News Clips

“It goes to show how out of balance the way we pay for campaigns is,” said Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy and external affairs for the reform group Common Cause. “The system makes it easier for wealthy individuals to mount campaigns, and harder for ordinary people to do so.”... If a self-funder happens to get into Congress, they bring to Washington a worldview that aligns with the top 1 percent. “Congress does not at all reflect the community it represents,” said Stephen Spaulding of Common Cause. “We have to figure out ways to change the system.”

The President’s pardon of Dinesh D’Souza looks like an effort to dismiss his own apparent violations as no big deal. But violating campaign finance laws is a big deal, and no one is above the law — not even the President.

TransCanada's spending in Nebraska is high compared to many companies that lobby state officials, said Jack Gould, issues chairman of Common Cause Nebraska, a political watchdog group. In addition to the campaign contributions, TransCanada has previously reported spending more than $1.2 million on lobbying in Nebraska between 2006 and mid-2017. "I guess from their perspective, they're doing what they think they need to do to get the pipeline built," Gould said.

Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy for the good-government watchdog Common Cause, said he was “sympathetic” to Clean Virginia’s “overall policy goals” but found the emailed offer “problematic” — particularly because it was sent to official state email accounts, which should not be used for campaign purposes.

In March, the advocacy group Common Cause alleged that Cambridge Analytica -- the firm that, through a U.K. affiliate, obtained personal data on up to 87 million Facebook users as part of its work for the Trump campaign -- violated election law by letting foreign nationals participate in the U.S. political decision-making process. Common Cause made its complaint to the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department.

Along downtown Washington’s famous K Street — where you can’t travel a block without bumping into a half-dozen lobbyists — some people are struggling to understand why the unfolding saga of President Donald Trump “fixer” (and personal lawyer) Michael Cohen is such a big deal.