Democracy Wire

With hundreds of thousands of Americans outraged by the plague of gun violence in our schools expected to march in Washington on Saturday, Common Cause today released a practical guide for challenging the power of the gun lobby.

There’s some good news for democracy this morning from a place where we haven’t seen much of it lately: Washington, D.C.

President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and the Republican National Committee are running an elaborate scheme to skirt federal election laws and use illegal “soft money” contributions for the Trump-Pence reelection campaign, Common Cause charges in complaints filed today.

As congressional appropriators work to fashion a mammoth spending bill to keep the federal government running, Republican leaders are again trying to use the “must pass” spending legislation to advance their guerilla war against sensible campaign finance laws.

Prodded by Common Cause and other democracy reform advocates, state legislators across the country are rejecting a dangerous scheme to convene a constitutional convention and potentially overhaul the nation’s founding document.

Two news items this morning bring more evidence that President Trump and his family have turned the White House into a personal profit center.