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Steve Shapiro, a Common Cause Maryland member and a longtime federal employee, filed that case that became Shapiro v. McManus on his own behalf. Though not a lawyer, he represented himself when the case came before U.S. District Judge James K. Breder in Baltimore and later when it was before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. Judge Breder dismissed the case, concluding that the claim of partisan gerrymandering is not a matter for the courts to decide. While his decision was upheld by the 4th Circuit, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the suit should have been heard and decided on the merits by a special three-judge panel.

Common Cause hosted a telephone media conference call on Evenwel v. Abbott, potential landmark case on redistricting and every citizen’s right to fair representation on Friday, Decmber 4. You can listen to the 38 minute briefing here.

Since 1990, gun rights groups and their supporters have pumped more than $36 million into the campaigns of members of Congress; in 2014 alone, the National Rifle Association, the most prominent pro-gun organization, put $28 million into ‘independent expenditures’ aimed at supporting some candidates and defeating others.

Common Cause and its national chair, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, launched a national effort on Friday to pressure members of Congress to return campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

This is a victory for every Floridian. Common Cause and our coalition partners pursued this case to uphold the standards for redistricting that were written into the state constitution by Florida voters in 2010.

All but unnoticed by the public and press, balanced budget activists and an assortment of big money interests are close to triggering a political and governmental crisis in the form of a new constitutional convention, Common Cause argues in a report released today. “The Dangerous Path. Big Money’s Plan to Shred the Constitution,” examines a decades-old campaign on behalf of a convention under Article V of the Constitution. The unprecedented assembly could re-write the 238-year old Constitution, imperiling civil rights and the system of checks and balances at the heart of the nation’s charter, the report warns.