Press Release

The U.S. Supreme Court released opinions in two partisan gerrymandering cases, remanding Gill v. Whitford and allowing Benisek v. Lamone to go to trial. The Campaign Legal Center litigated Gill and Mayer Brown litigated Benisek. The Supreme Court is now set up to review North Carolina’s partisan gerrymandering case, Rucho v. Common Cause and Rucho v. League of Women Voters of North Carolina, consolidated challenges to North Carolina’s congressional map that plaintiffs won in January.

The Inspector General’s report runs more than 500 pages but it clearly states that the investigation “found no evidence that the conclusions by Department prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations; rather, we concluded that they were based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law, and past Department practice.” The report will continue to be cherrypicked by President Trump and his defenders in an attempt to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the FBI, and the Justice Department itself. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the Mueller investigation has already led to 23 indictments and 5 guilty pleas. This is a real investigation into real crimes and it must be allowed to run its course.

Today, a federal judge issued a ruling approving the proposed $85.4 billion merger between AT&T and Time Warner. The approval allows one of the largest internet service providers to merge with one of the largest film and television studio companies creating an entity that will control the content and distribution of some of the most popular programming in the market.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of its net neutrality rules officially goes into effect. Internet service providers will now be free to block, throttle, or create fast lanes and slow lanes by charging websites extra fees to prioritize their content.

On May 31, 2018, Common Cause joined Public Knowledge in a letter urging the FCC to provide transparency as to why the agency’s education and outreach technology transition rules from 2016 never went into effect. The rules require telecommunications carriers to provide education and outreach to their customers when they are seeking to replace their legacy phone network with a new service. The rules are specifically tailored to ensure the most vulnerable communities including low-income, the elderly, and people with disabilities have the information they need to understand what to expect when their legacy voice service is discontinued. The FCC now seeks to eliminate these rules with the rationale that they never went into effect and are burdensome. Common Cause strongly objects to the elimination of the education and outreach rules and urges the Commission to fully disclose why they never went into effect.

Today, Common Cause urged congressional oversight committees to investigate and hold hearings on the Trump Administration’s interactions with Chinese government officials and ZTE, a company that violated trade sanctions with Iran and has been deemed a security threat by U.S. intelligence agencies.