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The Hill: Conservatives prepare new push for constitutional convention
“What we’re seeing is they’re kind of putting all these applications into one basket,” said Rebecca Timmons, a communications coordinator at Common Cause, which opposes the Article V convention. “There are no guardrails.”
Found in: Common Cause
Broadcasting & Cable: D.C. Applauds Chairwoman Rosenworcel Confirmation to FCC
“It was a long and winding road for Jessica Rosenworcel, but she stayed the course and good sense has now finally prevailed with today’s Senate vote," said Common Cause special advisor Michael Copps, himself a former acting FCC chairman and Rosenworcel's former boss when she was on his FCC staff. "Jessica faces a daunting agenda as chair but she has the experience and dedication to make historic progress leading the FCC. Past commission mistakes must be corrected and new trails blazed to provide our country with the communications ecosystem our democracy so clearly must have." Copps also put in a plug for confirming a third Democrat to the commission so Rosenworcel has a majority. "Needed now is a fifth commissioner, so that a full FCC can get on with its important mandate of protecting the public interest.”
Found in: Common Cause
Dallas Morning News/Tribune News Service: Justice Department sues to block gerrymandered Texas congressional map
Anthony Gutierrez, Texas executive director of Common Cause, said the lawsuit shows the need for Congress to preempt such “racially and partisan gerrymandered maps” by restoring the Justice Department’s authority to put Texas under a microscope on election plans. “While we are grateful for the involvement of the federal government, what we need to stop the five-decade cycle of having to take legal action every 10 years is for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act,” he said.
Found in: Common Cause
Business Insider: How more than $402 million in taxpayer money got locked away in a forgotten government fund — and lawmakers won’t spend it or return it
The For the People Act “represents the boldest democracy reform since Watergate, and any funds currently available for the old system should be used for the new system of federal citizen-funded elections, which must pass so we can get big money out of politics,” Beth Rotman, the director of money in politics and ethics for Common Cause, said prior to the bill’s stall-out.
Found in: Common Cause
Washington Post (Opinion): Maryland needs special elections to fill state legislative vacancies
The process as it stands empowers central committee insiders with choices that voters should make — choices that voters make in many other states. “The central committee does hold all the power,” Joanne Antoine, the executive director of Common Cause Maryland, has said. Common Cause Maryland is just one Maryland organization that supports reform.
Found in: Common Cause
Charlotte Observer/McClatchy: Republicans get a win in an NC gerrymandering lawsuit, with two more cases looming
Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina — which successfully sued over gerrymandering in 2019 and forced the maps to be redrawn before the 2020 elections — was in court watching the proceedings since Common Cause was a part of this lawsuit too. He said the group hasn’t decided if they’ll also join other lawsuits but he supports them, since he doesn’t want a repeat of last decade — when the 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 elections were all held using maps that were later found to be unconstitutional. “I think that’s dreadful,” Phillips said. “I think when you have, as we saw last decade, laws and policies passed that aren’t really reflective of who we are in North Carolina, I think it contributes to the lack of trust and confidence that people have in our elections.”
Found in: Common Cause
Daily Beast: Dark-Money Group Paid Former Trump AG to Ask for Pardons—and He Never Registered as a Lobbyist
Paul S. Ryan, vice president of litigation at government watchdog Common Cause, pointed out that the laws surrounding lobbying for pardons specifically are fuzzy, and before Trump’s final months relatively untested. But he also noted that a number of Trump lobbyists saw fit to disclose that work. “Other lobbyists tied to Trump have reported massive income lobbying the administration for pardons. Any failure by Whitaker to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars received to lobby the Trump administration warrants close scrutiny,” Ryan told The Daily Beast.
Found in: Common Cause
The Hill: The Hill's Top Lobbyists 2021
Not all of those honored on this list are registered lobbyists. But they are all key players who the nation’s biggest companies, advocacy groups, labor unions and trade associations turn to when they want their voices heard in the nation’s capital. The ranks of policy experts, influencers and advocates run deep in Washington, but these are the people who stand out for delivering results for their clients in the halls of Congress and the administration. ... GRASSROOTS: Karen Hobert Flynn and Aaron Scherb, Common Cause
Found in: Common Cause
The Guardian: ‘A core threat to our democracy’: threat of political violence growing across US
Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel at the government watchdog group Common Cause, described such violent tactics as “a core threat to our democracy”. “The threat of violence is really to intimidate people from doing their jobs and upholding their oath of office,” Spaulding said. “When you start having these violent episodes enter the system, it is totally counter to the way that we are supposed to engage in open and fair debate about policy issues in this country.”
Found in: Common Cause
HuffPost: More States Expanded Voting Rights In 2021 Than Restricted Them
“Specifically with the mail-in voting bills, that was a direct reaction [to the pandemic],” Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a nonprofit backing voting rights legislation, said. Previous attempts to pass legislation in Maryland simply to create a study of mail voting failed due to opposition in the state House of Delegates. But this year, both chambers adopted legislation to allow mail-in voting and approve the mailing of ballot applications to all registered voters. “It was interesting to see, because of the pandemic, the willingness,” Antoine said. “It was almost as though everyone had a change of heart and they realized that this can work.”