2128 Search Results Containing ":"
New York Times: Andrew Yang Said He Would Give 10 People $1,000 Each Month. Is That Legal?
“Andrew Yang’s use of campaign funds to give ‘freedom dividends’ to supporters would push the boundaries of, and perhaps break, campaign finance law,” said Paul Seamus Ryan, a vice president at Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that promotes government accountability. “This unprecedented use of campaign funds would give rise to a bunch of novel legal questions.”
Found in: Common Cause
News & Observer: Democrats, Republicans both accused of violating court order as they redraw district maps
Lawyers for Common Cause, which won the recent lawsuit forcing this new redistricting session, say Senate Republicans violated a court order by ordering members of the media and the public to stay out of the area where senators and staff are drawing maps. “As a result of Sen. Hise’s order removing citizens and journalists from the map-drawing area, members of the committee were sitting at computers and amending maps without the public able to know how or why legislators were making changes to proposed districts,” Common Cause deputy director Brent Laurenz said in a press release.
Found in: Common Cause
Fact Check: Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Misses the Mark on Redistricting Reform
Gerrymandering is wrong, no matter who does it – Democrats or Republicans. The fight for fair redistricting has always been about shifting power from politicians to the people.
Found in: Common Cause
Vox: The cracks in the GOP’s gerrymandering firewall
Republicans do not plan to appeal the decision in the case, Common Cause v. Lewis, so the 2020 election will likely be the first in nearly a decade where Democrats have a fighting chance to take control of the state legislature in North Carolina.Common Cause is just the latest in a series of court decisions and ballot initiatives that either undercut Republican gerrymanders or that seek to prevent either party from drawing similarly gerrymandered maps in the future. Court decisions in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have weakened Republican gerrymanders, while ballot initiatives in Michigan and Ohio seek to prevent either party from gerrymandering those states ever again.
Found in: Common Cause
Associated Press: Republicans begin complying with NC redistricting order
“If the justices in Washington, D.C., won’t protect people’s constitutional rights — won’t ensure that all voters have a fair opportunity to participate in our democracy — then the courts of North Carolina will fix the problem themselves,” said Stanton Jones, a chief lawyer in the lawsuit filed by Common Cause, the state Democratic Party and Democratic voters.
Found in: Common Cause
ABC News: Groups answer Supreme Court with million-dollar push to counter gerrymandering
Just this week, a unanimous three-judge panel in North Carolina struck down that state’s legislative district maps saying they were unfairly drawn to benefit Republicans -- in violation of the state constitution.The “decision offers a framework for other states to evaluate their own redistricting,” said Stanton Jones, a constitutional lawyer at the firm Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. representing Common Cause. “There are a number of other state constitutions around the country with free elections clauses similar or identical to the one in North Carolina.”A challenge to Pennsylvania’s congressional map brought by the League of Women Voters reached a similar conclusion last year, with that state’s Supreme Court finding the gerrymandered districts violated state law.The cases show that “state constitutions can be invoked to protect the people of that state,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director at Common Cause.
Found in: Common Cause
NBC News: Democrats eye move against GOP congressional gerrymandering in North Carolina
Dan Vicuña Common Cause's national redistricting manager said the organization is already looking toward 2021, identifying where partisan gerrymandering may take place and where state constitutions might give them an opening to challenge it."It’s going to be an exciting time for voter empowerment after the next lines are drawn. We have a good handle on where there’s going to be single-party control, where the state constitution has been interpreted in a pro-voter matter, where we can ask the court to change precedent where that’s the case."
Found in: Common Cause
New York Times: The Battle Over the Files of a Gerrymandering Mastermind
“We’ve already seen that these files have been instrumental in exposing lies around the effort to add a citizenship question to the census and around subverting a court’s order to redraw gerrymandered lines,” Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the group, said in an interview. “The Hofeller files are important because they’re the only thing that will allow the American people to know the truth behind the efforts to rig redistricting and elections,” she added. “They have to be made public.”
Found in: Common Cause
New York Times: North Carolina’s Legislative Maps Are Thrown Out by State Court Panel
“Our heads are spinning here in North Carolina,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, which filed the suit. “It’s a huge win, particularly for the voters of North Carolina, just to know that this entire decade they have never had an opportunity to actually vote for legislators in constitutional districts.”
Found in: Common Cause
Washington Post: North Carolina court rules partisan state legislative districts unconstitutional
Common Cause, the nonprofit government watchdog group that filed the lawsuit, called Tuesday’s ruling “a historic victory for the people of North Carolina.”“The court has made clear that partisan gerrymandering violates our state’s constitution and is unacceptable,” Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, said in a statement. “Thanks to the court’s landmark decision, politicians in Raleigh will no longer be able to rig our elections through partisan gerrymandering.”