News Clips

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the first Black woman reporter at The Washington Post, said in 2019, “When journalists are being called ‘an enemy of the people,’ and Black women reporters, and other reporters, are being called names and treated with such disrespect, I think it’s just so important to remind people of the importance of the media.”

Jay Riestenberg with Common Cause, which advocates for more accessible voting, is particularly concerned about conservative “secret donors” funding the push for more restrictive laws.  “Well, the truth is, we’ll never really know because a lot of these groups do not disclose their spending or where their funding comes from,” Riestenberg said. “But I think we’re well in the area of over $100 million on both sides.”

"SB 90 will limit voters' options when they make a choice in the three methods to cast a ballot. It will create hurdles to every step of voting by mail. It will reduce voters' access to ballot drop boxes. It will add to elections officials' workload and add to the need for voter education. It will make it more difficult for the nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer program to assist voters in understanding their rights in the voting process," Sylvia Albert of Common Cause said in a statement released following the House vote. "Nothing about this bill is 'for the people.' It will only make it harder for 'the people' to have our voices heard and our ballots counted," she added.

During this census cycle, Rhode Island for the first time devoted $1.5 million in public and private money on census outreach efforts. That, along with the fact that Rhode Island hosted the only test run of the census in 2018, helped keep the head count in the public eye, said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. “There was this constant drumbeat that we could lose our second seat,” Marion said.

On Tuesday, a letter was posted to the website Common Cause, the political watchdog group, addressed to host Jimmy Kimmel and the production team of the ABC series. The letter noted that Lindell has been "a leading voice in spreading lies and disinformation regarding the 2020 election results, including producing several videos claiming that the 2020 elections were hacked." Making a case that Lindell should not appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the letter stated: "We believe that having Mr. Lindell on your show will give him a bigger platform to spread his lies and disinformation, and knowingly mislead the public about the integrity of our election systems. To be clear, even joking about his conspiracy theories can lead to the spread of disinformation. In fact, disinformation actors such as Lindell often seek to get their lies and conspiracy theories debunked in national media in order to give their disinformation broader reach. Given the state of our nation and nature of Lindell’s lies, we are asking that you immediately cancel his scheduled appearance."

“The First Amendment, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment,” said Jay Riestenberg of Common Cause, a liberal group that campaigns against the calling of a convention. “Any civil rights, any constitutional protection in the Constitution could be up for grabs in this constitutional convention.” Common Cause and other groups have, over the last few years, focused their efforts on persuading states with longstanding convention resolutions to rescind them, with some success. Colorado’s state legislature in April voted to rescind all of the previous convention resolutions its general assembly had passed in an effort to ensure the state did not play an unwitting role in the calling of a new convention. Still, that Walker and other conservatives may even be willing to try the legal route has aroused concern among convention opponents.  “They know their agenda is unpopular,” Riestenberg said. “So they have to find a different way to push their agenda without getting legislators or voters to care about it.”