2122 Search Results Containing ":"
Dallas Morning News: Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? Label fight rages a year after mob attacked U.S. Capitol
“The insurrection was a violent affront to free and fair elections and the orderly transition of power,” said Karen Hobart Flynn, president of the liberal group Common Cause. “January 6th interrupted two centuries of the peaceful transfer of power. It was staged by a domestic enemy fueled by the lies fed by the former president, some Republican politicians, and their allies who tried to subvert a bedrock democratic principle: that voters decide elections,” she said.
Found in: Common Cause
Fortune: Democrats say the Capitol Riot illustrates why the US needs voting rights reform
“As state legislators come back into session, many of the 400-plus voter suppression bills that have been introduced last year get carried over to this year,” said Aaron Scherb, legislative affairs director at Common Cause, a left-leaning government watchdog group. “There’s an urgent need to protect the voices of Americans—especially Black and brown Americans, whose voices many of these laws are targeting.”
Found in: Common Cause
Inside Sources/Tribune News Service (Op-Ed): Insurrection Was an Assault on Truth, Rule of Law
Our country has survived the Civil War, two world wars, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and many other hardships along the way. Although many have been left behind or left out during those struggles, we must expand our efforts for an inclusive democracy so that it lives up to its promise. We survived the insurrection and a coup attempt last year. Can our democracy withstand another attempt in the next presidential election? We cannot afford to find out. The Senate must immediately pass pending legislation that has already passed the House before it’s too late and work closely on reforms to the Electoral Count Act. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has indicated the Senate will again take up voting rights when it reconvenes. No Senate rule, including the filibuster, should stand in the way.
Found in: Common Cause
Politico: Cuomo pledged to end partisan gerrymandering. His plan just failed its biggest test.
“It wasn’t an independent commission … The entire way it was set up was problematic from the beginning,” said Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York. Lerner, the executive director of the civic activist group, won a 2014 lawsuit asking a court to block the appearance of the word “independent” on the ballot when the constitutional amendment went to voters as a referendum, arguing it was misleading to give the commission that label.
Found in: Common Cause
Associated Press: California redistricting commission defends new state maps
“While the process was at times messy, it was an exercise in democracy done in public,” California Common Cause executive director Jonathan Mehta Stein said in a statement. That met the goal that his organization and others had in 2008 when they persuaded voters to take the redistricting out of the hands of public officials who had a vested interest in the outcome. This year’s effort, despite criticism, “put the California public in the driver’s seat,” he said, though the groups promised to seek improvements for the 2031 commission.
Found in: Common Cause
Daily Beast: Kanye West’s ‘Independent’ Campaign Was Secretly Run by GOP Elites
Paul S. Ryan, vice president of government watchdog Common Cause, called the revelations “a big deal.” “The importance of disclosure in this matter can’t be overstated,” Ryan told The Daily Beast. “It’s no secret that Kanye West’s candidacy would have a spoiler effect, siphoning votes from Democrat Joe Biden. Voters had a right to know that a high-powered Republican lawyer was providing legal services to Kanye—and federal law requires disclosure of such legal work.”
Found in: Common Cause
Washington Post: GOP agrees to pay up to $1.6 million of Trump’s legal bills in N.Y. probes
Paul Seamus Ryan, a campaign-law expert at Common Cause, which advocates for accountable government, said that when Trump was a candidate, it would have been illegal for him to spend his own campaign funds on legal fees. That’s because federal law prohibits candidates from spending campaign funds on personal expenses, unrelated to politics. But Ryan said no such ban applies to political parties. So the RNC can pay Trump’s legal bills, even for an investigation unconnected to his time as president. “This is an abuse of donor trust,” Ryan said. ‘I’ve been following money in politics closely for more than two decades, and I’m unaware of any similar past abuse of donor trust and donor money to pay personal legal bills of private citizens.”
Found in: Common Cause
The Fulcrum: Voting rights advocates believe filibuster reform is possible
Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, echoed Effingham’s take. “Conversations are really underway to find a way forward that restores the Senate as a place where senators come together, debate issues of the day and actually pass them, not bury them,” said Spaulding. “I think there is a desire — not just among Senate Democrats, among Republicans as well. The Senate is not working as well as it has in the past.” Spaulding identified a number of previous efforts around altering the filibuster while preserving a significant portion of the rule, ideas that may be considered again.
Found in: Common Cause
Roll Call: Momentum grows for Senate to take up voting bills ahead of budget package
“I think there is a tremendous amount of pressure on them to deliver on voting rights," said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause.
Found in: Common Cause
Daily Beast: Adam Schiff Just Made It Easier For Politicians to Make Money
Paul S. Ryan, vice president of litigation at campaign reform advocacy group Common Cause, said that the decision is in line with years of FEC rulemaking, and “strikes the right balance.” “The FEC’s opinion in this matter seems consistent with its handling of similar matters over the past decade-plus,” Ryan told The Daily Beast. Ryan noted that the value of a campaign’s donor list, already sky-high, may certainly appear heightened in the Schiff scenario, when the candidate stands to benefit from his own custom data. But, he said, “at the end of the day the FEC needs to draw lines in order to facilitate consistent administration of the law. And I think they’ve done an acceptable job of doing so in the context of donor lists.”