Voting & Elections

Voter suppression efforts are escalating in 43 states, as are Republican efforts to block passage of H.R. 1, the massive voting rights bill just passed by House Dems. The Bulwark's Charlie Sykes and Stephen Spaulding of Common Cause help Mehdi understand what's in the bill and what's at stake.

Common Cause Georgia released a statement calling the bill “Jim Crow with a suit and tie." "Georgia’s voters deserve better than to be shut out of legislators’ discussions – particularly when those discussions involve new barriers to voting," the statement read. "Voting is the foundation of American democracy. By aiming at our ability to cast ballots, Georgia’s legislators are striking at the very core of our government. These legislators may be acting on behalf of their party interests or their political donors. They are certainly not acting on behalf of the people of Georgia."

And so have national advocacy groups. Common Cause runs weeknight phone banks recruiting backers for the bill, and says it has generated 700,000 text messages supporting it. “It’s been a pretty incredible outpouring of support, because we all know what this moment means,” said Izzy Bronstein, the group’s national campaigns manager.

On March 10, Common Cause and Common Cause Georgia filed a complaint with the U.S. Department Justice (DOJ), urging investigation into whether then-President Donald J. Trump, Senator Lindsey Graham, Rudolph W. Giuliani and others violated multiple federal laws by attempting to overturn presidential election results in Georgia via an hour-long Jan. 2 phone call to Raffensperger and other events and communications with Georgia officials.

Also Wednesday, Common Cause, a government-accountability watchdog group, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether Trump and others broke federal laws by communicating with officials in Georgia “in an effort to fraudulently and corruptly overturn 2020 presidential election results in Georgia,” according to a letter sent to Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine in Atlanta and Merrick Garland, who was confirmed Wednesday by the Senate to serve as U.S. Attorney General.

A month after Common Cause Georgia called on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to refer to the federal DOJ his investigation of President Donald Trump’s January 2nd phone call with Raffensperger, Common Cause has filed its own complaint with the DOJ. The complaint, filed today, urges the DOJ to investigate whether Trump, Senator Lindsey Graham, Rudolph W. Giuliani and others violated multiple federal laws by attempting to overturn presidential election results in Georgia via the hour-long Jan. 2 phone call to Raffensperger and other events and communications with Georgia officials.