Trump Administration/Executive Ethics

Common Cause New Mexico, which filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, hailed Mathew’s decision for having far-reaching consequences. “Judge Mathew’s decision is a signal to elected officials everywhere who want to snub their noses at the constitution, foment mob violence and disobey the law,” said Mario Jimenez, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, in a statement. “Our elected officials—and candidates—must obey the law. They are not above it. That’s the very essence of democracy, and this ruling affirms it.”

Common Cause also ranked individual members of Congress on their pro-democracy efforts, with 101 members — all Democrats — earning a perfect score. That's a more than 70% increase over the number of members of Congress who had perfect scores (58) in the 2020 Democracy Scorecard. Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn cited the legislative filibuster as the roadblock to pro-democracy reform.  "In the end, with high levels of support in Congress and an overwhelming outpouring of public support, Congress ran into one of the reasons our democracy needs to be modernized: the filibuster," she wrote in the report.

As the January 6th Select Committee is reportedly set to hold more hearings this month, and less than two years since January 6th, Common Cause is releasing its 2022 Democracy Scorecard, which tracks the positions of every Member of Congress on issues vital to the health of our democracy during the 117th Congress. Throughout this Congress, members of the House and Senate were notified that various votes on key democracy issues – including many related to January 6th and its aftermath - would be counted in the Scorecard, which will be distributed to our 1.5 million members, as well as to state and national media.  

Faced with clear evidence that he rallied the mob while it broke Capitol windows and became increasingly violent, he said this was not actually a “mob” but was simply “just a crowd,” like at a sporting event that just got out of hand. And when a D.C. police officer who was there trying to control the “crowd” told the court another story, Griffin continually resisted. He reverted to a claim that antifa, shorthand for left-wing anti-facists, was to blame and said the police officer who died the day after the riot died of natural causes and not from injuries suffered while being attacked with a fire extinguisher. Griffin said everything — from video clips and photos and his own postings — was taken out of context. He didn’t mean anything literally by it.

Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Common Cause, said that the increased retirements and resignations mean that the country must invest in "the infrastructure to train the next generation of election workers." "We're going to run an election and we're going to make sure people can vote -- we're just going to have to use all hands on deck," she said of the upcoming midterms. "But we should be looking towards a long-term solution of proper investment in the election system."

Not every member of my generation has given up on democracy. Motivated by the turmoil of present day American politics, we have taken to political activism. Protests are a peaceful way to express concern or disagreement. However, activism can only push the political agenda so far. While protests bring attention to issues, they don’t always force politicians to enact the change citizens want. We’ve got to follow up our protests with informed voting in every election and persuade our peers to do the same.