Executive Ethics

NEWMAN: The hope for many residents is that the current political upheaval will lead to reforms. Beth Rotman agrees. She's with the policy group Common Cause. BETH ROTMAN: Often, these scandals lead to more public awareness of how these ties can actually begin on the campaign trail and also in the relationships that form because of the connections between wealth and policy outcomes.

“The country was mesmerized by Gov. Cuomo’s blunt talk about the pandemic, but he didn’t even follow the experts,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause, a good government group that has long butted heads with Cuomo. “That’s emblematic of his style: The performance looks great, but when you get into the details, there are big holes and very little substance.”

"It makes sense, certainly, that you have an executive saying that we are going to disclose where the funds are coming from," Rotman said. "But if that's not meaningful disclosure ... when it's just a pledge, then it's not really worth the paper that it's written on." Rotman said Abbott could start by adding language to the website asking donors to certify that they use their legal name. His office could also list donor names on the website contemporaneously for the public — as opposed to only providing them in response to open records requests — and add software that would prevent donors from listing incomplete names. "If you think it's important, then you have to say I'm not going to let somebody write down Donnie Darko and give me the cash," she said. "There are a lot of well-developed states and a lot of well-developed models. It's very possible for Texas to do this in a way that Texans will have disclosure in the way that the governor has promised."

A letter signed by almost 100 small business and community leaders urging Senator Susan Collins to support the “For the People Act” was released at an event at Portland City Hall. More than four dozen people gathered at a rally sponsored by Common Cause to hear local business leaders explain why the bill needs to become law.

"What's driving these efforts is anti-democratic sentiment," Sylvia Albert, executive director of the nonprofit good government group Common Cause, said in an interview with Salon. "These individuals attempted to overturn an election and they were unable to do so. So they are now attempting to change the rules so that next time they can overturn the will of the people." Depending on the state, "these individuals might now have the power to close polling stations or limit voting machine access," Albert warned. "This is part and parcel of a very anti-democratic push to make sure that people who vote against you don't get to vote and if they accidentally do, 'Don't worry, we'll throw out their votes.'"

Today, Common Cause urged every member of the U.S. Senate to vote “yes” to advance the For the People Act in a vote expected later this week. The letter notes that Common Cause plans to score this vote in the next version of our Democracy Scorecard which we send to our 1.5 million members. The pro-voter, anti-corruption bill contains the most comprehensive set of democracy reforms to be introduced in Congress since the post-Watergate reforms were passed in the 1970s. The letter emphasizes that our democracy faces a crisis in the wake of insurrectionists storming the Capitol and hundreds of GOP voter suppression bills – largely targeting Black and Brown Americans - introduced in state legislatures since Republicans lost the White House and control of the Senate in the November election. It points to the fact that at least 14 states have already passed nearly two dozen restrictive voting bills already this year.