News Clips

“It is stunning to me that this bill has moved forward,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. “Countywide voting is the solution to so many problems.” “If we end countywide voting, we are just ramping up more and more confusion for Texans,” Gutierrez said. He pointed to a study by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs, which found that confusion over voter ID laws kept some people from voting in Harris County.

The North Carolina state court ruling “makes it even more clear that the Supreme Court needs to make a decision about whether or not that legislature should be able to rule over federal elections without any checks or balances or if we still want courts to have a role,” said Kathay Feng, the vice president of programs at the good government group Common Cause. Common Cause is one of the parties in the federal lawsuit opposing the ISL theory. “We need to have a definitive answer from the Supreme Court,” she continued.

Only one party in the case, Common Cause, argued for the Supreme Court to decide the issue — and rule against North Carolina. In a brief filed Thursday, the group argued that the mere fact that North Carolina’s high court ruled in the case means the U.S. Supreme Court can still decide it. “Petitioners’ core contention before this Court is that the Elections Clause prohibits state constitutions—and state courts—from imposing limits on the authority of state legislatures over congressional redistricting. But the North Carolina Supreme Court has now twice rejected that contention,” the brief said.

“It’s definitely one of the most damaging,” said Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at the advocacy group Common Cause Texas, because by limiting voters’ options it could decrease turnout. The bill, like others that have made it through the Senate, must still pass the more moderate, Republican-controlled State House.

“As written, the bill does not clearly define ‘good cause’ and that is a serious problem that could easily throw our elections into chaos,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a group aiming to keep elections free, fair and accessible.

“It’s a radical departure…a 180-degree change in how we have considered our system of government and the role of courts,” said Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights for a coalition of Southern-based groups, including Common Cause.