News Clips

“The danger (with rhetoric surrounding impeaching Protasiewicz) is that you undermine significant confidence in the court,” said Jay Heck, executive director of the good government group Common Cause Wisconsin. “But one of the problems we have now is that’s not just a function of this past election, that is a function of things that have been occurring going back to 1997. “This is long-term. This is 25 years in the making.”

Watchdog groups like the American Constitution Society and Common Cause are sounding the alarm over the real danger of such a convention. “The worst case scenario is that [an Article V convention] puts all of our cherished constitutional rights and civil rights completely up for grabs,” Stephen Spaulding, vice president of Common Cause, testified at Johnson’s subcommittee hearing last month.

"I get very worried. How do you have a democracy that is functional with so much misinformation?" Catherine Turcer, the executive director of government accountability group Common Cause Ohio, which endorsed Issue 1, told Salon. "Because we need good information to make decisions, and the misinformation doesn't just cloud the decision-making process, it doesn't just leave people with true misunderstandings. It can also completely turn off people so that they decide to opt out." Turcer said canvassers reported that constituents have expressed confusion about the moniker "Issue 1" in the Nov. 7 election, with many mistaking it for the ballot initiative of the same name in Ohio's Aug. 8 special election.  The League of Women Voters Ohio and Common Cause Ohio have worked to combat the misinformation given the high stakes surrounding abortion and reproductive care in the state. Turcer is hopeful that Ohioans will be able to "suss out the misinformation and the power grab" come Tuesday as they did in voting down August's Issue 1.  "One of the things that I think is gonna make a real difference is who shows up at the polls during early votes, who shows up at the polls on Election Day," Turcer told Salon. "I think at the end of the day, Issue 1 will be determined by who shows up to vote."

“It’s a really contorted argument to try to say, ‘Hey, we have to throw out this election in this jurisdiction but not for other offices,’” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, a nonprofit involved in the arguments before the Supreme Court in Moore.

Ann Webb, the policy director of government watchdog group Common Cause North Carolina, said “an agency that is designed to protect the interests of the public spending, state funds should be operated in such a way that it reflects the public interest in its structure — not simply the interest of a couple of very powerful individuals.” “Democracy requires transparency,” Webb said. Webb, with Common Cause, said it’s “really important to look at the holistic picture. All the ways that the legislature has been grabbing power for itself.” She said Gov Ops is just the latest example. Webb said that Common Cause is “always concerned with balance of power, and checks and balances disrupted, and that’s not only the balance of power among the three branches of government but also the ability of the people to oversee what their government is doing.”

“This was about playing games with an election, not about playing around with the language that goes directly into the Ohio Constitution,” said Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio and a member of the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition’s steering committee.