News Clips

The January 6, 2021, insurrection was much more than an attack on the U.S. Capitol, as dangerous and grotesque as it was. It was a direct result of a criminal conspiracy orchestrated by the Trump White House to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election and silence the voices of millions of Americans.

Sandy Ma, the executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause Hawaii, welcomed the legislation but said it should be strengthened in the future to cover all organizations that spend on political campaigns, including corporations, unions and chambers of commerce. “If we want to shine a light on dark money spending, which we all do, especially Common Cause, we have to do it in a strategic way and cover everybody,” she said.

“I’ve never seen this before in my decades of Georgia politics,” Dennis told The Daily Beast. “And it’s specifically because of this outward perception of vote-buying.” ... For voting rights advocates in Georgia—who have spent years fighting state Republican officials’ continuous efforts to further codify voter suppression—the optics of the giveaway struck a freshly exposed nerve. “I find it a little strange that we have a law that basically says people can’t give out food and water so that voters waiting in line can have a comfortable experience, but somehow it’s appropriate to give out gas to voters,” said Dennis, of Common Cause Georgia.

“Once the fuel has been added to the fire, it’s very hard to back away from it,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the advocacy group Common Cause. “Now it’s not just the operatives in the back room, which is where it started. It’s not just technology. It’s not just legislators being shameless about drawing lines. It’s governors and state officials and sometimes even courts leaning in to affirm these egregious gerrymanders.”

“In campaign finance, you want disclosure. You need backup information,” Rotman said. “I know (cryptocurrency) is sexy and signals to people that you’re a hip new candidate, but there has to be a better way to do it than compromise the other parts of the campaign finance system.”

Common Cause, a nonpartisan group focused on upholding democracy, shared concerns over whether the process was rushed. "This action is unprecedented, with challengers finding out about their alleged indiscretions just days before pleading their cases to the Board of Canvassers," Quentin Turner, Common Cause Michigan's policy director, said in a statement.