Media Center

Today at the Ohio Statehouse, the Fair Congressional Districts for Ohio Campaign Committee announced an official kickoff to the signature collection drive to put the issue on the ballot.

Today, Common Cause and Public Citizen co-hosted a briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington – Trump’s Conflicts of Interest and the Americans Who Are Impacted By White House Ethics – with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) serving as honorary co-host. The videotaped event focused on everyday Americans adversely impacted by the Trump Administration’s unprecedented conflicts of interest. President Trump’s conflicts of interest and excessive secrecy come at a cost and that cost is borne by the American People.

Politicians and party committees have repeatedly challenged the McCain-Feingold law’s soft money ban and the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected these challenges. Again today, the Court recognized the potential for corruption from unlimited contributions to party committees and affirmed a lower court decision in Republican Party of Louisiana v. FEC upholding the soft money ban as applied to state political party committees. It is however troubling to see the newest Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, join with Justice Thomas in unsuccessfully urging their colleagues to schedule the soft money challenge for oral argument.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that North Carolina lawmakers unconstitutionally gerrymandered two of the state's congressional districts along racial lines. The decision affirms a lower court ruling in 2015 that ordered the districts to be redrawn.

The White House move to block the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) from collecting waivers granted by Trump Administration nominees to work in fields where they recently lobbied is an outrage and part of a disturbing pattern. OGE was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal to monitor ethics compliance, but the Trump Administration is denying it the ability to do so. The OGE is charged with ensuring government compliance with ethical standards and it must be allowed to perform that duty.

Today's proposal, if approved, will cut the open internet off at the knees. The majority at the Commission has invited a few telecom giants to design and control our communications future and relegates consumers and innovators to passive recipients of what the big boys deign to provide us. This is exactly the opposite of how the internet was supposed to function, with citizens empowered to frequent the sites and services of their choice - not subject to corporate censorship or slow lanes.