News Clips

"The House of Representatives passed nearly 10 democracy reform bills, often with bipartisan support, this session, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked debate and markups on all of these bills and refused to allow a vote," Common Cause's director of legislative affairs, Aaron Scherb, said. The 2020 Democracy Scorecard, one of the group's initiatives, provides data on every current member of the House of Representatives and Senate, including their votes and co-sponsorships of democracy reform bills. Scherb told Newsweek that McConnell has been instrumental in blocking the current Congress from enacting laws. "There have been hundreds that have been passed by the House at this point. There have only been 158 enacted laws by this 116th Congress to this point. Yet there are hundreds of bills that have passed the House but continue to sit in Senate Majority Leader McConnell's desk, or his 'legislative graveyard' as it's been called," he said.

“I can't imagine anyone will know on election night what's going to happen in Wisconsin,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin. Heck added that he doesn’t expect the state Legislature coming back into session to make changes.

If the allegations are true, Mr. DeJoy would be in violation of federal election laws that prohibit so-called straw donations because they are a way of evading transparency requirements and contribution limits that are so crucial to the conduct of fair elections. Other possible violations include prohibited use of corporate money and coercion of employees. There is a five-year federal statute of limitations, but there is no time limit in North Carolina for the prosecution of felonies, including campaign violations. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) said an investigation is warranted and Common Cause North Carolina on Wednesday filed a complaint. Even Mr. Trump, with his high tolerance of wrongdoing by his allies, acknowledged the need for investigation. We urge Congress and North Carolina authorities to act expeditiously in getting to the bottom of this troubling matter.

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan pro-democracy group Common Cause, said the tidal wave of early litigation suggests that Republicans and Democrats will have more potential targets for emergency lawsuits that could swing the race. “Both parties will be looking at every state to see whether a lawsuit could help their candidate win,” Albert said. “I think there’s a likelihood of Florida times 10.”

Citing all the disarray in Georgia’s elections this year, public interest groups wonder whether it was an accident. “Secretary Raffensperger has been looking for reasons to cast doubt on Georgia’s mail-in ballot system for months,” said Aunna Dennis, the executive director of Common Cause Georgia. “He would have served us all better if he had invested that time and energy into preventing the problems that occurred in June.”

“We have seen already that the President’s rhetoric is affecting the confidence that voters have in vote-by-mail, particularly, and also in elections in general,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, testified to Congress on Aug. 4.