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Houston Public Media: Texas prepares to leave multistate compact to clean its voter rolls, without an alternative
All of this is a concern for voting rights groups. Katya Ehresman, voting rights program manager for Common Cause Texas, said its been just four years since the state attempted to purge tens of thousands of people incorrectly identified as noncitizens from the state's voter rolls. The furor over that effort helped to sink Acting Secretary of State David Whitley's bid for confirmation in the post. Ehresman noted that Keith Ingram, who served as elections director under Whitley, was appointed by current Secretary of State Jane Nelson to head the effort to come up with Texas' replacement for ERIC. "I think that’s something that we’re concerned about, is if these lists matching and list maintenance systems are within that same office, that Texas voters should be paying attention and watchdog organizations like ours are going to be paying attention," Ehresman said. Alicia Pierce said voters should not be overly concerned about being removed from the rolls. "They’re not simply removed," Pierce said. "They receive a notice, and then there’s a waiting period before they are removed. And also, under the National Voting Rights Act, there is a window before federal elections, which is 90 days, when people will not be removed through these wholesale actions, where we’re doing large-scale list maintenance. So those are some things that can help reassure people that they’re not going to be removed in an untimely manner." Still, Katya Ehresman said that voters should doublecheck their voting status well in advance of the October deadline for this fall's elections and the February deadline for the 2024 primaries, in order to make sure they're registered at their current address. "I think that Texas leaving ERIC adds a heightened level of vigilance that is needed on the back of everyday voters, which should not be required to participate in their elections but might need to be now," Ehresman said.
Found in: Common Cause
Boston Globe: Carlson’s early exit renews calls for limiting early voting or using ranked-choice voting
But John M. Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, called the GOP statement “a knee-jerk reaction to what is a fairly common occurrence in elections all across the country.” “This is not the first time a candidate has withdrawn from a race but remained on the ballot, and it won’t be the last time,” he said. “Restricting a popular and secure way for voters to vote is not the right reaction.” In offering 20 days of early voting, Rhode Island is matching the national average in the 47 states that offer early voting, Marion said. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the three states that don’t offer early in-person voting are Alabama, Mississippi and New Hampshire, and Marion said Alabama and Mississippi “are two states not exactly known for protecting voting rights”
Found in: Common Cause
Wisconsin Law Journal: Protasiewicz prohibited from hearing abortion, gerrymandering cases if impeachment commences
Jay Heck, director of Common Cause, told the Wisconsin Law Journal he believes Vos’ threat of impeachment is hypocritical. “It’s such self-serving hypocrisy with Vos. Where was Vos in 2012 when conservatives all voted to dismiss illegal coordination with Walker and Club For Growth? It has been well documented that Walker engaged in coordination to raise money for his recall election, which was illegal. Candidates cannot coordinate with outside special interests, and the Legislature changed that in 2015, but I didn’t hear Vos, or conservative justices who received funding from Club for Growth, to recuse,” Heck said during an interview with the Wisconsin Law Journal. “It’s selective outrage,” Heck said, noting that Common Cause also held former Democrat Jim Doyle accountable for actions taken during his administration.
Found in: Common Cause
Public News Service: Feds Consider Whether to Allow Betting on Election Outcomes
Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy for the nonprofit Common Cause, said gambling on elections is bad for democracy. "You can imagine wealthy gamblers could make significant money by exploiting disinformation to influence an electoral outcome that would protect the bettors' bottom line," Spaulding pointed out. "This again opens up a significant risk to the perception that the winners and losers of an election are not determined by voters, but by those who stand to gain financially." Spaulding noted the "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision allowed companies to spend unlimited money on elections, and called betting on elections a "profound threat to democracy." "You can imagine a situation where an entity places an enormous wager on the outcome of an election, and also funnels resources through Super PACs or other 'dark money' vehicles to influence the outcome of an election," Spaulding explained. "That is inherently, we think, anti-democratic." Both Common Cause and some U.S. senators, including California's Dianne Feinstein, submitted letters of opposition during the public comment period, which ended in July. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to make a decision by Sept. 21.
Found in: Common Cause
KCRA-TV: Key committee set to vote on Gov. Newsom's call for a constitutional convention
Critics note there are no guarantees that the convention would be limited to gun control if triggered. The nonpartisan democracy advocacy group Common Cause earlier this week blasted the push, noting a convention lacks legal guardrails and historical norms. "By calling a constitutional convention, Governor Newsom would invite wealthy special interests to open the hood of the U.S. Constitution and tinker with our rights and liberties—without a single rule," the group said in a news release. "There are few risks to the freedoms we cherish greater than calling for a constitutional convention. No matter what issue you care about—civil rights, abortion, housing, the environment, or gun safety — an Article V Convention carries the potential to take us back rather than move us forward."
Found in: Common Cause
NPR: How Florida's congressional map could change before the 2024 elections
Regardless of how the state court rules, plaintiffs in an ongoing federal lawsuit plan to proceed with their case, explained Kathay Feng, an attorney and vice president of programs for Common Cause Florida, one of the groups challenging the map. "If they come to a final remedy that is very narrowly focused, there is still an opportunity for the federal case to examine the entire state map as a whole," Feng said. Although plaintiffs suing in state court have agreed to skip a trial, that's not expected to happen in the federal case, Feng said: "We are fully prepared to go to trial in September."
Found in: Common Cause
New Report: Trump's Big Lie made judiciary a target
“Courts and judges play an important role in American democracy and should not have to fear violence for doing their job,” said Marilyn Carpinteyro, Common Cause interim co-president. “This report highlights why it’s so crucial that the courts and judges can enforce the law fairly and safely. Those in places of power—especially the president of the United States—have a responsibility to ensure judges can do their jobs free of intimidation.”
Found in: Common Cause
Donald Trump: Threatening Courts and Undermining Justice
Former president Donald Trump and his allies targeted the judiciary in the days, weeks and months leading up to the January 6th attack, and their continued attacks on our courts and government institutions could lead to significant threats in the future, according a new report published today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Common Cause.
Found in: Common Cause
Wisconsin Law Journal: Liberal Supreme Court justices make sweeping changes to enhance transparency and accountability
During an interview with the Wisconsin Law Journal last week, Executive Director Jay Heck of the non-partisan government accountability group Common Cause noted that Wisconsin ranked as the 47th worst in the nation, according to a Center for American Progress study for judicial ethics recusal rules. The study looked at the strength of recusal rules for judges in every state, ranking each state 1-50. “Even Cook County (in Chicago) has stronger recusal rules for judges, which is a pretty low bar given Chicago’s reputation,” Heck said. “Chicago has always been the thing we don’t want to be. It’s the bar you always want to surpass in terms of politics, ethics and corruption,” Heck added. Citing a Marquette University Law School poll on reduced confidence in Wisconsin’s courts, Heck said, “It’s reasonable to open to the public how a court operates, especially with the low regard noted in Marquette Law School polls. Wisconsin courts used to be highly regarded, but that has dissipated over the years, as big money has inundated elections,” Heck said.
Found in: Common Cause
Boston Globe: What is ‘red-boxing’ and why is it an issue in R.I.’s congressional race?
John M. Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center have been urging the state Board of Elections for at least four years to adopt regulations that would clarify that types of coordination — including red-boxing — violate state campaign finance law. It hasn’t happened. Marion said the current form of red-boxing has emerged since Rhode Island last made major changes in this area of campaign finance law in 2012. “It was hard to imagine then that super PACs and candidates campaigns would be so sophisticated as to have hidden websites and cryptic tweets,” he said. “Sign stealing is maybe as old as baseball, but the sophistication of it has increased over time. Even our Red Sox got caught using an Apple Watch.” Marion said, “The independent spending in elections which was unleashed by the US Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision is supposed to be completely separate from a candidate’s campaign, and when it is coordinated it eviscerates our limits on money in politics.”