News Clips

ALBANY — Common Cause NY and ethics-minded lawmakers remain committed to preventing former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other misbehaving elected officials from spending the campaign war chest they amassed while in office. "This is one instance, unfortunately among many, and it's time to deal with this gap of law," Common Cause NY Executive Director Susan Lerner said Tuesday at the Capitol.

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.

John M. Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, hailed the Supreme Court decision saying, “It’s good news for Rhode Island because it means that this fall Rhode Islanders will know the sources of money trying to influence their voters.” Marion described the 2012 Rhode Island law as “groundbreaking,” saying it was modeled after the proposed “DISCLOSE Act” introduced by US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat. Marion said the US Supreme Court was closely divided in the Citizens United case, but at the same time, eight of the nine justices upheld disclosure requirements – thereby rejecting the idea that the First Amendment protects the anonymity of donors in independent spending. “The Supreme Court has historically been very supportive of disclosure of campaign finance as a protection against corruption,” Marion said. “That is why this is important that the law remains strong.”

“I think we’ve now saw sort of a crack or a fissure in what has been sort of a tradition of Republican commissioners acting as a bloc and citing prosecutorial discretion, vagueness of the law, and a whole host of rationales for their refusals to move forward on any sort of enforcement,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel at Common Cause. Spaulding previously worked as a senior aide for a former Democratic FEC commissioner. But Friday’s decision will not end dark money entirely, Spaulding notes. “For super PACs, there’s still plenty of ways for dark money to infect the system,” he said. “This doesn’t wave a magic wand,” he continued, citing nonprofit groups, trade associations and other differently incorporated LLCs that could continue to evade heightened disclosure requirements.

But Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the democracy reform group Common Cause, said: “The reality since that decision shows that it is not necessarily independent – we see lots of coordination between candidates and Super Pacs – and it causes enormous damage to our imperfect democracy where wealthy mega-donors, corporations, special interest groups not only impact and influence elections but, once elected, lawmakers feel like they need to grant favours for those who funded their campaigns.” Super Pacs are obliged to disclose their donors but these can include non-profits which make the original source of the money hard to track. More than 2,000 Super Pacs operated in each of the last two election cycles. The negative consequences have been felt not only in Washington but at state level, added Flynn, whose long fight for campaign finance reform in Connecticut bore fruit in 2008. “It has created a huge amount of cynicism that Congress and state legislatures are corrupt because they benefit from outside groups spending money on their behalf and that people’s voices do not matter. “The money has also led to further polarisation, driving more extreme kinds of measures, particularly on the right where we’ve seen money supporting those who want to overturn a fair and free election. If you look at the top 10 Super Pacs and their outside spending so far just in 2022, you’ll see nine out of the top 10 Super Pacs are conservative or support Republican candidates. It isn’t like, ‘Hey, both sides do it and it’s equal and it’s not a problem.’”

The For the People Act "represents the boldest democracy reform since Watergate, and any funds currently available for the old system should be used for the new system of federal citizen-funded elections, which must pass so we can get big money out of politics," Beth Rotman, the director of money in politics and ethics for Common Cause, said prior to the bill's stall-out.