Legislative Ethics

“Once the fuel has been added to the fire, it’s very hard to back away from it,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the advocacy group Common Cause. “Now it’s not just the operatives in the back room, which is where it started. It’s not just technology. It’s not just legislators being shameless about drawing lines. It’s governors and state officials and sometimes even courts leaning in to affirm these egregious gerrymanders.”

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of advocacy organization Common Cause Texas, said the large number of elections in recent years, even just this month for example, doesn’t make it any easier — or less confusing — for Texas voters to turn up to the polls. “For us in Texas, you gotta think about who are the people that are gonna turn out to this election, which is one of… two elections just in the month of May,” Gutierrez said. “That’s just crazy,” he added. “We were getting so many people asking what this election was for, because we just had an election literally a few weeks ago. It’s just like only the very most engaged people, who also are usually like the most partisan in each party, electing candidates.”

“The current maps are often pointed to, ‘Oh, look how terrible they are.’ But they are drafted to give specific communities a fair chance to choose their own representatives,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, an advocacy group which opposed the new map. She noted that a special master appointed by a federal court had drawn the previous congressional map, and said that he had taken these demographic factors into account. ... “People do not live, work and play in neat lines and boxes. So if you’re actually going to reflect the lived reality of communities, your lines are not going to be as pretty, but they will be realistic,” Lerner told The New Republic.

While Connecticut conservatives haven’t been so bold as elected officials in red states, their enrollment in the Facebook groups indicates the need for more public vigilance, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the election watchdog Common Cause in Connecticut. “Extremism isn’t only in certain states like Florida and Arkansas, but it’s alive in Connecticut,” Quickmire said Friday while reviewing the report. “I find this disturbing.” She recalled the controversy last year over the teaching of American history in Guilford schools that resulted in a coalition of Democrats and unaffiliated voters winning seats on the local Board of Education.

“Time and time again we’ve seen Doug Mastriano put in a position of leadership that would essentially give him a platform to voice his ideas,” said Khalif Ali, head of the Pennsylvania chapter of Common Cause, which sued to block the investigation.

Right now, appointed local officials cannot receive lavish contributions from wealthy interests when those interests are seeking favorable votes for contracts, licenses, permits, or land use entitlements. That’s common sense. But, bizarrely, the same is not true for local elected officials sitting on our city councils and boards of supervisors. They can accept big checks from wealthy interests and then immediately turn around and vote on the things those interests covet most. And those things are also the things that determine whether our neighborhoods are safe or dangerous, blighted or beautiful, traffic jammed or commuter friendly. Enter Senate Bill 1439, a bill authored by Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer and co-authored by Republican state Sen. Scott Wilk. Supported by Common Cause and other good government groups, the bill would close this loophole in the state’s Political Reform Act, prohibiting local elected officials from accepting a contribution of more than $250 from someone seeking a license, permit or other entitlement while a decision is pending before the local elected officials.