News Clips

Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy for the nonprofit Common Cause, said gambling on elections is bad for democracy. "You can imagine wealthy gamblers could make significant money by exploiting disinformation to influence an electoral outcome that would protect the bettors' bottom line," Spaulding pointed out. "This again opens up a significant risk to the perception that the winners and losers of an election are not determined by voters, but by those who stand to gain financially." Spaulding noted the "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision allowed companies to spend unlimited money on elections, and called betting on elections a "profound threat to democracy." "You can imagine a situation where an entity places an enormous wager on the outcome of an election, and also funnels resources through Super PACs or other 'dark money' vehicles to influence the outcome of an election," Spaulding explained. "That is inherently, we think, anti-democratic." Both Common Cause and some U.S. senators, including California's Dianne Feinstein, submitted letters of opposition during the public comment period, which ended in July. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to make a decision by Sept. 21.

Proponents of the new threshold are “willing to change the rules because they don’t trust voters,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a nonprofit group focused on strengthening democratic institutions.

"Today is another day of Michigan values holding strong against lies about our elections," Quentin Turner, program director at Common Cause Michigan, said in a statement. "For years, Michiganders of all parties have continued to resoundingly reject lies and conspiracy theories about our election." "Mr. DePerno, Ms. Rendon, and their team's alleged actions do not reflect the voices of millions who believe in fair, accessible elections and upholding the will of the people," Turner added. "We are convinced that the upcoming case against DePerno and Rendon will result in accountability and show, once again, that Michigan is a state that believes in protecting the rights of its citizens."

While the pro-DeSantis ad accurately shares Trump’s words from the Truth Social post, Common Cause disinformation analyst Emma Steiner said she still found the use of AI-generated content in a political campaign "concerning." "In an information environment where voters are faced with a deluge of false and misleading information, AI content has the potential to muddy the waters even more," she said. "My major concern is that there are, as yet, very few ‘rules of the road’ for the use of AI in political campaigns at a particularly fraught time for democracy — and when social media platforms are backing off of enforcement of their own civic integrity policies."

Local news is facing a stiff headwind as it fights to remain viable in an environment where media consolidation is gutting newsrooms across the country. That is why Common Cause is opposed to gigantic hedge funds and investment groups taking over media outlets — because inevitably, they are in it to extract profits.

The key to having any interstate program function properly is having as many states participate as possible, said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan group dedicated to upholding American democracy. "If Texas is going to lead the charge to have a bunch of red states create their own system, it’s hard to see how that can possibly be successful with such limited participation," he said.