News Clips

If a liberal flips the court’s open seat, progressive groups will attempt to relitigate the issue and urge the new majority to strike down the current map, Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, told CNN. Heck and other voter advocates objected to the court’s conservative majority deciding to use maps drawn by Republicans in 2011 as the foundation for the maps it considered following the 2020 census.

We know those who penned our Constitution in 1787 were unequivocal about the importance of putting checks and balances into every level of government and vesting power in the people. It was essential to the Founders to guard against any one person, group or political party seizing control in a way that undermines public will. If our Supreme Court justices ignore 250-plus years of legal precedent, they’ll also be setting the stage for election pandemonium: One set of rules for state and local elections and another for congressional and presidential elections. Imagine, as a voter, having to figure out where and when to vote to cast a ballot for president and then finding out you need to vote at a different time and place while choosing your next governor.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they just went through the kabuki theater, and we actually end up with exactly the same maps," Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which campaigns against partisan redistricting, said of the commission.

Rewriting the constitution to favor the rich won’t just take away civil liberties but could literally dissolve the United States itself. Everything from the second Amendment to civil rights could be a thing of the past if we don’t stop the Article 5 convention to end the US Constitution. Thom discusses the threat with Viki Harrison Common Cause Director of Constitutional Convention and Protecting Dissent Programs.

The Republican majority on the court also threw out a petition filed earlier this week by redistricting lawsuit plaintiff Common Cause urging that the GOP requests be denied and the ruling remain intact. The advocacy group, which argued the rehearing request was improper, is “disappointed the Court is giving legislators another bite at the apple,” said Hilary Klein, an attorney who filed the Common Cause motion.

Khalif Ali, executive director of the good government group Common Cause Pennsylvania, told Rozzi his organization is concerned about the way legislators have attempted to use amendments to the state constitution. “The constitutional amendment process was never meant to be used as a means to advance vetoed and failed legislation, or to punish the court for decisions that weren’t favorable to a party’s agenda,” Ali said. He pointed to Senate Bill 106, a multi-pronged constitutional amendment package, passed by the General Assembly last year, that seeks to, among other things, change the state constitution to say there was no constitutional right to an abortion in Pennsylvania. It amounted to “a deliberate move to leverage a very sensitive issue to advance a political agenda,” Ali said. “We’ve gotten to a point where some elected officials are spending much more time finding loopholes in the system than moving towards a democracy that works for everyone and collectively solving our pressing societal issues,” he added. “What worries me the most is the fact that we’re getting dangerously close to normalizing this behavior. This listening tour is happening at the exact right time and depending on how the information is used, it could establish a basis for fixing a broken Harrisburg,” Ali continued.