News Clips

“Our summer of mobilization and grassroots actions to pass this bill will continue. Democracy will prevail. Failure is not an option,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of government watchdog Common Cause, said in a statement.

Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel with Common Cause, said Tuesday’s vote is “the first step in a concerted summer-long fight to get this bill across the finish line.” “It’s by no means over tomorrow,” he said.

Stephen Spaulding, Common Cause Sr. Counsel for Policy & Government Affairs, discusses The For the People Act on ABC News Live the day before the bill was scheduled for markup in the Senate Rules Committee.

Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn reminds us, “ALEC has a long history of rigging the rules against everyday Americans while skirting ethics and tax laws.” And now, she adds, “ALEC…is working behind the scenes to restrict voting rights.” This week, more than 300 voting rights organizations and their allies, including Common Cause, Public Citizen, Fair Fight Action, Color of Change, the AFL-CIO, and the League of Women Voters, demanded that major corporations cut their financial ties with ALEC. 

“Having more voting rights lawyers at DOJ is extremely helpful, but as Attorney General Garland himself said, they also need Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act to give DOJ the tools it needs,” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for advocacy group Common Cause. ... Scherb, whose organization participates in the Deadline for Democracy effort, said the legislative process is inching ahead slowly, despite Manchin’s public rejection of the For the People Act. Advocates are hopeful grassroots pressure will convince lawmakers there is strong public support for reform. “There’s certainly a lot more activity happening behind the scenes, as well as a huge public push,” he said.

Previously, voter registration was halted 28 days before any election as a precaution against possible double-voting while county clerks updated registration rolls painstakingly by hand with paper and ink, said Mario Jimenez, a policy campaign manager with the progressive good-government group Common Cause New Mexico. That is no longer necessary with advances in electronic record keeping and technology that synchronizes voter registration records with state motor vehicle databases. Jimenez believes the switch to same-day registration, if adopted in future elections statewide, will expand voter access and participation in elections and improve the accuracy of voter registration rolls.