Media Center

Today, the FCC voted on an Order to limit the fees state and local governments can charge wireless companies to attach infrastructure for 5G deployment on public property. 5G is the next generation of wireless broadband service. These price caps will save the industry $2 billion in deployment costs. The FCC’s Order does not impose any deployment requirements or public interest obligations on telecom companies in return for capping fees.

As Common Cause takes its quest to end partisan gerrymandering to the U.S. Supreme Court in Common Cause v. Rucho, it is also promoting a toolkit for courts and advocates to determine whether partisan gerrymandering has effectively taken away voters’ voices. A new and important tool, a “Swiss Army knife” paper written by Princeton University neuroscientist Samuel S. Wang and his team, pulls together several different legal and math approaches and explains how they all work together. Today he is named the winner of Common Cause’s third Partisan Gerrymandering Writing Competition.

The voters of Missouri prevailed today in their fight to reform the legislature, including the improving the redistricting process and limiting gifts from lobbyists. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and ruled that Amendment 1, the Clean Missouri-supported constitutional amendment to make government more responsive to the people, could appear on the November ballot. Common Cause filed an amicus brief in this case arguing that Amendment 1 contains commonsense and nonpartisan good government reforms that the people of Missouri should have the opportunity to vote on in November.

Today, Common Cause urged that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to release a report that was requested by Congress regarding the Commission’s role in enforcing prohibitions on foreign campaign contributions and expenditures. The report was due to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees yesterday in accordance with explanatory statements accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.

The rushed and deficient process to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court has been anything but deliberative. The Senate must immediately hit pause. Hastily convening a hearing on Monday concerning Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s serious allegations is unacceptable and it should be postponed. It is past time to activate an emergency brake.

Today, Common Cause called on the House Ways and Means Committee to immediately investigate false statements made under oath to the committee by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross concerning the addition of a citizenship question to the U.S. census survey. The recent release of Ross’ correspondence with Commerce Department staffers reveal that Ross falsely claimed to the Committee in March that it was a Department of Justice (DOJ) request that had prompted his Department to add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census.