News Clips

“We are glad to see that the American Data Privacy and Protection Act is going to a full committee markup, and that Republican and Democratic leadership on the House Energy & Commerce Committee has come together on a comprehensive privacy proposal to protect our data online," Common Cause media and democracy program director Yosef Getachew said. Watchdog group Common Cause is particularly heartened by the inclusion of civil-rights protections, given that privacy and data abuses have hit minority communities particularly hard, the organization said.

Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, a government accountability group, said it's "unusual" for a candidate to spend that much money on a new vehicle. "Certainly a state wide candidate, we've seen them use campaign money to support transportation costs, but typically it's a more measured approach — they lease a vehicle, enter into some sort of long term rental," Vaughn told IndyStar. "To buy a vehicle for $43,000 in June when you know you won't be using it for campaign purposes after the first Tuesday in November, is a very curious decision to make." Vaughn added that it "looks like this vehicle could turn into a personal vehicle," but according to Morales' campaign, he plans to sell the car after the election, reverting those funds back to the campaign fund.

Dan Vicuña is the national redistricting manager at Common Cause, a national organization focused on expansive voting rights and government accountability. Derek Muller is the Bouma Fellow of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law, where he teaches on topics related to election law and federal courts. They took some time to talk about the concerns around cases like “Moore v. Harper,” whether the 1965 Voting Rights Act offers sufficient protections to these efforts to concentrate elections power among legislators, and the harm caused by gerrymandering.

“We have very few rules when it comes to campaign finance in Texas, and the few that we do have are not enforced, clearly,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, a government watchdog group. “What’s the point of even having the rules?”

As described by a prime advocate, the nationwide, 1.5-million-member Common Cause organization, it is "an agreement among states to guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."

“Today’s decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court means that voters will be able to rely on the provisions of the VOTES Act in the upcoming elections. This is a big win for voting rights in Massachusetts,” said Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts.