Abuse of Power

The first duty of government is to protect its people and it is up to the people to hold that government accountable when it fails. A new report from Common Cause chronicles the Trump administration’s failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of government accountability and the abuse of power.

The Census is the bedrock of our democracy, and we cannot afford to politicize the count. But that is exactly what political appointees to the Census Bureau are doing in reversing course and shortening the enumeration period against the recommendations of career staff who insisted they required additional time to conduct an accurate census count during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Decisions over how the general election will be conducted need to be sorted out now, said Sylvia Albert, the director of Voting and Elections at Common Cause, a voting rights group. “The key is not waiting for November,” Ms. Albert said. “The point of those lawsuits is to establish the policies and procedures that are going to be used in November so there isn’t going to be confusion on the day of the election.”

“In an emergency, the president is able to do a lot of things he normally could not do, but only because he has been designated these powers by Congress in laws such as the National Emergencies Act,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for eased ballot access. “But in this case, the Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, to select Election Day. No laws passed by Congress have delegated these powers to the president, even in an emergency, so Congress is the only entity that has the power to change the date of the election.”

“Usually we see a winning president begin to impose ethical restrictions during a transition, but I think this is unprecedented,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog. “The Biden campaign’s policy is a breath of fresh air after more than three years of a Trump administration that has been mired in conflicts of interest.”

So remarkable is his run that, for many, “term limits is code in this state for opposition to the speaker,” said Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois. Young calls limits a “blunt-force tool” when other reforms, such as overhauling the way legislative districts are drawn, would do more good.