News Clips

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of advocacy organization Common Cause Texas, said the large number of elections in recent years, even just this month for example, doesn’t make it any easier — or less confusing — for Texas voters to turn up to the polls. “For us in Texas, you gotta think about who are the people that are gonna turn out to this election, which is one of… two elections just in the month of May,” Gutierrez said. “That’s just crazy,” he added. “We were getting so many people asking what this election was for, because we just had an election literally a few weeks ago. It’s just like only the very most engaged people, who also are usually like the most partisan in each party, electing candidates.”

Many Washington, D.C., lobbying firms have a minimum monthly retainer of $10,000 or $15,000, but some firms charge $50,000 a month, or occasionally more, said Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics at Common Cause, a good-government organization. She likened Garcetti’s parents to a couple that shells out to get their child into a top school. “It’s a bit like when the parents hire the most expensive coach they can find to get them into the most expensive university,” Rotman said. ... “Lobbyists know how to move the wheels,” said Common Cause’s Rotman. Lobbyists have relationships with specific lawmakers and may represent multiple interests or help raise funds for the lawmaker, making sure that their clients donate, she said.

"Even if Members of Congress aren't fully aware of their own stock portfolios, just the perception that they're taking actions to line their own pockets can be really damaging," said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for nonpartisan government watchdog organization Common Cause. "When Members of Congress are allowed to take votes and make other official actions that influence companies in which elected officials own stock, it looks and smells bad."

“The current maps are often pointed to, ‘Oh, look how terrible they are.’ But they are drafted to give specific communities a fair chance to choose their own representatives,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, an advocacy group which opposed the new map. She noted that a special master appointed by a federal court had drawn the previous congressional map, and said that he had taken these demographic factors into account. ... “People do not live, work and play in neat lines and boxes. So if you’re actually going to reflect the lived reality of communities, your lines are not going to be as pretty, but they will be realistic,” Lerner told The New Republic.

While Connecticut conservatives haven’t been so bold as elected officials in red states, their enrollment in the Facebook groups indicates the need for more public vigilance, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the election watchdog Common Cause in Connecticut. “Extremism isn’t only in certain states like Florida and Arkansas, but it’s alive in Connecticut,” Quickmire said Friday while reviewing the report. “I find this disturbing.” She recalled the controversy last year over the teaching of American history in Guilford schools that resulted in a coalition of Democrats and unaffiliated voters winning seats on the local Board of Education.

“The U.S. Constitution does not grant impunity to a state legislature for violations of its state constitution simply because the legislation relates to congressional elections,” wrote lawyers representing Common Cause, another litigant. Lawyers representing the state come from a department led by Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.