News Clips

“It’s a gathering of wealthy corporate funders and the policymakers who protect their interests,” said Anthony Gutierrez, spokesman for Common Cause Texas, which issued a 24-page report this week on ALEC’s influence in Texas, a state with at least 58 affiliated lawmakers, more than any other. The state chairmen are Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, and Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills.“We fully expect new attempts to suppress the vote or gerrymander Texas districts to come out of this conference, and we’ll be standing ready to stop them,”

“I think the eyes of the nation are watching to see what happens here,” said Bob Phillips, the state director of the advocacy group Common Cause, a plaintiff in the case. “For other states, it might be, ‘Hey, if it can be done in North Carolina, it might be done in your state’. That’s what we tell advocates around the country.”

“His testimony in his direct (examination) is just incorrect,” said Daniel Jacobson, a lawyer who represents the redistricting reform group Common Cause NC. “The numbers are wrong.” The three-judge panel overseeing the case agreed to strike parts of Johnson’s testimony.

“State courts do not need to sit idly by while people’s constitutional rights are being violated just because the U.S. Supreme Court refused to act,” Common Cause attorney Stanton Jones told a three-judge panel in Raleigh. His clients want new maps drawn for the 2020 elections.

"We have forever had a flawed process that preordains so many of our congressional and legislative elections to the party," asserted Bob Phillips of Common Cause North Carolina, whose group filed the lawsuit. "I believe what's at stake is the beginning of the end of that." Common Cause's challenge contends the legislative maps were drawn to maximize the power of the GOP and violate the state constitution's clauses guaranteeing the right to a free election, freedom of assembly and equal protection. "And what we say is that when mapmakers are putting districts together solely primarily based on how people vote, is that's a violation of all three," Phillips said.

A few dozen computer files recovered from the home of a deceased Republican redistricting consultant can be offered as evidence in next week’s partisan gerrymandering trial in North Carolina, state judges ruled on Friday. The three-judge panel presiding over the trial that starts Monday sided with the election reform group Common Cause, the North Carolina Democratic Party and registered Democratic voters who are suing Republican lawmakers and challenging state House and Senate boundaries drawn in 2017.