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Spotlight PA/Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania will lose a U.S. House seat after redistricting

“If anything, the climate is more tense now than it was 10 years ago,” said Khalif Ali, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Pennsylvania. “Once again, I anticipate districts that don’t really reflect registered voters and the people of Pennsylvania, and I also expect a veto from Gov. Wolf and then onto the Supreme Court.” For those reasons, and more, Ali said it’s important for Pennsylvania to adopt an independent commission to helm the state’s redistricting process — a long-sought change by advocates that has failed to gain necessary traction in Harrisburg. “I think we have to take the politics out of it,” Ali said. “I think a lot of what we do is eating away at the integrity of democracy, and if we continue doing it, I don’t think we can expect people to participate.”

Media & Democracy 04.26.2021

New York Post: Ajit Pai becomes latest ex-FCC chairman to join a private equity firm

Former FCC Chairman Michael Copps found the news disappointing. He said commissioners tend to be more sympathetic to private equity firms and corporations when they are commissioners if they know that they might also, one day, become their future employers. “We have a serious revolving door problem at the FCC,” Copps told The Post. “This is not encouraging.” Private equity firms often put too much debt on media companies and do not have the public interest in mind, according to Copps. He raised the present example of Alden Global Capital buying up many of the country’s newspapers and firing reporters. Two of the four FCC chairs who joined private equity firms since 2001 were Democrats and two Republicans so the revolving door is not about party affiliation, he said.

Money & Influence 04.26.2021

USA Today: Supreme Court to debate whether nonprofits must reveal donors despite threat of violence

"Even though they're saying the case had nothing to do with elections and is not about public transparency, if there's a bad ruling here it could be leveraged to expand these exemptions from transparency in election spending," said Beth Rotman, national director of money in politics and ethics at Common Cause. "If you're going to expand those exemptions so broadly, then you're going to really take away a lot of the transparency that we have in political disclosure laws." 

New York Times: Voting Rights Standoff Stalls Trump-Inspired Ethics Measures

“It’s critically important that the For the People Act remain big, bold and together,” said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, one of several groups working with Democrats on the bill, adding, “People don’t want piecemeal solutions to comprehensive problems.”

Voting & Elections 04.24.2021

Salon: Bills targeting local officials who resisted Trump could allow GOP to "overturn election results"

"America is one of the only democracies that does not have elections run by a nonpartisan government entity," Sylvia Albert, director of the voting and elections program at the nonpartisan voter advocacy group Common Cause, said in an interview with Salon. "What you're seeing right now is the danger of politicians running elections. We should all be very much on guard."

Money & Influence 04.23.2021

Missouri Independent/Kansas City Star: Medical marijuana firms awarded licenses by Missouri are raising money for Gov. Parson

“When someone sees industry leaders are able to, not even have a seat at the table but actually pay for the table, that doesn’t speak well for how policy decisions are going to be made,” said Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics for Common Cause.  Pointing to next week’s fundraiser for Parson, Rotman said things don’t have to be illegal or corrupt in order to be problematic. “In many instances it’s clear,” she said, “to get the face time, to get the phone call returned, to get the one-on-one conversation, it requires these campaign contributions.”

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