Limits on the Influence of Money In Politics

“Officeholders are deciding on matters that present a choice between a fundamental belief in democracy or authoritarian rule; between you and me having power in our vote and voice, or others taking that way from us,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause in a prepared statement with the Scorecard’s release.  See the full results at https://democracyscorecard.org.

Common Cause also ranked individual members of Congress on their pro-democracy efforts, with 101 members — all Democrats — earning a perfect score. That's a more than 70% increase over the number of members of Congress who had perfect scores (58) in the 2020 Democracy Scorecard. Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn cited the legislative filibuster as the roadblock to pro-democracy reform.  "In the end, with high levels of support in Congress and an overwhelming outpouring of public support, Congress ran into one of the reasons our democracy needs to be modernized: the filibuster," she wrote in the report.

Sandy Ma, the executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Hawaii, welcomed the legislation but said it should be strengthened in the future to cover all organizations that spend on political campaigns, including corporations, unions and chambers of commerce. “If we want to shine a light on dark money spending, which we all do, especially Common Cause, we have to do it in a strategic way and cover everybody,” she said.

Right now, appointed local officials cannot receive lavish contributions from wealthy interests when those interests are seeking favorable votes for contracts, licenses, permits, or land use entitlements. That’s common sense. But, bizarrely, the same is not true for local elected officials sitting on our city councils and boards of supervisors. They can accept big checks from wealthy interests and then immediately turn around and vote on the things those interests covet most. And those things are also the things that determine whether our neighborhoods are safe or dangerous, blighted or beautiful, traffic jammed or commuter friendly. Enter Senate Bill 1439, a bill authored by Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer and co-authored by Republican state Sen. Scott Wilk. Supported by Common Cause and other good government groups, the bill would close this loophole in the state’s Political Reform Act, prohibiting local elected officials from accepting a contribution of more than $250 from someone seeking a license, permit or other entitlement while a decision is pending before the local elected officials.

Aaron Scherb Common Cause Director, Legislative Affairs: Scherb co-led an umbrella advocacy group made up of 240 organizations to push for passage of the For the People Act, a comprehensive voting-rights package that Republicans opposed.