2121 Search Results Containing ":"
Associated Press: Few reports of voter intimidation or harassment in Maryland
Common Cause Maryland, a nonpartisan fair-elections advocate, trained and dispatched more than 1,000 volunteers to polling places in 22 counties. Volunteers were asked to report any sightings of voter intimidation or harassment through a group communication app at the end of their shifts. A spokeswoman for the organization said no incidents were reported.
Found in: Common Cause
The Hill: Legislatures across country plan sweeping election reform push
“What we’re seeing in a number of states are clear attempts to either roll back expansions of access to the ballot or add more suppressive measures,” said Sylvia Albert, who runs the voting and elections program at Common Cause. “What’s happening here is legislatures using propaganda to make changes to election law. Changes to election law should be made very deliberately in concert with election officials in the states, with election experts, with nonpartisan advocacy groups, with security experts,” Albert said. “They are using the president’s rhetoric and all of the undermining of the election as an excuse, and I say excuse because there are no facts to back up what they are saying.”
Found in: Common Cause
The Hill: Top Lobbyists 2020
The ranks of policy experts and influencers run deep in Washington, but these are the people who stand out for delivering results for their clients in the halls of Congress and in the administration. Grassroots Lobbyists: Karen Hobert Flynn and Aaron Scherb, Common Cause
Found in: Common Cause
Philadelphia Inquirer (Op-Ed): Pennsylvania’s democracy is strong despite schemes to reject election results
November is officially in the rear-view mirror, but the election is still in the headlines, and we’re being forced to look back. Why? The will of the people of Pennsylvania is clear and the election outcome will not change. Pennsylvanians turned out in record numbers to vote in this election. Over 6.9 million — or 70.9% — of voting-age Pennsylvanians cast their ballot. Black and brown leaders, organizers, and voters made a herculean effort to ensure that every eligible voter could vote, and every vote was counted. To call the election results into question is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to delegitimize participation in democracy, especially by Black voters. Here in the commonwealth, we pick our leaders. Our leaders do not pick and choose which voices to listen to and which ones to silence. We have spoken. We’ve elected our next president.
Found in: Common Cause
New York Times: In Farewell Speech, Udall Says Senate Has Become ‘Graveyard for Progress’
“I’m not the first to say this in a farewell address, and I won’t be the last, but the Senate is broken,” Mr. Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, said on Tuesday in what is likely his final speech after 12 years in the deeply divided institution. “The Senate is broken,” he repeated for emphasis. For months, Americans have watched in anger as Congress remained mired in partisan paralysis over more pandemic relief, allowing unemployment benefits to lapse as many suffer from joblessness. Fewer people approve of the job lawmakers are doing in Washington than at almost any time in recent history. And the government watchdog group Common Cause ranked the current Congress the “least productive in history,” noting that only about 1 percent of bills introduced became law. Mr. Udall emphasized this dysfunctional state of affairs on the floor, calling on senators to gut the legislative filibuster — which effectively requires a 60-vote supermajority to advance any major legislation — and change a culture he said valued partisanship over the country’s best interests.
Found in: Common Cause
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ga. senators tout Ethics rulings, but panel rarely finds wrongdoing
“We have a fox guarding the henhouse situation when it comes to the Congress looking into its own members,” said Beth Rotman, national director of money in politics and ethics with Common Cause, one of the groups that filed the complaint against Loeffler. “It’s a huge problem.”
Found in: Common Cause
The New Yorker: Donald Trump’s Latest Grift May Be His Most Cynical Yet
In an interview with S. V. Date, of HuffPost, Paul S. Ryan, a campaign-finance lawyer at the watchdog group Common Cause, used more colloquial language. “It’ll be a slush fund,” he said. Whereas the rules governing campaign pacs are fairly strict, the rules for leadership pacs are scandalously lax. OpenSecrets notes that some politicians use such funds to make campaign donations to other candidates in their party. Trump could end up doing this, too, but he also has many other options, including directing some of the donations to himself and his children. “Trump could decide to pay himself $1 million a year out of this fund,” Ryan noted. “That’s legal. He could pay Don Jr. and Ivanka, if he wanted to.”
Found in: Common Cause
Voice of America: No Evidence of Fraud That Would Void Biden Victory, Barr Says
Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the watchdog group Common Cause, said Barr’s comments that the DOJ was unable to find substantive evidence of fraud could potentially put him in Trump’s crosshairs. “The president seems to fire anybody who states a fact that he does not agree with,” Albert said. In its assessment of the November 3 election, Common Cause said it had uncovered instances of routine Election Day problems such as malfunctioning machines and long lines but no evidence of fraud. Albert criticized Barr for toeing Trump’s line on voter fraud before belatedly stating the obvious. “The attorney general has for the past month continued to help the president undermine people's confidence in the election, so I'm not going to give him a prize for telling the truth when he's told it a month late,” Albert said in an interview with VOA.
Found in: Common Cause
The Hill: Talk of self-pardon for Trump heats up
Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, has written to the DOJ, Federal Elections Commission and the Southern District of New York asking for investigations into campaign finance violations pertaining to Trump’s hush money payments to two women and over the president’s request that Ukraine investigate Biden for corruption. Ryan said federal officials should feel duty-bound to investigate even when Trump is out of office, but said he fears the political pressure to look the other way will be too great. “I don’t think politics should play a role, but it probably will,” Ryan said. “I suspect, against my own wishes, that a Biden DOJ will probably not pursue crimes against his predecessor. We have a history in this country of presidents looking the other way and letting bygones be bygones. That’s not good for democracy in terms of election law and future precedent. But Biden may find it necessary for democracy writ large to try and move the country forward.”
Found in: Common Cause
HuffPost: Trump’s ‘Save America’ PAC Could Pay For Big Macs, Hush Money … Pretty Much Anything
“It’ll be a slush fund,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer with Common Cause. “Trump could decide to pay himself $1 million a year out of this fund. That’s legal. He could pay [his children] Don Jr. and Ivanka, if he wanted to. It’s pretty clear that this is a classic bait-and-switch scheme.”