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Money & Influence 04.24.2023

The Oregonian: Oregon Democrats weigh competing proposals to cap political donations

“It’s great to see Senator Golden offering an alternative that could create meaningful limits and doesn’t create a way to bypass that,” said Kate Titus, executive director of Common Cause Oregon, which partners with Honest Elections. However, she noted that past negotiations with Democrats have fallen short. Two measures fell by the wayside in 2021: House Bill 3343, sponsored by now-U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, and House Bill 2680, a weaker proposal spearheaded by Rayfield.

Indianapolis Star: Lawmaker pushes bills that can benefit his businesses

"He's not the only artisan distiller in the state, but it's a pretty small universe," Common Cause Indiana's executive director Julia Vaughn said. "It certainly leaves an appearance of impropriety, which causes people to wonder about motive."

Washington Post: Clarence Thomas might have recognized law at issue in his real estate deal

Back in 2011, he updated years of his financial disclosure reports to include employment details for his wife, conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas. The updates came after the watchdog group Common Cause raised red flags. Thomas said the employment information was “inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” Despite Thomas having acknowledged the error and amended his filings, Common Cause wasn’t impressed and suggested it didn’t add up. “Justice Thomas sits on the highest court of the land, is called upon daily to understand and interpret the most complicated legal issues of our day and makes decisions that affect millions,” Common Cause President Bob Edgar said at the time. “It is hard to see how he could have misunderstood the simple directions of a federal disclosure form.”

Miami Herald/CQ-Roll Call: Asking Clarence Thomas to testify in Senate could spark a showdown

Common Cause sent a letter Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee asking them have Thomas testify and “put it on the record for the American people,” as well as have Roberts testify. “The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly proven itself incapable of policing itself without a code of ethics,” Common Cause co-president Marilyn Carpinteyro said in a news release. “It is time for Congress to hold hearings and pass legislation to establish a code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices to hold them to the same standards as every other federal judge in the nation.”

MarketWatch: Watchdog groups call for Justice Clarence Thomas to address reported failure to disclose gifts from real-estate tycoon

Common Cause’s senior director of legislative affairs, Aaron Scherb, said it would be reasonable for U.S. lawmakers to have Thomas testify as to “why he didn’t put any of these trips on his personal financial-disclosure forms.” Scherb said that move could come from the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin. Durbin said on Thursday that his committee “will act” to respond to the ProPublica report. Scherb also described the lack of disclosure by Thomas as “extremely serious.” “Having a billionaire Republican donor wining and dining a Supreme Court justice through use of a private jet, luxury stays at his vacation retreat — not just one or two times but over the course of 20 years — and not have [the] Supreme Court justice disclose any of this, as he’s required to on personal financial-disclosure forms, is a huge scandal,” the Common Cause expert said.

Voting & Elections 04.4.2023

Washington Monthly: Could Ballot Images Loosen the Grip of Disinformation?

“Bad actors could easily abuse this data,” wrote Alex Gulotta, Arizona state director of All Voting is Local Action, and Jenny Guzman, program director of Common Cause Arizona, in a mid-March Arizona Republic commentary. “This is not a far-fetched reality.”

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