Citizen Funded Elections

Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel with Common Cause, said Tuesday’s vote is “the first step in a concerted summer-long fight to get this bill across the finish line.” “It’s by no means over tomorrow,” he said.

Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause Sr. Counsel for Policy & Government Affairs, discusses The For the People Act on ABC News Live the day before the bill was scheduled for markup in the Senate Rules Committee.

Today, all but six of the Republican Senators turned their backs on democracy and on their nation. History will not be kind to those Senators who voted against even allowing a debate on a bill to create an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by an armed mob bent on overturning the results of the 2020 election by force. That attack left 5 dead and scores injured – including more than 130 law enforcement officers who suffered injuries while defending the Capitol and the members of Congress inside.

Sylvia Albert, Common Cause Director of Voting & Elections, discusses The For the People Act on ABC News Live the day before the bill was scheduled for markup in the Senate Rules Committee.

“It’s critically important that the For the People Act remain big, bold and together,” said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, one of several groups working with Democrats on the bill, adding, “People don’t want piecemeal solutions to comprehensive problems.”

Despite those warnings, Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said that Democrats needed to keep every option on the table. “Senate Democrats have the majority and they need to have the ability to govern,” he said. “This idea that it can be costless to filibuster, that you can essentially raise your hands behind closed doors and grind everything to a halt, is unacceptable.”