News Clips

"People who follow Rick Perry over the course of his career might think he was more moderate in the earlier days, when you look at immigration and the Texas Dream Act," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan group promoting good government and fair elections. "When it comes to elections, though, Rick Perry was always out there, always into conspiracy theories and voter fraud narratives." He noted Perry signed Texas' first voter ID law, a measure so extreme the courts ordered the state to temper it.

"When the referees themselves don't follow the rules it sends a bad signal that the rules might not really matter," Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, told Insider. "People who are in charge of ethics enforcement should be the No. 1 champions of fully complying with the letter and spirit of the law and all relevant regulations."

"Confirmation hearings are how we’re supposed to have some assurance that the person in charge of elections in Texas is qualified to do that job," said Katya Ehresman, program manager for Common Cause Texas Voting Rights. "We should all be deeply alarmed by the fact that this is the third person to serve as secretary of state without having ever been confirmed by the Texas Senate. An office of this caliber should not continue to be filled by an unconfirmed and unelected official."

“When an elected official runs for another public office, it doesn’t, in any way, absolve them from complying with freedom of information requests or public information requests,” said Aaron Scherb, the legislative affairs director for Common Cause, a national nonpartisan group that advocates for government transparency. “Public officials work on the taxpayers’ dime. And it’s important that citizens can get the transparency and accountability that they deserve from their elected officials at all times.”

Mr. Zeldin’s pledge to push him out “is an authoritarian move,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group. “If the voters recall a D.A., that’s the will of the voters. But for some other entity to override the will of the voters is antithetical to our system of governance.”

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections with Common Cause, said voter advocacy groups are prepared to intervene should partisan actors interfere with certification without justification or if a secretary of state refuses to seek a court order compelling a local board to act. “That is why we are here, and there will be lot of advocates and lawyers willing and able to step in and file if the secretary is not interested in using their authority or their position to ensure that the votes of their constituents are counted,” Albert said.