Phone: (608) 512-9363 | Email: jheck@commoncause.org
Jay Heck became the executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin (CC/WI) in 1996. CC/WI is Wisconsin’s largest non-partisan citizens reform advocacy organization with over 9,000 members and activists. Wisconsin’s major newspaper editorial boards and pro-reform legislators of both major political parties consider CC/WI to be one of Wisconsin’s most effective and influential state reform organizations. Heck is currently the longest serving Common Cause state director in the country.
Under Heck’s leadership, CC/WI has had many accomplishments over the past several decades including
- leading the statewide effort to create one of the first and the most effective online lobbyist reporting systems in the nation in 1998;
- helping to uncover and then leading to highlight the illegal campaign fundraising scheme in the State Capitol, which led to five top legislative leaders of both political parties being criminally charged and removed from office of in 2001-2002;
- leading the effort to eliminate the partisan political legislative caucus staffs involved in illegal campaign activities, saving taxpayers more than $4 million per year in 2001;
- leading the legislative effort for the creation of a mandatory “paper trail” for all voting machines used in Wisconsin elections since 2006;
- helping to create and then leading to pass legislation to establish Wisconsin’s independent, non-partisan Government Accountability Board to oversee state elections, lobbying regulation and ethics in 2007;
- leading the effort to enact into law the Impartial Justice Law, which established full public financing for candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court who limited their spending to $400,000;
- helping to devise and then leading in legislative efforts to pass a measure to require the disclosure of the donors to outside interest groups spending money to influence the outcome of elections;
- leading in the establishing of a new nonpartisan independent redistricting reform measure in Wisconsin and uniting legislators and organizations behind it.
CC/WI and other fair maps advocates were instrumental in the establishment of fairer, more completive state legislative voting maps, which Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed into law in February 2024. Heck and CC/WI are also key activists in combating voter suppression and fighting to expand voting rights and access to the ballot in Wisconsin. And under Heck, CC/WI has been a leading state proponent for fairer and more impartial state courts at all levels.
Heck moved to Wisconsin in 1988 from Washington, DC to serve as a top assistant to the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, Joseph Strohl and was the Associate Director of the State Senate Majority Democratic Caucus. He had previously spent seven years as Legislative Director for U.S. Congressman Peter H. Kostmayer (D-PA). In 1980, Heck served on the national campaign staff of Independent U.S. Presidential candidate, Congressman John B. Anderson (R-IL).
He is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and graduated with honors from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with degrees in political science and history. His two adult children live and work in Bangkok, Thailand and in Chicago.
