News Clips

Dede Feldman, a former state lawmaker and spokesperson for Common Cause New Mexico, said voters deserve to know who signs candidates’ paychecks and where potential conflicts of interest lie. That’s also true for district attorney candidates, she said. “It's not a good look when candidates do not disclose their finances,” she said. Feldman said more candidates need to file disclosures, but that won’t go nearly far enough. They also need to take them more seriously. “The chief duty of elected officials is to act in the public interest, and not their private interests. But when no one knows what their private interests are, there's no way to really enforce conflict of interest,” she said.

Watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint claiming the payment was an “in-kind contribution” to Trump’s campaign, but the FEC failed to support their general counsel’s recommendation to investigate amid partisan deadlock. Cohen ultimately pleaded guilty to election finance violations, and said the Trump Organization reimbursed him.

Virginia Kase Solomón - Common Cause President and CEO Solomón, who came to Common Cause in February, has backed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a stalled effort to modernize the 1965 Voting Rights Act meant to combat voter suppression. First job: Blockbuster Video. Worst career advice she ever received: “To be more realistic about my goals because I was a teenage mom and I should be happy just to have a steady income.” Song currently on repeat: “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa.

Aaron Scherb Common Cause Senior Director, Legislative Affairs Scherb helps craft pro-democratic reforms in such areas as redistricting, campaign finance, and voting rights, coordinating with Congress members and allies on drafts for proposed legislation. Hometown: South Bend, Indiana. First job: Delivering newspapers for the South Bend Tribune. Lesson from that job: “People appreciated and often recognized the small things, like making sure their newspaper was fully wrapped in plastic when it was raining or snowing.”

California Common Cause and California Clean Money Campaign — the main supporters of the 2022 law — argued the bill would favor certain industries, reduce transparency and allow local elected officials to accept large donations outside the 18-month period the bill proposed. “For many lengthy projects that take longer than nine months, these changes would allow for large contributions to be made while a matter is pending” as long as the check is written outside the window, said Pedro Hernandez, legal and policy director of California Common Cause. Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of the group, called the bill’s advancement a “​special interest triumph.” “Our democracy is in dire trouble at the national level. The least we can offer Californians is high-integrity, trustworthy governance here at home,” he said in a statement.

Big ag’s influence on state politics is “endemic”, according to Gavin Geis from Common Cause Nebraska, a non-partisan elections watchdog. “The big money spent on lobbying and campaigns by corporate agriculture has played a major role in resisting stronger regulation – despite clear signals such as high levels of nitrates in our groundwater and cancers in rural communities that we need more oversight for farmers across the board,” said Geis.