Research Center
Money in Politics | Election Reform | Media & Democracy | Redistricting | Holding Power Accountable
Money in Politics
Legislating Under the Influence
June 2009
Major health care interests are spending more than $1.4 million a day to lobby Capitol Hill, and those same health care interests have significantly ramped up campaign contributions, donating about $373 million to Members of Congress since 2000.
May 2009
The 18 members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which Rep. Murtha chairs, inserted more than $355 million in earmarks into the 2008 defense spending bill on behalf of their campaign contributors. Those contributors, according to campaign disclosure reports, donated a total of $1.3 million to the members who sponsored the earmarks.
Campaign Finance Reform: A New Era
January 2009
Common Cause is calling on Congress and the Obama Administration to join in making eight changes that will utterly change the pay-to-play nature of how business gets done in Washington.
Ask Yourself Why... Congress Didn't See the Financial Crisis Coming
September 2008
This report looks at the government’s response to the housing crisis and its effects on homeowners. It discusses the connection between the lobbying and campaign contributions of the financial services industry and Congress’ unwillingness to prevent or respond forcefully to one of the biggest financial crisis in recent history.
Ask Yourself Why... Mortgage Foreclosure Rates Remain So High
October 2007
This update to our June report looks at the mortgage lending industry's record of generous spending in Washington DC on lobbying and campaign contributions, and its success in blocking legislation to protect consumers from subprime mortgage loans they can not afford.
Ask Yourself Why... Mortgage Foreclosure Rates Are So High
May 2007
The second in a series about how American families are harmed by special interest campaign donations, this report highlights the mortgage lending industry’s $210 million investment in lobbying and campaign contributions to Congress over seven years and its impact on rising home foreclosure rates.
Breaking Free with Fair Elections: A New Declaration of Independence for Congress
March 2007
This report, released by a coalition working for public financing of Congressional elections, examines how fundraising burdens distract lawmakers from their duties, and proposes a sensible new solution.
Ask Yourself Why... Cable Rates Got So High
November 2006
This report is the first in a series about how American families are harmed by special interest campaign donations.
Mutual Protection: Why the Mutual Fund Industry Should Embrace Disclosure of Political Contributions
February 2005
This report examines the importance of the mutual fund industry to voluntarily disclose their political contributions, especially soft money, which is difficult to track, and its reluctance so far to embrace it.
Buying Influence, Selling Death
October 2007
A joint report by Common Cause and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, shows how the tobacco industry spends lavishly in Washington to prevent Congress from enacting public policies to protect the public's health.
Campaign Contributions by Tobacco Interests: Annual Report September 2007
September 2007
This report by Campaign For Tobacco Free kids and Common Cause provides a comprehensive look at the money spent by the tobacco industry to influence federal legislation.
Election Reform
Voting in 2008: Lessons Learned
There was no catastrophic meltdowns in the election system in 2008, thanks in large part to the hard work of the voting rights community and election administrators. At the same time, thousands and thousands of voters faced unacceptable barriers to voting this year, demonstrating that much more work remains to be done.
Is America Ready To Vote?: State Preparations for Voting Machine Problems in 2008
This 50-state report card grades each state on its preparedness for election system breakdowns and offers concrete steps election officials can take in the weeks before the election to make sure every vote is counted accurately.
Voting in 2008: Ten Swing States
As election officials brace for record-breaking voter turnout on Election Day, a close examination of voting preparedness in 10 swing states shows that significant problems in the basic functions of the American election administration system persist.
This report describes potential online dirty tricks to disseminate false or misleading information over the Internet, and examines existing state and federal laws that might be used to stop these worrying scams.
Voting at Risk 2008 (primaries)
This report by Common Cause and Verified Voting finds that 17 states with presidential primaries are at high risk for voting machine mishaps that could change election results.
Getting it Straight in 2008: What We Know About Vote By Mail Elections and How to Conduct Them Well
Vote By Mail (VBM) elections can increase turnout by four to five percentage points in general elections and significantly more in local or off-year elections.
Ethnic Minorities Do Vote By Mail -- But Only If We Let Them
An analysis of data from the 2001, 2005, and 2007 municipal elections in Denver, Colorado suggest that when Latino voters receive ballots in the mail, they seem to fi ll them out and return them at rates that demonstrate higher participation than when they cast votes at in-person polling places.
Malfunction and Malfeasance: A Report on the Electronic Voting Machine Debacle
This report from Common Cause studies available information on voting machine technology and concludes that the push to use direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines is misguided, has resulted in serious security and reliability concerns, and should be reversed. The report concludes tha the only way to ensure accurate election results is to require all voting systems to produce a voter-verified paper ballot - either marked by the voter or printed by an electronic voiting machine or a ballot-marking machine and approved by the voter - and a statistically meaningful and trasparent audit process.
Voting in 2006: Have We Solved the Problems of 2004?
With the critical mid-term elections weeks away from our publication date, this report looks at some of the serious problems that marred the 2004 presidential election and asks: are we any better off today than we were two years ago?
Voting in 2004: A Report to the Nation on America’s Election Process
Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the Century Foundation sponsored a daylong forum on the 2004 election on Capitol Hill. Panels discussed election protection, voter registration, provisional ballots, voting machines, voter suppression and intimidation, polling place operations and poll workers, and absentee ballots. Panelists included four Members of Congress, election administrators, academics, and representatives from numerous organizations concerned about civil and voting rights.
Report from the Voters: A First Look at the 2004 Election Data/Common Cause Agenda for Reform
This preliminary report from Common Cause is based on extensive election monitoring activities, which includes participation running a national voter alert line (1-866-MYVOTE1) that received nearly 210,000 phone calls from 50 states, more than 1,000 election monitors nationwide and the collection of more than 1,700 voters' stories on our website.
This report by Common Cause Florida raises troubling questions about the state's ability to conduct a smooth election in 2004. The report is titled "Deja Vu All Over Again? A Report by Common Cause Florida on the State's Readiness for the 2004 Election." The report details problems with Florida’s election administration prior to the 2004 election including the purging of alleged felons from voter rolls. The report reviews and questions Florida’s elections officials ability to properly administer provisional ballots and absentee ballots and offers a critique of the state’s, i.d. requirements, voting machines, no-recount rule and primary election process.
A Reporter’s Guide to Voting in 2004
This report gives reporters background on the 2000 election and the provisions of the Help America Vote Act. It outlines a list of problem areas that reporters should examine and articulates sample questions. This includes questions about i.d. requirements, provisional ballots, registration databases, poll worker training, disability-accessible voting machines, absentee ballots, registration deadlines, felon disenfranchisement, and voting machines.
Media and Democracy
Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration
Common Cause lays out a plan of action for the next president and Congress to take to ensure the media performs its appropriate role in our democracy.
Meet the New Boss... Same as the Old Boss
Randall Stephenson is the new chief executive officer of AT&T, taking over from Ed Whitacre - the executive who unwittingly kicked off the ongoing national debate over net neutrality. This report gives a brief history of Stephenson's career, political contributions and his position on the issue of Internet freedom.
The founders of public broadcasting envisioned the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to consist of "distinguished and public-spirited citizens" possessing "the various areas of talent and experience appropriate to this enterprise." Does Warren Bell fit that definition?
A Tale of Five Cities: Why the Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-Ownership Ban Should be Preserved
This report describes the real-world harm that can result when one company owns the local newspaper and its dominant television and/or radio stations. The examples cited in the report show that cross-ownership can harm a community either by shutting out diverse voices or limiting access to unbiased news.
Citizens Speak: The Real World Impacts of Media Consolidation
This report is a distillation of the comments of individuals who spoke at town hall hearings on media consolidation in 2003.
Special Interests Invest Half a Billion Dollars in Telecommunications Policy
This report examines the campaign contributions and lobby expenditures of eight of the country's largest and most powerful media and telecommunications companies, their corporate parents and three of their trade groups, since the passage of the 1996 Telecom Act.
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, Part II: More Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf
This series of reports shines a light on some of the telecom industry's devious "Astroturf" (or fake grassroots) campaigns, as well as their funding of think tanks for "research" that supports the industry's agenda.
A Failure to Communicate: Katrina Pinpoints Dangerous Lapses in Our Telecommunication Policy
This report examines how Congress’s capitulation to the broadcast lobby has hobbled our nation's response to emergencies like Hurricane Katrina.
The Fallout From the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Unintended Consequences and Lessons Learned
This study tells the story of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its aftermath. In many ways, the Telecom Act failed to serve the public and did not deliver on its promise of more competition, more diversity, lower prices, more jobs and a booming economy.
Redistricting
Designer Districts: Safe Seats Tailor Made for Incumbents
This report shows how redistricting in California, the re-drawing of political boundaries, is dominated by incumbent officeholders drawing lines to ensure their own re-election. It is a system that does more to protect the interests of incumbents than serve the voters of California. Our analysis of elections since 1982 – covering three redistricting cycles – shows that competition was suppressed when redistricting was in the hands of incumbents in the 1980’s and 2000’s. But after a court-imposed redistricting in 1991, with lines drawn by three retired judges appointed by the California Supreme Court, competition rose in both U.S. House and state legislative races.
Holding Power Accountable
The Financial Bailout: Your Tax Dollars Gone Missing
This report describes how bank recipients of bailout funds have failed to increase lending to the public, while rewarding executives with lavish bonuses. The report also calls on Congress to address the failures of the financial bailout plan immediately.
Democracy on Drugs looks at how the $535 billion Medicare bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush late last year has been a study in shutting out opposing voices and suppressing the flow of vital information. It has been mentioned in news stories and op-eds in papers that include the Sacramento Bee, the Hartford Courant, the Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA), the Fresno Bee, the Allentown (PA) Morning Call and the Albuquerque (NM) Tribune.
What Went Wrong: How the United States Got Into the Mess in Iraq
People want to know how our country got entangled on such a tragic mess in Iraq. Common Cause looks at the process of going to war in Iraq and how it led to the Bush administration's miscalculations, misleading statements and undermining of basic democratic principles of openness and accountability. Congress, including Democratic leaders, played a role too in their failure to ask tough questions and scrutinize the president's proposals.
Eye on Iraq: Holding Accountable Unchecked Private Contracting
This report highlights findings of ongoing investigations by federal agencies into the administration's contracting procedures in the early stages of the reconstruction in Iraq.