News Clips

“This is an area where a lot of money is involved. The state is offering big incentives involving our tax dollars to corporations, and Hoosiers deserve to know the backstory,” said Julia Vaughn, who leads government watchdog Common Cause Indiana. “But I think the IEDC and its foundation: their structure often stops that from happening.” Vaughn said her organization expressed transparency-related concerns when the state swapped its commerce department for the corporation-foundation combination. “I’m afraid our worst fears have come true,” she concluded. “… It’s simply another way for these corporate interests to flex their muscle, and in a way that happens completely in the dark.”

Linda Meigs, a political activist from Charlotte, drove to Ms. Cotham's district this month for a meeting with local lawmakers hosted by Common Cause North Carolina and other liberal advocacy groups. Ms. Meigs said she had come prepared to confront Ms. Cotham over how she could have campaigned on ''Democratic Party values such as women's rights to reproductive freedom and L.G.B.T.Q. rights,'' only to reverse her support. Ms. Cotham was invited to speak, but didn't attend. ''When I'm talking to somebody and asking them a question, I usually like to look them in the face,'' Ms. Meigs told a crowded room at a Mint Hill church. ''I can't do that tonight.'' Instead, she pointed to a front-row chair. ''So,'' she said to cheers, ''I'm going to talk to this empty chair.''

The Civil Beat Editorial Board spoke on Tuesday with the program director of Common Cause Hawaii. Camron Hurt said the organization under his leadership will focus on elections, voting access, government transparency and campaign finance reform. Hurt began by explaining what Common Cause does.

Common Cause North Carolina’s Bob Phillips called the ruling “the worst decision, perhaps, the state Supreme Court has ever made.” In her dissent, Justice Anita Earls wrote that “today’s result was preordained on 8 November 2022, when two new members of this Court were elected to establish this Court’s conservative majority.”

Adding partisan labels “encourages the candidates and voters to think about these justices as partisan actors,” said Common Cause Ohio’s Catherine Turcer. “And that's a real problem when it comes to wanting an independent, impartial judiciary.”

“How do they get anything done? Are the important decisions going to be deadlocked? The consequences of that, as we are learning, could be devastating,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. Early voting polling sites and schedules must be approved by the unanimous support of a county election board under current law, Phillips said. If a member of the county board objects, the state board must decide. If it cannot, he said, current law says the only early voting site would be the county board of elections office. Such a decision could have a devastating impact on turnout in large counties that might normally have more than a dozen early voting locations, he said, and leave voters in more rural, less populous counties forced to travel.