“We have a roadmap as to how [McConnell] has operated in the past, which is to be a one-man blockade,” said Stephen Spaulding, a senior counsel at Common Cause, a liberal government reform group. “He will abuse the filibuster rule to demand supermajority votes on nearly every piece of the majority’s agenda. I think we can anticipate that.”

As Democrats take power in Washington, if only tenuously, many democracy reform groups see a potential path toward making the American political system work better. In this installment, Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. Her organization has long been on the front lines of advocating for democracy reform. Hobert Flynn's responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Watchdog groups argue Trump’s handling of the hiring process is more evidence that lawmakers and future presidents must institute rules to limit the reach of military contractors and other special interests.

“Given the hundreds of conflicts of interest flouting the rule of law in the Trump administration, certainly these issues have gotten that much more attention and are that much more salient now than they were four years ago,” said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan...

Common Cause endorses Amendment One because “fairness” and “compromise” aren’t bad words. This referendum is at the heart of our mission to empower people to come together to find common solutions.

Justice Ginsburg described the danger of partisan gerrymandering: “It’s drawing a map so people think, ‘Why bother voting? This is a secure Republican district or this is a secure Democratic district, so my vote doesn’t count.’ That’s not a good thing for democracy.”

By shifting the power from...

Sylvia Albert is the director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a national nonpartisan group that runs the Election Protection initiative, which coordinates a coalition of more than 100 organizations to facilitate voting across the country. Albert says that forms of physical intimidation at the polls, including protesters or the illegal threat of violence, have long been used to suppress votes, since the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Threats like these were most recently seen during the 2016 presidential and 2018 midterm...

Common Cause and its North Carolina affiliate filed the complaint with the North Carolina Attorney General’s office on Wednesday, as the five-year federal statute of limitations for the alleged crimes has passed. There is no statute of limitations for felonies in North Carolina.

“This troubling fundraising scheme allegedly perpetrated by Louis DeJoy has the appearance of bypassing North Carolina’s campaign finance limits in order to illicitly buy political access and curry favor with elected officials,” Bob Phillips,...

"President Trump’s repeated requests to his followers to commit felonies are felony crimes themselves because he is inciting the commission of those crimes," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the election watchdog organization Common Cause. "You cannot test election integrity rules by breaking them any more than you can rob a bank to make sure your money is safe."

As the COVID-19 death toll has continued to mount, Americans have waited for a sign that President Trump understands what we are enduring.

Many have lost loved ones, jobs, health insurance and retirement savings, but those who are suffering have barely drawn a mention in the Rose Garden or as the president leaves the White House in a helicopter to play golf.

Since the founding of the Republic, when tragedy has struck our nation, presidents have mourned with us, and they have vowed revenge on those days that will...

“Not only did the campaign fail to provide evidence that voter fraud was a widespread problem in Pennsylvania, they failed to provide any evidence that any misconduct occurred in the primary election or that so-called voter fraud is any sort of regular problem in Pennsylvania,” said Suzanne Almeida, interim director of Common Cause PA, one of the parties in the lawsuit. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

“Both the good and bad about our election system is that it is completely decentralized. Each state and each local jurisdiction can make the changes necessary to have safe, free, and fair voting in November...,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause. “We know how to do it. They just have to execute the plan.”

That plan, according to Albert, is to make sure voters have options to vote however they choose: providing multiple methods to register, to request absentee ballots, and to vote in...