147 Congressional Republicans to vote to overturn the election. Part of this plot included testing arcane provisions of the law that must be modernized and clarified before it happens again.

Recent headlines, from the January 6th Select Committee’s hearings to the Supreme Court rolling back the right to reproductive healthcare, profoundly implicate the freedom that many will celebrate this Independence Day. Opponents of democracy — a system that works best when it empowers people to have an equal say in decisions that affect their futures — have waged a well-coordinated attack on it. Freedom must be fortified, it must be protected at the ballot box, and it must never be taken for granted.

"It is clear from the evidence made public by the January 6th Committee that Rep. Perry does not respect the will of the voters. No elected official should remain in office, if they do not respect the voters who put them there. We must not continue down this path," said Khalif Ali, Common Cause Pennsylvania executive director.

Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, but he did not want to leave the White House and admit his loss publicly so he lied. He lied and he repeatedly tried to force the U.S. Department of Justice to back up those lies and “leave the rest to him.” He was asking his handpicked senior DOJ officials to participate in a criminal conspiracy orchestrated by Trump and his henchmen that at its heart was nothing short of a coup to illegally seize power and overturn the will and the vote of the American people.

"Even if Members of Congress aren't fully aware of their own stock portfolios, just the perception that they're taking actions to line their own pockets can be really damaging," said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for nonpartisan government watchdog organization Common Cause. "When Members of Congress are allowed to take votes and make other official actions that influence companies in which elected officials own stock, it looks and smells bad."