News Clips

Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs at Common Cause and a campaign finance expert, agreed on the apparent personal use question. He also told The Daily Beast that the FEC “needs to do some digging and ask what those wire transfers and checks are for.” “I can’t remember ever seeing line items like this before,” Scherb said.

Advocacy groups including Common Cause weighed in with support for the FCC proposal. “This rulemaking is welcome news as the use of deceptive AI and deepfakes threaten our democracy and is already being used to erode trust in our institutions and our elections,” Common Cause media and democracy program director Ishan Mehta said in a statement. “We have seen the impact of AI in politics in the form of primary ads using AI voices and images, and in robocalls during the primary in New Hampshire.” Mehta added, “We urge Congress and other agencies like the Federal Election Commission to follow the FCC’s lead and take proactive steps to protect our democracy from very serious threat posed by AI.”

Frederica Freyberg: So in your mind, should Wisconsin voters expect to see the use of absentee ballot drop boxes for upcoming elections, from what you heard in oral arguments? Jay Heck: Well, if the oral arguments are any indication about what the court might do, I am very positive or have a very good positive feeling about what the outcome might be. You know, one thing it’s important to note is that we have had drop boxes in Wisconsin for a number of years and of course, most famously during 2020, in the pandemic, they were a means for many thousands of Wisconsinites around the state to be able to return their absentee ballots in a safe, secure way. Rural voters, urban voters, young voters, old voters, people with disabilities, they’re a good thing. Wisconsin is now the only state in the upper Midwest, only non-red, deep red state that doesn’t allow the use of them.

Quentin Turner, executive director of Common Cause Michigan, a voting rights group, said recounts are handled by election administrators who lack the authority to investigate criminal fraud. "Voter fraud is a crime and investigations into crime can only be done by law enforcement," Turner said.

“501(c)(4s) are social welfare organizations that increasingly have been misused to spend money for political purposes,” Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told The Daily Beast. “Under the IRS tax code, they don't have to disclose their donors. And so that's why they've become a popular vehicle for people who are trying to use dark money to influence political outcomes.” Watchdog groups have argued for years that the decision of three Republican commissioners to deadlock votes on enforcement have prevented increased transparency. Scherb suggested that the deadlocks “seem to give a green light to straw donor schemes.” “If they know that there's no action,” he said, “Or if they know that there's, at most, going to be a slap on the wrist, it sends a signal that there can kind of be the Wild West again of campaign finance laws.”

California Common Cause, a good-government group, called the measure “disheartening.” “The Los Angeles City Council had a chance to turn the tide of corruption at City Hall and begin a new era in which L.A. residents could trust their local elected officials,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, the group’s executive director. “Instead they chose to uphold a broken, shameful status quo.”