News Clips

An annual assessment by the Center for Political Accountability shows many S&P 500 companies are spending less on direct donations to political races and election-related causes than in recent years. Additionally, those S&P 500 companies that are still making political donations are moving toward more transparency. Changing political winds and growing publicity risks have created a climate in which major corporations are finding it’s safer to cut direct political ties. Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause points out that with valuable interests and influence to protect, corporations are still impacting political outcomes in other ways.

“Everyone should be asking why is this big money coming to both sides,” Bob Phillips, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause North Carolina said, adding that such donations leave the impression of “trying to buy access and influence.”

“I think that there is a very strong reaction to people feeling like this process is closed, it’s secretive and it is intentionally so because there are partisan shenanigans going on where one party or a set of incumbents are trying to manipulate the lines,” said Kathay  Feng, national redistricting director of Common Cause.

"The FCC's actions also hurt state and local government abilities to negotiate any public interest obligations like buildout requirements or anti-redlining provisions," Michael Copps, a former Democratic FCC commissioner and Common Cause special adviser, said in a statement. "This gives wireless companies even more of an ability to only deploy 5G to the richest parts of a city, leaving low-income areas unserved." The order, Copps argues, is just "a corporate welfare plan that only widens the digital divide."

“That is a lot of money and pretty unprecedented for Nebraska fundraising,” said Gavin Geis, executive director of Common Cause Nebraska, a nonpartisan government accountability group. “That’s D.C.-level fundraising… It goes to show what a deep-pocketed candidate can do to buy influence.”

The lawsuit from the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida maintains that Scott does not have the power to make the appointments ahead of when the positions will be vacant. Instead the lawsuit argues the decision must be left to his successor.