Press Center

Voters are disillusioned with Congress and concerned about the influence of special interests on their elected officials, according to a national survey conducted by the bipartisan pair of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) and McKinnon Media (R). The poll was released today by campaign finance groups Change Congress, Common Cause, and Public Campaign Action Fund.

From the research findings: Voters will support members of Congress that support broad and bold legislation to blunt the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and 62 percent of voters support a description of the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752, H.R. 1826).

On Thursday, the House Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826), championed by House Democratic Caucus Chairman John B. Larson (D-Conn.), gained its 134^th co-sponsor, pushing the number of supporters to more than half of the Democratic Caucus. This high level of support is a sign of the growing momentum for changing the way campaigns are financed in this country, according to Public Campaign and Common Cause.

"The country needs both parties to work to solve the political crisis created by the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, and the bipartisan solution that has the broadest support within Congress is Fair Elections," said Nick Nyhart, president and CEO of Public Campaign. "Not only is it the best policy response to the escalating cost to run for office, it will take candidates off the fundraising treadmill and encourage them to seek support from voters back home. This bill is democracy-in-action."

More than 200 faith leaders representing a diversity of religions have signed onto a letter to Congress expressing concern over the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse decades of campaign finance law to allow unlimited corporate spending on elections. The faith leaders are also pledging to work with their congregations to encourage passage of legislation that put voters – not special interests – in charge of our democracy. Common Cause and Public Campaign released the letter Wednesday.

“We believe existing campaign finance laws already permit the unfair influence of persons and groups with extraordinary wealth over the political process by providing them with special access to elected officials,” the religious leaders wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “This special access ultimately results in legislative outcomes that reflect the needs of those with the financial means to make political contributions, and not the needs of the poor or disenfranchised.”

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was caught on camera during the State of the Union visibly disagreeing with President Obama that the recent Citizens United decision has opened the floodgate for corporations, including those with a majority of foreign owners, to spend unlimited amounts around our elections.

What other way is there to interpret the court’s decision? This deeply flawed opinion will allow corporations, including those owned by a majority of foreign entities, to spend without limit to influence US elections. In short, it has made a bad situation even worse.

The Supreme Court Citizens United decision is judicial activism and arrogance at its worst.

This is a political coup by the High Court for the deepest political pockets in America, and without any factual record before them to support it. The Court declares outright – beyond overruling Austin and McConnell – that corporate expenditures cannot corrupt elected officials, that influence over lawmakers is not corruption, and that appearance of influence will not undermine public faith in our democracy.

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision today that will enhance the ability of the deepest-pocketed special interests to influence elections and the U.S. Congress, said a pair of leading national campaign finance reform organizations, Common Cause and Public Campaign. The decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which overturned the ban on independent expenditures by corporations, paves the way for unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court today announced it will hold a special session Thursday at 10 am, and it appears likely that the Court could announce a decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, according to SCOTUSBlog. Citizens United is a long-awaited ruling that could greatly expand the role of corporations and labor unions in financing American elections. If the decision is released, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21 and Public Campaign will hold a telephone press conference at noon Thursday featuring campaign finance experts who will give legal analysis, respond to the decision and talk about what it means for the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond.

Campaign finance experts will give legal analysis and reaction via teleconference to the Citizens United decision at noon ET on the day of the decision.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) must look at whether campaign contributions from the financial industry to members of Congress assisted in weakening the financial regulatory system that led to the economic collapse, according to a letter sent to the commission today by Public Campaign and Common Cause.

According to the letter: "We strongly urge the financial sector representatives to answer the question, 'what role did campaign contributions play in your attempts to influence Congressional action on financial issues?'"

Reform groups issued a report card today on the Executive Branch lobbying, ethics and transparency reforms implemented by the Obama Administration in its first year.

The groups include Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue opinions Tuesday and Wednesday, according to SCOTUSblog, and the Court could announce a decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a ruling that may greatly expand the role of corporations and labor unions in financing American elections. The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21 and Public Campaign will hold a telephone press conference on the day the decision is announced featuring campaign finance experts who will give legal analysis, respond to the decision and talk about what it means for the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond.

Campaign finance experts will give legal analysis and reaction via teleconference to the Citizens United decision at noon ET on the day of the decision.

When the House of Representatives passed a sweeping financial reform package last week, it rejected several high profile amendments, including the so-called “cramdown” provision. Introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), whose district has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, the provision would temporarily allow bankruptcy judges to adjust the value of a mortgage to reflect the current value of the home.

In March, the House passed an identical proposal as a stand-alone bill, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009. But the same chamber rejected it this time, thanks to nearly four dozen members of Congress who switched their position on the issue since the spring.

The controversy over Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) request to delay weekend votes on the omnibus spending bill purportedly to attend a fundraiser in New Orleans exemplifies our broken campaign finance system, two national campaign finance watchdogs said today. The groups criticized the money-driven political system which forces elected leaders to spend too much time fundraising when they should be addressing the critical issues that face our country.

"That the leader of the US Senate would even consider delaying Senate proceedings and negotiations on an issue as important as health care reform, reportedly to attend a fundraiser, speaks volumes of the constant pressure that members of Congress are under to raise money for themselves, their colleagues and their political party," said Bob Edgar, president and CEO Common Cause. "We need a Congress that is immune to the pressures of fundraising and that serves the public interest. It's time to pass the Fair Elections Now Act."

As the House debates the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 this week, the lending industry continues to fight a mortgage modification provision that would allow bankruptcy judges to adjust the terms of mortgages to help struggling families as part of a broader effort to stem the worsening foreclosure crisis.

Lending industry opponents of the measure, some of the biggest recipients of federal bailout money, have spent lavishly on lobbying and campaign contributions in 2009. An analysis by Common Cause and Public Campaign shows that the coalition of banks opposed to the mortgage modification provision – including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co -- have spent more than $80 million on lobbying and more than $6 million on campaign contributions this year, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

A Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) could be announced as early as today, November 3, and is expected to expand the role of independent spending in American elections. In Citizens United – a case that originally challenged whether the provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) limiting outside groups’ spending should also apply to pay-per-view movies -- the Court appears poised to overreach and open a new door for the deepest-pocketed players to spend money on campaigns to elect or defeat candidates.

All signs indicate the U.S. Supreme Court has a slim majority in support of rolling back restrictions on corporate and union spending in the upcoming decision in Citizens United. Such a move would come as no surprise for the Roberts Court, as the conservative majority has moved steadily toward deregulation of campaigns over the past two years with its Wisconsin Right to Life (2007) and Davis (2008) decisions.

Common Cause today condemned a House Ethics Committee finding that "no relevant House rule or other standard of conduct prohibits the creation of an appearance of a conflict of interest when selecting witnesses for a committee hearing."

The House Ethics Committee on Thursday asserted that no House rule prohibits the creation of an appearance of a conflict of interest in announcing its decision not to investigate Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) for inviting his friend and neighbor, Brooks Hurst, to testify before a Congressional hearing on renewable fuels without mentioning that Graves' wife and Hurst were investors together in renewable fuels plants in Missouri at the time.

The UC Berkeley School of Law's Center on Health, Economic & Family Security today released a report entitled The Costs and Benefits of a Public Option in Health Care Reform: An Economic Analysis,  which argues that the public option is likely to generate greater benefits and cost savings to the American people than has been projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other independent analysts. Common Cause supports a public option as a way of reducing health care costs and extending health care coverage to more Americans.

The most sweeping reform Congress is considering as it overhauls the nation's health care system is the public option, which would create a government-backed health insurance plan. The Cost and Benefits report argues that previous estimates underestimate the benefits of such a plan because they treat the insurance and provider industries as perfectly competitive markets, failing to account for cost savings from increased competition with a public plan.

The impending Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which could be announced as early as Tuesday, is expected to significantly expand the role of the most powerful special interests in financing American elections. The Court appears poised to turn its back on more than 100 years of law and pave the way for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on direct campaigns to elect or defeat federal candidates.

Such a dramatic decision would further reduce trust in government policymaking and take our country in the wrong direction. It is hard to imagine how America achieves real progress and tackles critical challenges – like health care, climate change and the economy – when our elected representatives are locked in an all-out fundraising arms race that makes them both more dependent on and vulnerable to the powerful special interests opposed to change.

Our elections are an arms race to see who can raise the most campaign cash—and today’s political strategy is to promote a high cash intake and downplay fundraising efforts that fall short of that goal. Candidates promote these dollar figures as “proof” that their campaign is viable.

Recent Federal Election Commission filings are once again serving as a litmus test for which candidates for Congress are “real” and which are in trouble for next year’s congressional races.