News Clips

"The Texas Democratic Party is holding back the levy with a temporary band-aid, but they don’t have the resources to be able to hold it back permanently," said Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for good-government watchdog Common Cause.

We cannot afford to preserve the filibuster if it costs us our democracy. Congress must pass the For the People Act and move quickly to restore and advance the Voting Rights Act, so that our country can finally realize its greatest promise of government for the people and by the people. 

“This is an indication of wanting, basically, to have a man inside who can undermine,” said Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “Clearly these are not people who believe in the rule of law. And people who run our government need to follow the rule of law. So it is concerning that they are running.”

“The choice to push this legislation forward in the dark, despite overwhelming opposition from the people of Texas, is about the politicians in power doing everything they can to manipulate the outcome of future elections to keep themselves in power,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas.

“It’s a false choice. It has to be both,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “They’re both critically important pieces of legislation and it’s a false choice to say I’m for the other and not for this. Because only together will we fully rebalance the state of voting in America to favor access.” Advocates are heartened by polling that shows the measure is extremely popular and the fact that Democrats have held together so far and brought the bill to the verge of a Senate floor vote despite some grumbling from their own caucus. “What you’re seeing is a commitment to a floor vote and getting people on record,” Spaulding said. If Democrats went into the 2022 midterms without doing anything to protect voting rights, it would be disastrous, advocates said. “Voters showed up in record numbers to choose new leadership. There were commitments made across multiple Congresses on both bills and so saying ‘we tried’ isn’t going to work,” Spaulding said. “If these bills weren’t to go to President Biden’s desk, they’d have … to articulate why they did nothing when they had the power to do so.”

"I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida, because this is a way for these actors to fundraise for elections going into 2022 and 2024," said Aunna Dennis, Executive Director of good government group Common Cause Georgia.