Trump Administration/Executive Ethics

"Donald Trump was told repeatedly he lost the 2020 election, including by those inside his circle."

Marilyn Carpinteyro, Common Cause interim co-president "No American is above the law – not even former presidents. The charges that a federal grand jury leveled today against former President Donald Trump are profoundly serious and must go to trial. The charges themselves are unprecedented, but so are the events that led to them.”

Aunna Dennis, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Georgia, said Trump’s expected indictment in Fulton county “validates the concerns of folks who don’t want the elections to be interfered with”. “Even if you are in the highest seat in the country, that does not mean you can trample or mislead or manipulate the voices of voters and the voices of communities,” Dennis said. “We are not a fascist society. We are not an authoritarian society here. That’s not how our democracy works.”

No American is above the law, not even the President. But we learned during the Trump administration that existing laws are not sufficient to prevent abuses of the Office of the President. We need strong guardrails in the form of laws. We need the Protecting Our Democracy Act to provide greater checks and balances to the powers of the presidency while creating new mechanisms for transparency and accountability.  

The lifting of bans on former president Trump by Twitter and Facebook hammers home the point that there is little interest from social media platforms in combating election disinformation. The platforms are scaling back content moderation at a time when consistent enforcement of civic integrity policies can be most impactful. The next year is pivotal, not just in state legislatures but for people's attitudes toward democracy and the information they receive about it.

Common Cause is pleased to announce that two Common Cause veterans have stepped into the role of vice president at the government watchdog. Longtime Common Cause leader Kathay Feng will step into the role of Vice President for Programs and Stephen Spaulding is returning to Common Cause from his role as Policy Director of the U.S. Senate Rules Committee and will serve as Vice President for Policy & External Affairs. Together the two will help lead Common Cause’s national efforts to reduce barriers to a more representative democracy. They will also support efforts for the organization’s 30 state operations working to create a 21st Century democracy that works for everyone.